Add 'What Can I Make?' Functionality

[ockham]

Converted from SourceForge issue 1277756, submitted by SourceForge user eadmund on 2005-08-31 21:17:54 UTC.

Just discovered the project and it looks very cool.

A nice addition would be a search function which winnows out any recipes whose ingredients are not in one's current pantry. This may already be in there and I've not discovered it yet.

The above is the original feature request from 2005. Note that this feature has been discussed quite extensively, so if you're interested in implementing this, please read the comments below (in reverse chronological order) -- @ockham

This is one of the ideas we're suggesting as a project for GSoC 2013. For general information about Gourmet's participation in GSoC 2013, see the wiki page.

[ockham]

Submitted by SourceForge user nobody on 2006-07-31 22:25:15 UTC.

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This is exactly what I'd LOVE to have in this program.

[ockham]

Submitted by SourceForge user thomas_hinkle on 2005-09-02 11:51:06 UTC.

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Just a note on the idea for "Limit" -- I thought about this last night and rejected it as too complicated to implement well for two reasons:

1. Not all amounts are understood by Gourmet. It's perfectly valid for a user to enter "3 chicken breasts" without Gourmet understanding how many e.g. lbs. that is, even though other recipes will say 1 1/2 lb. chicken breast.
2. Most recipes can be multiplied to use different amounts of ingredients. Gourmet can't know which recipes can and can't be multiplied.

Otherwise, I basically like the idea.

I'm still trying to imagine what the whole thing will look like -- would we have side-by-side lists, one with ingredients, and one with the resulting recipes? An ingredient list up top? A separate dialog?

I think the separate dialog would be the easiest to implement, but would also be the least attractive/usable, since it would result in a recipe list being separate from the limiting action. Whatever the solution is, it is of course important that the results be updated in real time to save the user time -- i.e. if there's only one recipe which only contains a subset of "flour/sugar/vanilla/eggs/milk", then there's no need to check off more items -- you can just look at that recipe.

[ockham]

Submitted by SourceForge user atinkham on 2005-09-02 03:18:00 UTC.

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I like nanotube's interface but would set it up a little differently:

Each ingredient would be listed with a checkbox in the list. No quantities visible, just the ingredient key or name. The recipes that the selected ingredient belongs to might be in a separate list on the dialog.

Under the list, a button that says "Check All Ingredients", one that says "Uncheck All Ingredients", one that says "Include Checked Items Only", one that says "Exclude Checked Items", and one that says "Limit selected ingredient" (or something more consistent with the application's terminology -- I just found it tonight, so I don't know it well yet).

The check/uncheck buttons, and the include/exclude buttons are straightforward, I believe. Having both an include and an exclude allows the user to handle ingredients whichever way is shorter in that case -- if you have very little on hand, it might be faster to check the ingredients you do have. If you've just been to the grocery store, it might be faster to check the ingredients you don't have.

The limit button gives a pop-up dialog (or something) with a dropdown, a text field, and another dropdown. The first dropdown has <, <=, >, >= and =, the text field is for a number and the last dropdown is for units. That way, you could find recipes that use less than 3 eggs if you only had a couple in the fridge.

I'm not completely thrilled with the handling of the limits I describe above -- maybe the controls should be on the same dialog as the ingredient list rather than on a pop-up so that the limits stay visible when the ingredient is selected again. I don't think that the controls should be embedded in the ingredient list, though. Maybe something like the "Advanced" button some programs have which displays extra controls when clicked would be appropriate.

[ockham]

Submitted by SourceForge user nanotube on 2005-09-01 14:27:55 UTC.

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oh, two more things

if there are too many recipes in the list when you click "refine search by ingredients", whene "too many" is like, more than 50 or 100, you can give a box saying "cull the list down further before using this feature" or something to that effect. you dont want to end up with a HUGE list of ingredients that will make gourmet unresponsive.

and also, i like the original idea too - a function that says "show me all the recipes I can make given what's in my pantry list". it could be a rather slow-working feature, seeing as how it would have to take every recipe you have, and check if its ingredients list is a subset of the pantry list. but it would be worth the wait, i think. :) for the interface to that, a single menu item or button would work just fine. when you click it, it takes the already selected subset of recipes which is in the main list [rather than using all your recipes all the time], and culls those based on your pantry contents. (so if you know you want to make something with meat, you make a search first, THEN use the feature, to speed it up).

