[mythtv-users] MythRecipe source code

[Chris Petersen]

> Ok, so there seems to be enough interest and everyone seems to think a
> rewrite of the sql structure is in order.

Might want to move this over to the dev list (I didn't, since I don't 
know how many people involved in this discussion are there).

> Now for the ingredients:
> qty, amt, des, recID, ingID

way too simplistic.  This is part of the problem I ran into with my own 
stuff.  There are a LOT of recipes out there that have ingredients like:

1 cup plus 2 tbsp flour

or

1 squeeze of lemon or lime

You need to account for complex measurement types as well as substitute 
ingredients.

> The other important thing I could see would be a category. For that we
> would have one table be a list of categories with a corresponding ID.
> Then we have a lookup table that links recipes to categories. We can
> then have as many categories assigned to a recipe that we want.

category and keyword.  Some people may want to browse by

Dinner -> Entree -> Rice -> Risotto

or

Region -> Italy  -> Dinner -> Entree -> Risotto

others might just want to go to keyword "risotto" or "italian", or pull 
up all recipes containing both "rice" and "tomato".

> I think having it web based would be important for adding and editing
> and have myth be used to mainly view the recipes. Anyone good with
> php? I know perl but seeing as how the existing mythweb is already
> written in php I would like to see if we could integrate it into that
> if we can.

I've already offered my help, along with the fact that I'm going to 
write a web-based recipe database, anyway.  Though I also know that what 
I want may be overkill for most people.

But here's a summary of what I plan.

- table of ingredients, complete with descriptions, images and
     nutritional info
- table of recipes, linked with recipe-ingredients
- indexes for keywords, author/source, contributor (someone who posts
     someone else's recipe) and ingredients.
- a category tree not directly linked to recipes (trust me, it's easier
     to manage this way), but assigned keywords.  Recipes matching those
     keywords will show up under that category.
- each recipe/ingredient gets a unique identifier, like a wiki.

My recipe parsing engine is mostly functional (nothing to show -- I was 
in the middle of a rewrite of some data structures before I moved, and 
it's nonfunctional at the ment).  It allows you to take something like:

100 ml + 1 tsp ginger or cinnamon
100 grams whole black peppercorns
1/2 nutmeg, crushed
2 cups water

and will split out measurements and identify ingredients.  It will also 
allow for unit conversions (between metric and US -- figured that no one 
would be using imperial measurements anymore) and automatic scaling.

Anyway, I've put a LOT of thought into this whole setup.  Taken ideas 
from good sites like recipezaar.com (which I'd use if I didn't just want 
a private collection of recipes), and a lot from my own experience (I've 
been cooking since I was 4 -- so call that almost 24 years of 
experience), and looking over many of the recipes that my wife deals 
with for school/work (she's a "pastry culinarian," as they are seemingly 
called -- "chef" is management).

Regardless of what happens with mythrecipe stuff, I'll be writing this 
program.  Figured that it'd be cool to work together with other people, 
but I do need the extra complexity that I've written into this design. 
My interest is solely on a web-based solution, though.  Computers have 
no place in my kitchen until they're water- and flour-proof; a printed 
recipe card is much easier to replace.

-Chris