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ntaylor0

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Hey everyone!

I have been working on a FileMaker recipe database solution. I would like community input as I intend to host it over the web and give the community access to add as many records as they want. So, what do you all look for in a recipe?

For example how many hops would you like to be able to list? Alpha Acids? IBUs? Pictures? I have the ability to customize the look and feel and would appreciate as many suggestions as possible before I take it live!

Thanks in advance!
 
BeerXML looks to be a noble project but I don't think that's the direction my database is headed at least for now. For example I don't think the typical end user or brewer is concerned (at least not enough to measure) about the PH level of their water.

I want this to be complex enough for the experienced brewer but approachable by the noobs.

I really want to know: what information do you look to see when you are trying to find a recipe to brew?

Here are things I already will definitely have:

Picture Field
Searchable by BJCP category and sub cat
Beer Name
Original Creator Name
Hops (AA, Boil Time, Type (pellet, leaf), amount in oz)
Fermentables (mash time, amounts, etc)
Non-Fermentables (boil time, amounts, etc)
Rating Field (user average)
Notes Field
Yeast, Fermentation Temp
IBU (calculated for you)
ABV (calculated for you)

What else is important to you all?
 
motobrewer said:
the ability to download a recipe and upload it into beersmith using a standard format. beerxml, for example....

Ok. Maybe I'm not being clear about my solution. This will be hosted over the web. This will eventually hold more recipes than even beersmith. You will be able to access them anywhere you have the Internet through a webpage. You will be able to search for whatever recipe you want, filtering as specifically as you want.

That being said I will look into an import/export feature for the user but it will likely not export into BeerXML.
 
That being said I will look into an import/export feature for the user but it will likely not export into BeerXML.
Then you are alienating your potential users.

People don't just want ingredient lists. They want to manipulate recipes, personalize them, and make them unique.
 
remilard said:
If it doesn't allow upload and download as beerxml, no it won't.

What will this do that BrewBlogger doesn't do? Other than not support beerxml?

http://www.brewblogger.net/

That is much closer. Mine will be done through FileMaker though instead of SQL. It probably will use PHP.

What will mine do that that one doesn't?
iOS

You will be able to access this through FileMaker Go when I'm done, meaning that you will have access on you iPhone/iPad. Anyone got an example of something that does that?
 
I can access HomeBrewTalk and the site linked below with my iPhone, including the search functionality.

http://www.beertools.com/html/recipes.php

The recipes on BeerTools can be downloaded to a local copy of the software available on the same site, which, I'm pretty sure, uses or supports BeerXML.

There is no need to get overly defensive. Your project is worth pursuing, but you have to listen to the desires of your potential clients/users.
 
Ok. Maybe I'm not being clear about my solution. This will be hosted over the web. This will eventually hold more recipes than even beersmith. You will be able to access them anywhere you have the Internet through a webpage. You will be able to search for whatever recipe you want, filtering as specifically as you want.

That being said I will look into an import/export feature for the user but it will likely not export into BeerXML.

how/why/wha...?

you realize that every single system out there is unique. say i use your system and find a recipe, i'll want to put it into my brewing software before brewday for a variety of reasons.

also i really don't know what you mean when you say "hold more recipes than beersmith"
 
you guys aren't getting it. his database is going to be the awesomest. he was just asking for input to be polite.
 
The major issue for a recipe database is whether people will use it or not. That has something to do with features, but also with a strategy for including or engaging some portion of the brewing community. I would focus on that strategy.
 
tagz said:
you guys aren't getting it. his database is going to be the awesomest. he was just asking for input to be polite.

Hey I always love a good troll. Actually I think the biggest problem with majority of "responses" I get to my questions is that they never answer the question but instead say "why not do this instead?"

Now I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here and perhaps I will institute a BeerXML export but again my question was asking what "fields" or "information" do you look for when looking for recipes?

Btw try accessing BeerXML's website from your iPhone. Useless. On a computer it's great. No argument there.
 
I always love it when folks come on here asking us to help them come up with something like a recipe database, or a forum for homebrewers to seek help, and share ideas and recipes.

:confused:

DO you know where you're at?

I have access to a pretty damn awesome database with a ton of recipes that are vetted, and another section where people tweak and discuss other recipes they haven't brewed yet. But there's like 40,000 people contributing to an awesome knowlegbase on brewing....

