BeerTools Discussion Forum

The edit menu also allows you to cut and paste. I did that after I tried the right click method.

[This is a bump of my original post, as none of these have been implemented and I feel one or all of them are desperately needed. Thanks for reading, again!]



I find that the ingredient browser is a bit cumbersome to use, especially with complex recipes, having to select each ingredient individually and then mouse all the way down to the corner to click 'add'. (I keep this window very large on a 20" Cinema Display, so there's a LOT of mousing around to be done!)

I'd like to suggest three things that IMO would greatly improve the ease of use of the ingredient browser:

1. Double-clicking the ingredient should add it to the recipe. This would be the most efficient method to browse through the list and add ingredients.

2. We should be able to multiple-select ingredients, and click the 'add' button to add them all to the recipe.

3. Right-click / contextual menus seem to be totally missing from the ingredient browser. (Having an 'add' function in the right-click menu would be very logical.)

Thanks for listening, and I apologize in advance if I'm missing an existing way to do what I'm suggesting!

bpylant wrote:I'd like to suggest three things that IMO would greatly improve the ease of use of the ingredient browser:

1. Double-clicking the ingredient should add it to the recipe. This would be the most efficient method to browse through the list and add ingredients.

2. We should be able to multiple-select ingredients, and click the 'add' button to add them all to the recipe.

3. Right-click / contextual menus seem to be totally missing from the ingredient browser. (Having an 'add' function in the right-click menu would be very logical.)

1. Yes, I agree. And, highlighting an ingredient and being able to add it by hitting the Return or Enter key would be nice too.
2. Yes yes yes! The Mac OSX standard is holding down the Command key while making multiple selections -- that would be great.
3. I don't use them much, but I can see how that would be useful.

Great suggestions, and I hope they are implemented soon.

Thanx Guys,

We were talking about this very recently. We may handle it just as you suggest, or with a different method we have been kicking around. We appreciate your input.

Lathe

Cool, thanks for listening! Another idea would be to be able to multiple-select ingredients and drag them into the main recipe window.

This isn't exactly related to the method of selecting ingredients, but it would be nice if when the add button is pushed the window would close. On my system, Windows XP, after I close BTP the window is still open. A minor annoyance for sure, but still it doesn't seem like it should be that hard to fix. And yeah, I agree that being able to select multiple ingredients is long overdue.

I'd prefer that the Add button not close the Ingredient Browser window.
When I add ingrediaents, as the program is now written, I select one then hit Add, select the next, then hit Add, etc.
If the window closed after I hit Add, I'd have the added extra step of having to reopen the Ingredient Browser each time I add 1 ingredient.

i agree with slothrob.

i would like the ingredients browser to stay open after clicking 'add' (as it does now). but it would be nice if all open btp windows closed when exiting the program.

A long time ago we had this discussion, although I don't recall who participated. I suggested then that there should be a separate "Add & Close" button to satisfy both sides of the issue. That would not be difficult to implement and would not be as ridiculous as it might sound to some people. I use the Corel WordPerfect wordprocessor, and for the addition of symbols, the pop-up window has these commands:
"Insert" ... "Insert and Close" ... "Close" ... "Help"

And the ability to chose multiple ingredients before hitting the add button would go a long way, but I'd sitll hate to see the ingredient browser automatically close after hitting 'Add', ... but it might just as well because whenever I hit add, the screen shifts to my recipe and then I need to double click on the bar at the bottom to go back to the browser. This is a major annoyance to me, too. I just want to easily select all of my ingredients first, such as when working from a recipe in a book, and then I'll go to the ingredients panel and adjust the amounts, etc.

Cheers.

Bill Velek

slothrob wrote:I'd prefer that the Add button not close the Ingredient Browser window.
When I add ingrediaents, as the program is now written, I select one then hit Add, select the next, then hit Add, etc.
If the window closed after I hit Add, I'd have the added extra step of having to reopen the Ingredient Browser each time I add 1 ingredient.

True enough, and as the program currently exists I agree. My remarks were predicated on being able to to make multiple additions with one click of the add button. Sorry for not being clear.

I though that's what you might mean, CB, that's why I dropped in that "as now written" bit.

To reduce the amount of mousing required when editing pop-up windows, would it be reasonable to have the Okay button only take a mouse click when editing a field, but become active to a Return after a return is hit to enter a value into a field?

I'm sure this has been mentioned before and I'm sure you're aware of this issue, but with rumors of 1.1.0 on the horizon, I thought it might be a good time to mention some of the more glaring feature gaps in the program.

The feature I'm talking about is the ability to have a target water profile and a comparison to your current profile. This one is particularly glaring because the window is formatted for this feature, but the feature is inactive.

Oh, and this reminds me of a dream feature of mine:
I modify water for my mash, but rarely for my sparge, I then boil to yet a third volume. It would be great if I could modify 3 or 5 gallons of water for a mash and see what the water chemistry is for that, but also how it affects the ion concentration in the final boil volume, because I have to watch that Mg++, Cl-, and Na+ don't get too high after concentration by evaporation. I imagine that some others might like any sparge water modifications to be accounted for, as well.

slothrob wrote:...

The feature I'm talking about is the ability to have a target water profile and a comparison to your current profile. This one is particularly glaring because the window is formatted for this feature, but the feature is inactive.

...

I have been playing with the water chemistry screen a little bit recently... in anticipation of a move... but, I am not sure I understand what you say.

I can put in my current water... my target water... and then addition of salts to make up for the difference. It seems to be able to compare the target water, AND my current water just fine. Perhaps I am missing something important.

Or, are you talking about something having to do with the saving and loading of water profiles, and then comparing those?

thx!

I'll have to try again. Last week I was able to enter and modify my own water without problems, but wasn't able to load a target water. I see now that it is displayed in the wiki, so I was probably not doing it right.