Learning android, writing recipe formulator app

I wanted to learn android programming, and I love making beer so I decided to write a recipe formulation / brew day app. It its currently in really rough shape, but is almost useful as a basic recipe formulator. It will be free, open source, and supported for a little while at least.

I am wondering if people would want me to toss it on the market for super early beta testing, or if people would rather wait for a more polished version. Also, I need to come up with a name for this thing... Any ideas?

put it on there. i'll definately test it. testers should help you find any glitches and perfect the program right?

I'll test for you on my droid2. I haven't found one that I like yet, maybe getting in ground floor I can remember what I didn't like about others and help that way.

I'd be interested in Alpha/Beta testing this app for you on a HTC Sensation XE, I'm the same as many others that haven't quite found the right app with all features that I would like to use on a brew day. I did write an app for Windows Mobile 6.5 but I haven't quite worked up the enthusiasm to convert it from .net to java

You do not need to put it on the market for us to test, you just need to post us a link to the compiled .apk and we can load it on our phones.

The advantage of this is that random people will not be rating the application poorly if there are bugs and posting negative comments.

I'll test it on my Razr-- post a link when you are ready.

Sound like it is going into the market early then. Any thoughts on what to call it?

+1 for link. I'll be happy to test it out on my atrix. Definitely don't put it on the market until it's polished. You could go with megaupload or another free file server. You'll be shooting yourself in the foot with the bad reviews in the market.

I'd call it Fkn Beer, but I'm sure most wouldn't agree :cross:

Brew Day, Brew One, Brew Droid, Brew Zone

https://github.com/tmonahan/BeerCalculator/tree/master/current_apk

BeerCalculator is the generic name that I have been using, not at all permanent. This is my first attempt at making an android app, and first attempt at an APK so be warned! I have however successfully side loaded this APK on my Atrix, so it should work.

The file in this location will be updated as I make changes, and I will be doing my best to keep the development version up to date as I make improvements. Hopefully this will change rapidly, the commit messages should give you some idea of what changes have been made.

download and install went fine (HTC Desire on Froyo, will test on my Galaxy Nexus on Wed when it arrives as well on ICS)

I really like the simplicity of the layout, it will make creating recipes on the mobile much easier than some of the other apps out there for Android

In the create recipe part, the Options button didn't do anything for me (not sure if it is just a placeholder for now).

When I went to save, it looked like it did, but when I go back to the main screen Load doesn't present me with any options (again not sure if it is a placeholder yet)

One comment I will make is now is might be good to adds units of measurement in brackets. When I tried to create a sample recipe, I wasnt clear on whether the fermentables were in lbs or kg or oz.

Nm, github ho!

Mmm Java... :/

Droid2: install went fine, long load times. Seems like a nice project, but without anything new to contribute. Why not hop on board with an already established project and contribute there, if all you really want is to get your feet wet?

JoyousRuction,

I see you have given Rocketman thanks on the splash screen. I hope you are attempting to make this compatible with BrewTarget.

I currently keep my .xml files on DropBox. This allows me to "Just run" BrewTarget from whatever computer I am near without worrying about importing the latest version of my database files. If you could support something like that I would be giddy like a school girl!

I understand that it may not work and would also be happy to just import a recipe .xml on brew day.

As I said earlier this is still really preliminary, things like import and export and options are not done yet, saved items only show up when you reload the app, timers are not in, etc etc etc. I have only been at this a little while, and most of that was learning the API's.

The advantage to feedback at this stage is that massive refactoring is not a daunting task yet, I am still very flexible.

This is all based on XML, my intent is to be able to handle all recipes in that format.

Brew_Force said:

Nm, github ho!

Mmm Java... :/

Droid2: install went fine, long load times. Seems like a nice project, but without anything new to contribute. Why not hop on board with an already established project and contribute there, if all you really want is to get your feet wet?

Click to expand...

No... Scala!

JoyousRuction said:

No... Scala!

Click to expand...

Ah! Then my declaration was completely unnecessary!

I like where you're going so far! Couple comments (hey you wanted advice right )
-The biggest thing I noticed right off the bat was how long it took to load. My phone actually timed out before it loaded the main menu.
-When you load a recipe there are no units. I'm sure you're probably planning on making it compatible with imperial and metric units, but until theres an option, you should put the units in to limit confusion.
-I'm assuming the recipes are based off of a 5 gallon batch? There's no options to change that, and just looking at some of your quantities I have to assume it's based off of that size of a batch. That should be an option at some point.
-There doesn't seem to be a way to "edit" an ingredient. So if I'm building a recipe and I want to see what would happen if I do 2 oz of hops instead of 1 oz, I would have to delete it and then add it again right?

Just a couple things I noticed right off the bat. I really like where it's going though! Its better than a couple other android based brewing calculators I've used. I also use an Android phone and a tablet. I haven't loaded it on my tablet yet, but I'm guessing it won't look as great, but will probably work fine?

I have not tried a tablet yet, but I am sure I will at some point.

Options for units are in my plan, right now I am working on importing XML files and I have a temporary patch for the units and a fix for the newly saved file not showing up with the back button. I will make a new build once recipe importing is in place.

Should I make the bjcp styles more obvious in the recipe formulation page? Did anyone try swyping and find that yet ?