If the Op wants to know where this is, I'll give him the link. ;)
 
Revvy said:
I always love it when folks come on here asking us to help them come up with something like a recipe database, or a forum for homebrewers to seek help, and share ideas and recipes.

:confused:

DO you know where you're at?

I have access to a pretty damn awesome database with a ton of recipes that are vetted, and another section where people tweak and discuss other recipes they haven't brewed yet. But there's like 40,000 people contributing to an awesome knowlegbase on brewing....

If the Op wants to know where this is, I'll give him the link. ;)

Would love to see it. What program did you build it in?
 
ntaylor0 said:
Would love to see it. What program did you build it in?

He's referring to this website.

It's been a while since I've used it, but is filemaker really flexible enough to handle the standard features of modern recipe software? More importantly, would it handle the kind of server load you seem to be hoping for?
 
MalFet said:
He's referring to this website.

It's been a while since I've used it, but is filemaker really flexible enough to handle the standard features of modern recipe software? More importantly, would it handle the kind of server load you seem to be hoping for?

FileMaker Server Advanced definitely could. Has both instant as well as custom web publishing. Macy.com is run entirely off FIleMaker.
 
ntaylor0 said:
FileMaker Server Advanced definitely could. Has both instant as well as custom web publishing. Macy.com is run entirely off FIleMaker.

Color me skeptical on that one. The only thing google turned up was a reference to FM being use by the Macy's Parade staff, but I could be missing it. Anyway, I was never able to get FM the kind of widget control I wanted, but best of luck to you with it.
 
MalFet said:
Color me skeptical on that one. The only thing google turned up was a reference to FM being use by the Macy's Parade staff, but I could be missing it. Anyway, I was never able to get FM the kind of widget control I wanted, but best of luck to you with it.

I'm sure a quick visit to FileMaker.com and a little poking around would clear up your skepticism quickly. ;) and I appreciate the luck! I'm sure I'll need it.
 
Personally i like to have lots of reviews of any recipe that i look at. If i am going to put the time and money into brewing something i like to know that if i don't screw it up there is a good chance it will turn out to be a tasty brew.

I don't know that i search for recipes by anything other than style, maybe by hop name, but 99% of the time i am looking for a highly reviewed recipe of a certain style.

also beerxml would be a must have, but i think that point has been made.
 
Personally i like to have lots of reviews of any recipe that i look at. If i am going to put the time and money into brewing something i like to know that if i don't screw it up there is a good chance it will turn out to be a tasty brew.

I don't know that i search for recipes by anything other than style, maybe by hop name, but 99% of the time i am looking for a highly reviewed recipe of a certain style.

also beerxml would be a must have, but i think that point has been made.

+1 Hopville has 66,000 recipes created by users. I haven't used a single one because there is very little to information through which you can vouch for the brewer's expertise. However, there are a lot of people on this site that have earned my respect and trust through their responses, experiments, and general knowledge. So i have no problem pulling a recipe from this site.

You have to figure out some way to assess the quality of a recipe to give people confidence to spend time and money on it.

(eh, i like my troll response better)
 
tagz said:
+1 Hopville has 66,000 recipes created by users. I haven't used a single one because there is very little to information through which you can vouch for the brewer's expertise. However, there are a lot of people on this site that have earned my respect and trust through their responses, experiments, and general knowledge. So i have no problem pulling a recipe from this site.

You have to figure out some way to assess the quality of a recipe to give people confidence to spend time and money on it.

(eh, i like my troll response better)

As I was reading through this thread I was thinking exactly this. I've never used someone else's recipe on hopville although I use it's brew calculator for all of my brews. I have no way of knowing if the recipe is worth a crap. Definitely need a way to evaluate brews on rating and maybe even add a popularity feature. How many gallons have been brewed? If theres a thread for how many gallons of apfelwein or centennial blonde are brewed im betting thats a damn good recipe As for everyone who's bashing the OP, why? He asked for help to make a better product for US. The HBT community. No need to bash.
 
you guys aren't getting it. his database is going to be the awesomest. he was just asking for input to be polite.

If I remember from my teaching days File Maker is a MAC program. Can it's files work on a PC? Most of the world uses PC's.
 
Hey I always love a good troll. Actually I think the biggest problem with majority of "responses" I get to my questions is that they never answer the question but instead say "why not do this instead?"