-d

[ockham]

Submitted by SourceForge user nanotube on 2005-09-01 14:19:54 UTC.

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Hey This is really the kind of use i would envision for someone who has a really big list of recipes - and what I was intending to do, once gourmet starts playing nice with a big list, so I have to say that i like this feature request.

Currently, it is possible to kinda "fake" it, by just adding a bunch of search criteria for the most "important" ingredients that you have, and seeing which recipes have those. what you are suggesting would be a much more convenient and complete search, using all combinations of pantry contents, which would be pretty damn cool.

I like ruza's two suggestions, and i would think the "list of ingredients in present recipes, remove ones you dont have/like" could be implemented like this:

first, you make a search to get a workable subset of recipes (eg, show me all recipes that have zucchini).

second, there would be a button, or a menu option, called something like "refine search by ingredients", which would bring up a separate window, listing all ingredients in the recipes in a table (columns: ingredient quantity, name, recipe(s) it belongs to). [note: since there could be multiple recipes an ingredient belongs to, that could complicate things... maybe could just glom all into one cell, separated by semicolons, or something, or maybe just not do that column]

third, the ingredients window will have one simple button - "remove", and you can select all the ingredients you dont like, either one at a time or in batches, and remove it (or use the keyboard's delete key).

fourth, there is a button on the bottom called "OK" or "sumbit", which you click after you are done removing recipes. what that does, is basically add a bunch of "not" criteria for those ingredients you deleted, to the already existing search, and culls it down further (essentially requiring the "not" search functionality, also proposed by ruza).

how does that sound for the interface?

[ockham]

Submitted by SourceForge user thomas_hinkle on 2005-09-01 02:43:39 UTC.

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ruza -- you've suggested two different additions, both of which could be cool. The second thing you said requires a "not" keyword -- which I think might be addable to the current search interface relatively easily (with e.g. a "Not" checkbox). With a "not" we could handle searching for potatoes and not milk. The first thing is a nice suggestion for how the interface for the "only what I have in my pantry" could work. You'd have to start with some subset of recipes already or else the list of ingredients could be hideously large. But I like the idea of having, say, 30 zucchini recipes, and then being able to say, "show me the ingredients they call for". You can then get rid of ingredients you don't want and the list will narrow as you do it as recipes get kicked off the list.

I'm imagining something like this would require a separate dialog/window or some sort of expander. Want to suggest how it might be implemented (the key is that the cool new functionality can't get in the way of basic search being dead easy to use and as simple as possible visually).

[ockham]

Submitted by SourceForge user ruza on 2005-09-01 02:34:43 UTC.

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What about to have in reverse. List of all ingredients present in recipes. Then just remove ones you don't have. Starting with all recipes and narrowing down the selection.

Most useful would be an ad-hoc queries like "I want to use potatoes but don't have milk.", which would be build iteratively.

[ockham]

Submitted by SourceForge user eadmund on 2005-08-31 22:39:24 UTC.

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Yeah, the user would have to enter all the ingredients he has on hand, but of course that'd only be in the case that he wanted to use the feature. I'm inspired by a similar feature called 'In My Bar' at http://www.webtender.com/ ; I know that it's been really useful to me when I've been wondering which drink to make, and imagine that something similar for recipes would be wonderful--I have lots of ingredients at home, but can rarely think of what to make.

I like the idea of a system which let one interactively type in ingredients and displayed recipes containing only those ingredients--that'd be pretty sweet.

[ockham]

Submitted by SourceForge user thomas_hinkle on 2005-08-31 21:53:53 UTC.

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This is a neat idea, but I'm not sure how practical it would be. The "pantry" shown in Gourmet's shopping list is shorthand for stuff-I-don't-want-to-buy. It's not meant to be a working representation of one's actual pantry.

For your feature to be implemented, we'd need to ask the user to enter in all the ingredients in their pantry.

I can see the use in theory, but I can't see myself using this in practice.

I think the ideal interface would look something like: here's your pantry. You can keep typing new items and new recipes that you can make will appear (so that if you have nothing at first, you can start adding more items that you in fact know you have).

Still, I think this would be hard to implement in such a way that it would be useful.