Brewtarget 1.0a released!

Hey everybody, good news. I think I have gotten the free open source project Brewtarget to the point that it might be kinda useful. Therefore, I have made the first alpha version available at sourceforge, here.



That's how it looks under my Linux box, but I also have built a version for Windows and Mac.

Obviously, some things don't work yet such as the "new" and "edit" buttons on all of the database dialogs. Save the database with the "save" button at the bottom of the main window, or else you will lose your changes the next time you run the program. This is expected to be a bit buggy since it's an alpha release, but post all bugs on the project's website here at sourceforge and I'll fix them! Or, you can ask questions on the project's forum page.

Hey, I solute your efforts. I think we could all use a free [as in beer] brewing package.

But, why Qt/C++? I would recommend switching to Java/Swing if you're looking for broad support and faster development. Just a suggestion...

lamarguy said:

Hey, I solute your efforts. I think we could all use a free [as in beer] brewing package.

But, why Qt/C++? I would recommend switching to Java/Swing if you're looking for broad support and faster development. Just a suggestion...

Click to expand...

Well, I've done apps in Java/Swing before, and I'm tired of Java. I wanted to get back to my C++ roots. It's kinda made me appreciate both C++ and Java more.

In other news, I'll be uploading the windows version in the next hour so that all you non-linux users can try.

Now download for Windows :rockin:

I tried running it with cygwin but no luck. I just dont have a unix/ linux box anymore

Now why not something like python/ jython? (sorry its my new flavor of the week)

rocketman768 said:

Now download for Windows :rockin:

Click to expand...

I was able to run it on Windows after downloading mingwm10.dll and placing it in the same directory as the executable. You might want to include the dll in future downloads.

My critical feedback is:

1. UI is a bit clunky (e.g., row selection in tables).
2. I'd recommend using tabs to display the various table contents for better usage of screen real estate.
3. The estimated values are difficult to read. I'd recommend using a better font.

Personally, I still use a custom spreadsheet with formulas/macros but I've been thinking about writing a polished, modern brewing software application.

lamarguy said:

I was able to run it on Windows after downloading mingwm10.dll and placing it in the same directory as the executable. You might want to include the dll in future downloads.

Click to expand...

Darnit. I told it to do a static build. It's fixed now.

lamarguy said:

1. UI is a bit clunky (e.g., row selection in tables).
2. I'd recommend using tabs to display the various table contents for better usage of screen real estate.
3. The estimated values are difficult to read. I'd recommend using a better font.

Click to expand...

Row selection: not a priority this release. Clunkiness: maybe only on the windows side. It feels much sleeker with other skins. Tabs: yeah, I was hoping to get by with this since I would really like to see all my main ingredients at once, but as you say it's taking up too much space as is. Estimated Values: really? I kind of liked the LCD thing.

lamarguy said:

Personally, I still use a custom spreadsheet with formulas/macros but I've been thinking about writing a polished, modern brewing software application.

Click to expand...

Perfect reason to join my project

rocketman768 said:

Perfect reason to join my project

Click to expand...

Actually, I would if you had chosen a more productive development language and environment. I've done Qt/C++ programming before at my job but it's not something I'd choose to do in my spare time.

Good luck!

Cool! Gonna check it out. I would help you out, but I don't know programming. Thanks for the effort you are putting into this.

EDIT:
Are you still looking for suggestions?

So far, so good. My critiques:

Make the rows smaller (they display roughly 3 times taller than the font size on Linux Mint 6).

Make a toggle for metric vs English units (sorry, my brain simply does not function in metric, especially when envisioning beer recipes).

Round ABV, IBU, and SRM to the nearest tenth. No need for more precision than that.

Provide actual color feedback next to the SRM digits (make a rectangle that changes color to approximate the color of the beer).

Make better use of the "real estate" in the top quarter of the window so that you can expand the ingredients to show more rows (particularly, the "fermentables" section).

Since it appears that you're using XML for recipe files, make them compatible with BeerSmith recipes.

reim0027 said:

Cool! Gonna check it out. I would help you out, but I don't know programming. Thanks for the effort you are putting into this.

EDIT:
Are you still looking for suggestions?

Click to expand...

Absolutely. You can post them here if you want, but I would prefer posting them on the Feature Request Tracker on the project's site. Right now, I am concerned about major bugs. If there are any bugs, I want to find them and fix them for the beta release, and then I can really get rolling with all the features. This release is more like a proof-of-concept to myself.

Yuri_Rage said:

So far, so good. My critiques:

Make the rows smaller (they display roughly 3 times taller than the font size on Linux Mint 6).

Click to expand...

I will try and work on this since the tables seem to be troublesome across different machines.

Yuri_Rage said:

Make a toggle for metric vs English units (sorry, my brain simply does not function in metric, especially when envisioning beer recipes).

Click to expand...

Actually, this is one of the big things I want to get going in the next release. I was thinking of letting you specify any valid suffix to your numbers (like kg, g, lbs, oz...) and having the program deal with it.

Yuri_Rage said:

Round ABV, IBU, and SRM to the nearest tenth. No need for more precision than that.

Click to expand...

Very true.

Yuri_Rage said:

Provide actual color feedback next to the SRM digits (make a rectangle that changes color to approximate the color of the beer).

Click to expand...

This is much more difficult than you think, but something I have been researching. There is not an accurate SRM to RGB color mapping, and even if there were, it would still not account for the variation in color between monitors...grr...And, this is why the little color patch in Beersmith often looks a little off.

Yuri_Rage said:

Make better use of the "real estate" in the top quarter of the window so that you can expand the ingredients to show more rows (particularly, the "fermentables" section).

Click to expand...

Yes. Need to find a way to cram everything in.

Yuri_Rage said:

Since it appears that you're using XML for recipe files, make them compatible with BeerSmith recipes.

Click to expand...

Actually, it already does. The program uses the BeerXML standard which Beersmith supports (as well as other programs). Open source also means open standards

+1 on the English unit conversions.

Is is possible for us to add our own ingredients and their respective values (in case they are not in the drop down menu)?

btw I already have done the mac builds. It builds statically just fine, so I can give a binary up for these purposes... let me know.

Oh one other recommendation, scrollbar option on the main page, my laptop has a smaller resolution and it goes down to the very bottom where I can't see the last buttons.