Ingredient Database, My Ingredients, and Inventory

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Clegg
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Ingredient Database, My Ingredients, and Inventory

Post by Clegg »

I brewed my first full session using BTP 1.5 today. Overall the program worked great. I have a few questions and possibly a suggestion regarding ingredient management. I don't think I quite understand how to effectivelly use the my ingredients folders.

In my brew session I had one hop (Summit), and a few spices (fennel, etc) that were not in the default database.

To add these to the database, it appears that the only place to put them is in the my ingredients database. I tried to add them to the default database and also tried dragging and dropping to the default database, neither of which were successful. (BTW, drag and drop to the default database causes the folder name to be grayed out until restart).

This is no issue, except that it also appears the "My ingredients" database is used to track inventory. For me this means the "My ingredient" hop database now includes some hops that I have in inventory, and others that I don't carry in inventory but I added the statistics in case I purchase them later. As my databases continue to grow, this seems like it will be inconvenient for me and possibly other users.

Am I missing something with regards to ingreadient management? If not, I would propose one of the following:
- Allow users to add items to the ingredient database. That way I could add my spices and specialty hops to the database to track. Then I could use "My ingredients" to track items I actually have in inventory. Or...
- Create two databases to track user ingredients "My Ingredients", and "My Inventory". That way it is clear what items are just added to the database and which items are mine that I typically stock. Or....
- Allow adding sub folders to the "My Ingredients", one for Inventory and one for User ingredients.

Does anyone else have a trick for managing user ingredients and inventory? What are the community thoughts on this?
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jeff
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Re: Ingredient Database, My Ingredients, and Inventory

Post by jeff »

The best way to think of "My Ingredients" and "Ingredient DB" (which we may rename) is:

My Ingredients = my ingredients
Ingredient DB = BeerTools.com shared ingredient database

"My Ingredients" is provided to allow users to maintain their own list of ingredients and track their inventory if desired. "Ingredient DB" is in place so users can upload recipes to the site in future versions. There is no easy way to verify the integrity of user supplied ingredient data for recipes uploaded to the site. "Ingredient DB" solves this issue by supplying a list of ingredients that are approved for use on the site.
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slothrob
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My Ingredients

Post by slothrob »

Ingredients that I use, but don't have on hand are in "My Ingredients", but list "0" quantity.
Ingredients that I have on hand are in "My Ingredients", but list the quantity that I have.
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jeff
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Re: My Ingredients

Post by jeff »

slothrob wrote:Ingredients that I use, but don't have on hand are in "My Ingredients", but list "0" quantity.
Ingredients that I have on hand are in "My Ingredients", but list the quantity that I have.
That's how i think of it; is it working for you? I figure since you can sort by quantity, it's easy to bring all of your inventory to the top of the list.
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Re: My Ingredients

Post by slothrob »

jeff wrote:
slothrob wrote:Ingredients that I use, but don't have on hand are in "My Ingredients", but list "0" quantity.
Ingredients that I have on hand are in "My Ingredients", but list the quantity that I have.
That's how i think of it; is it working for you? I figure since you can sort by quantity, it's easy to bring all of your inventory to the top of the list.
I find it works for me. ...as long as I keep my inventory up to date :wink:
Frankly, though, since that feature was added my inventory is more accurate than it's ever been before, so I generally can trust the values that show up in that window as what I have available.

I do find that I use that search field a LOT, as the ingredients list is quite small on my monitor. It would be nice if there was a shortcut to get to that field. For example, after I click on My Grain, it would be nice if the Tab key highlighted the Search field instead of going to the recipe name field. Odds are that's where I would head next.

Similarly, it would be nice if, after highlighting an ingredient in the Recipe field, the Tab key went to the Boil and Quantity fields, instead of the Search field.
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Clegg
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Re: My Ingredients

Post by Clegg »

jeff wrote:
slothrob wrote:Ingredients that I use, but don't have on hand are in "My Ingredients", but list "0" quantity.
Ingredients that I have on hand are in "My Ingredients", but list the quantity that I have.
That's how i think of it; is it working for you? I figure since you can sort by quantity, it's easy to bring all of your inventory to the top of the list.

OK, I understand how it is intended. I'll sort by quantity and give it a try to see how it works.
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