Now I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here and perhaps I will institute a BeerXML export but again my question was asking what "fields" or "information" do you look for when looking for recipes?

Btw try accessing BeerXML's website from your iPhone. Useless. On a computer it's great. No argument there.

if i understand your question: You want to know what "Fields" people want in a brewing software.....

if you understand XML: BeerXML defines the "Classes", "Fields", "Enumerations", "Types" and "Structures" for everything most people want in a brewing software.

BTW - you dont have to "implement" the entire "schema" of "beerXML", you just need to know how to "interpret" the "keys" that you "care" about. But beware, disposing of "unused" fields will leave you "half baked" when it comes to serializing your output.
 
C-Rider said:
If I remember from my teaching days File Maker is a MAC program. Can it's files work on a PC? Most of the world uses PC's.

FileMaker is cross platform. Works on both Mac and PC but that will not matter to the end user. If I design it well you will never know you are using FM. It will be just like visiting a well made website. 
 
TechyDork said:
Personally i like to have lots of reviews of any recipe that i look at. If i am going to put the time and money into brewing something i like to know that if i don't screw it up there is a good chance it will turn out to be a tasty brew.

I don't know that i search for recipes by anything other than style, maybe by hop name, but 99% of the time i am looking for a highly reviewed recipe of a certain style.

also beerxml would be a must have, but i think that point has been made.

Awesome. I will make sure that each beer keeps a user averaged rating field. Likely will be on a scale of 1-10.
 
gstrawn said:
As I was reading through this thread I was thinking exactly this. I've never used someone else's recipe on hopville although I use it's brew calculator for all of my brews. I have no way of knowing if the recipe is worth a crap. Definitely need a way to evaluate brews on rating and maybe even add a popularity feature. How many gallons have been brewed? If theres a thread for how many gallons of apfelwein or centennial blonde are brewed im betting thats a damn good recipe As for everyone who's bashing the OP, why? He asked for help to make a better product for US. The HBT community. No need to bash.

Thank you for your suggestion. I really like your idea about gallons brewed. It shouldn't be that hard to add and would really give you an idea of the value of the recipe, especially with a user rating average as well. Would people prefer a 1-10 or 1-5 stars or even something more along the lines of BeerAdvocate ratings?
 
Without a doubt you will want to be able to consume BeerXML. Even if you are making the app database driven, users will want to import their existing recipes and BeerXML is the preferred format. On top of that, users will want to be able to export via BeerXML also.

If you are doing the app in .NET, I can help or code-share with you.
 
I'm just getting started in brewing. Got a brew kit for Christmas this year. I have some experience with filemaker, use it pretty extensively at work and have developed a few different types of solutions for our company. I've just kind of started the thoughts on putting a recipe/log solution together and am very interested in what kind of structure/fields/etc you are thinking of using.
From some of the other posts here I take it that there are some other programs out there that already have pretty extensive histories/recipes already and it would be nice to be able to import their data eventually as well.

What version of Filemaker are you using? So far I'm thinking it would take a few tables, like Ingredients, BeerType, BrewDetails, Users, Ratings
 
Hey I always love a good troll. Actually I think the biggest problem with majority of "responses" I get to my questions is that they never answer the question but instead say "why not do this instead?"

Now I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here and perhaps I will institute a BeerXML export but again my question was asking what "fields" or "information" do you look for when looking for recipes?

Btw try accessing BeerXML's website from your iPhone. Useless. On a computer it's great. No argument there.

Not to be combative, but at least 95% of the world doen't ust iAnything..
 
That is much closer. Mine will be done through FileMaker though instead of SQL. It probably will use PHP.

What will mine do that that one doesn't?
iOS

You will be able to access this through FileMaker Go when I'm done, meaning that you will have access on you iPhone/iPad. Anyone got an example of something that does that?

iphone integration

dates on the inventory would be good to have.
 
Have started building my database in Filemaker. Just the basics on the recipe so far (just bottled my first extract kit) will expand on that as I go.
I also added a feature that accesses the beerlabelizer.com site to let you create a label, then print out the labels. For now just doing 6 per page on regular paper, but could easily adjust it to print on label sheets if I find one that works.
Also have a link to beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe so you can plug your recipe in and see how it should come out.
 

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