JoyousRuction said:

Should I make the bjcp styles more obvious in the recipe formulation page? Did anyone try swyping and find that yet ?

Click to expand...

Didn't notice that, nice. The c02 levels on that page are all 0's and I noticed the time for a dry hop was 10080 min, can that just say dry hop instead? Noticed it in the yooper ruination clone.

Also, make the recipe list scrollable. If I am in landscape, I can't see all the recipes and can't scroll through them. Not an issue now but if someone were to import alot of recipes they wouldn't be able to see the ones at the end

As it turns out, the android platform has no file browser built in... So making a basic file browser is part of getting the file import done. I am getting close, and have taken care of some nuisance items along the way (just made recipes scroll in the main screen). Hopefully I will have an update before the end of the weekend.

Awesome dude, thanks for doing this. I haven't used java in about 5 years, but if you ever get stuck with something and need to bounce ideas off someone let me know.

Importing is working for me... So there is a new version available. Please let me know if a recipe fails to load, I want this as compatible as possible and I don't have many files to debug with here. Sending an example would be best!

Next might be exporting, timers, or options... is there any preference for the next tasks?

JoyousRuction said:

https://github.com/tmonahan/BeerCalculator/tree/master/current_apk

BeerCalculator is the generic name that I have been using, not at all permanent. This is my first attempt at making an android app, and first attempt at an APK so be warned! I have however successfully side loaded this APK on my Atrix, so it should work.

Click to expand...

How do i load this onto my phone?

Do a search for ”side load app” on whatever device you have. Instructions may vary depending on what the carrier has decided to allow you to do. The APK file is the file that gets installed.

In general be careful about side loading apps that do not come from the market. It seems easy to get apps on the market (though I have not tried yet), and only costs $25 to register to upload as many as you like. It is important to know who put the app together, and why it is not on the market (in this case it is because the app is still being developed, and I wanted feedback from advanced users).

BrewBro

JoyousRuction said:

Do a search for ”side load app” on whatever device you have. Instructions may vary depending on what the carrier has decided to allow you to do. The APK file is the file that gets installed.

Click to expand...

Thanks-- got it side-loaded.

Looks like a great start. I am able to import recipes in xml from my dropbox. A few thoughts:

I'd like to be able to edit the ingredients in an imported recipe without deleting the ingredient and starting over. "Save as" would be nice too.

Can you add recipe name to the top of the screen.

The preloaded recipes look to ID a creator (Mr. Whoknows ). It would be nice to be able to modify this field, and perhaps include a date too.

Still can't seem to get this loaded. HTC MyTouch

Nice App! Thanks for putting it out there.

I ran it on my GalaxyS Froyo which I currently use Brewzor and mostly for the calculators. Your's launched in 10 seconds and I didn't mind at all...supercool splashscreen is a good call. What batch size is it calculating off of? Looked like 5gal default when I was creating a recipe. I assume that it will be accessible in the "options" menu. My recipe saved and could be accessed easily. Nice layout and easy import feature. I'll keep checking back and look forward to an award-winning app!

Some name ideas:
-You Brew
-ACME Brew Calculator
-Quick Brew
-Go Brew
-Brew Ease (Easy Brew)
-Brew Me

My favorite: Beer-Goggles

I am working on the load time now... There are a few possible culprits. Next will be options, I should have a new version ready by the end of the week.

Just cut load time in half... there is more I can do.

New version is available, added batch size and efficiency and fixed a few things.

Please tell me if anything is broken... Has anyone has any trouble importing a file? If you have trouble let me know and I will fix it.

+1 loads faster
+1 batch size

I like the swipe feature to access information. Import works well. Didn't see carbonation data in style guide. As someone else suggested, edit option for ingredients is needed. Looking good. Thanks.

I've been developing Android apps for over 2 years. If you have any questions or want me to take a look at anything, let me know. I'd be glad to help out!

Right now I am just looking for feedback. The look will be updated significantly in the future, but the feel should stay about the same. I am hoping people will help me find bugs and point out where my interface is not so intuitive, and where more functionality and features will make a big difference.

I am not having any trouble with the coding - Scala and android both have great APIs, and I gave all of the java libraries at my disposal. If you are interested in the code it is up on github, the only thing I am not sharing is my private key for signing APK's (although you are more than welcome to release your own versions if you want).

V0.04 is up, added exporting and improved IBU calculation using average boil gravity instead of OG. Added boil time and linked it to the max hop boil time. Let me know what you want next!

Edit: I see that you want editing of ingredients in a recipe... I will work on that.

I noticed that if I load a recipe and change the name and save, it keeps the previous recipe and creates a new one. Intentional save-as feature?

I'd like to be able to delete a recipe.

IBUs are spot-on and the export function is nice. I'll keep checking-in.

Just installed and messed around with it for awhile. Love the functionality so far. I'll have a ton of notes (I'm a ux designer and project manager) but it's late!

One note would be to tab the different screens at the bottom. I didn't know I could swype for several minutes as I built my recipe. I'd keep the swype too, just make it noticeable that there are different screens. Also defaulting some values like batch size and boil length would be helpful so you aren't displaying crazy numbers from the start.

Good start!