Learning android, writing recipe formulator app

[Chamuco]

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

 

[JoyousRuction]

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.

 

[JoyousRuction]

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

 

[JoyousRuction]

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.

 

[Chamuco]

+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.

 

[Hemicharger99]

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!

 

[JoyousRuction]

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).

 

[JoyousRuction]

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.

 

[Chamuco]

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.

 

[cdubbaya]

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!

 

[SPLASTiK]

Nice start so far!

I was tired of having to scroll back through pages to find the link to download so I made a quick easy to remember link...

http://hops.me/jo8

 

[rifraf]

Downloaded/installed on Droid2 global. Will tinker and give comments. Any interedt in having us compare calculation results to other programs?

 

[Taliesin]

Just installed it on my Xoom tablet with an unofficial build of CM9 on it. (Ice Cream Sandwich.)

Loaded fine, seemed to work fine.

I had some weird questions about the readings, but just found that you can swipe from side to side on the recipe screen. I remembered reading about swiping in the thread, but had forgotten about it when I started getting into the nitty-gritty of the recipe. You REALLY need to put some arrows in the GUI to let people know they can (and must) swipe over to set the brew options, and to see the style guidelines.

My feedback
Pros:
- Great list of ingredients. Good way for me to tweak aspect of the recipe and see where they change things.
- Love the style guideline ranges on the sliders at the bottom. Great way to give me feedback on where I'm breaking the rules and by how much.
- LOVE the style guidelines on the right-swipe screen. Great for talking with others about beer recipes so they can see what I'm shooting for if they're not familiar with the BJCP styles.

Cons:
- I know you know this, but some really basic GUI design will go a long way. Don't want to get too cutesy with this app, but the < and > arrows like I suggested above will help a LOT. I'd forgotten about swiping until I got weird readings on my recipe.

Features that would be nice/cool:
- A hop timer would be neat, though lots of people have these built into their apps.
- Ability to share with Wordpress, Facebook, etc.
- Ability to put Recipe Notes would be useful. Strike temp, mash temp, etc.

In all, great job. I plan to use this as my primary brewing recipe app. I don't brew a ton, but am hoping to change that. Thank you for the work!

 

[JoyousRuction]

Glad to hear that the app is moving in the right direction, I agree that the gui needs a lot of attention, boil timers are part of the plan, and I will definitely get a swype menu in there at some point.

This past week has been busy, I hope to get back to more rapid development soon.

 

[rifraf]

One thing that would be great and missing from apps would be some sort of way to adjust a variable (say boil size) while holding IBUs constant and have the app automatically figure out what to adjust the hops by.

I've got a couple recipes I want to try but they are for full boil or don't include late malt addition and it'd be really sweet to plug them into the app, hit some "hold OG, FG, IBUs constant" button and change boil size and have it adjust the ingredients for me.

Just a thought, not sure how feasible this is.

 

[Taliesin]

What this app really needs are a recipe notes section, and the ability to add additional unfermentable ingredients. As it stands, I can't add a Founder's Breakfast Stout clone because there's no place to make note of the coffee that is used. It doesn't necessarily need to be in the ingredient list, but in that case, I'd need a notes section (maybe over in the left swipe menu) to note the oddities I can't put in the main ingredients section.

 

[soup67]

What this app really needs are a recipe notes section, and the ability to add additional unfermentable ingredients. As it stands, I can't add a Founder's Breakfast Stout clone because there's no place to make note of the coffee that is used. It doesn't necessarily need to be in the ingredient list, but in that case, I'd need a notes section (maybe over in the left swipe menu) to note the oddities I can't put in the main ingredients section.

Is there a recipe abv calculation anywhere?

 

[Chamuco]

I have been using your app on/off since the last update. One GI glitch was found when adding flaked wheat. On a few occasions I was in the middle of creating a recipe and hit the back arrow on my phone and the screen went back to the create new recipe screen and my previously entered data was lost. I now save along the way. I have also had a force close when rotating the screen in the middle of a recipe input. I'm not 100% sure it was from the rotation as I was also entering information. I'll keep giving you feedback If you don't mind.

 

[JoyousRuction]

I was able too re-create the glitch you described, I will work on that in a little bit. I have editing done for one of the categories, once I put it in for the other three I will put up a new build.

I got busy with other things for a little bit, but I hope to resume my old pace this week.

 

[JoyousRuction]

v0.05 is up, editing added.

 

[plainbrad]

v0.05 is up, editing added.

Downloaded. Playing with it now on my HTC 3D.

 

[rifraf]

Something I thought of recently that would be neat is some sort of calendar integration. If an input is how long we plan to keep it in primary/secondary it'd be great to have it thrown onto our calendars with alerts. Would help planning the availability of certain buckets/carboys etc.

 

[rgauthier20420]

Is this thread and app dead as of now. Looking for a good android homebrew app right now.

 

[JoyousRuction]

I had a few things come up and have not worked on this project in a while. I am thinking about starting it up again, especially if there is interest in the app.

 

[Cposten]

I'd be open to tryin it