Fee
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The Recipe DatabaseTahir, you were saying about the recipe db in another thread, so thought I'd offer my comments 
From my point of view, I often go to it, hit search for recipe, then don't get any kind of free text search, just a list of categories, etc to choose from.
Is there any way we could have a text search box added to the 'search recipes' page?
If I'm looking for a recipe, it's usually because I have a certain ingredient(s) and want some inspiration, not usually to find a recipe for something I know about...though I might do that too, but would still want to search by main ingredient, plus maybe narrowed down by type of cuisine, etc.
Just a thought 
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tahir
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Fee, glad you've said that, as you know young Andrew is in charge of our Joomla bits n bobs, we've discussed various aspects of the recipes thing but any action would take a LOT of effort so we've sort of held off cos of a perceived lack of interest.
To do the things you've requested and the stuff I've spoken to Andrew about would mean a virtual rewrite of the existing component, anyone fancy writing either:
a) a new Joomla recipes component
b) a non Joomla recipes component that could be accessed via the home page
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Fee
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I can sort a new Joomla recipe component if you like?
Will have to be in slow time though
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tahir
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| Fee wrote: | I can sort a new Joomla recipe component if you like?
Will have to be in slow time though |
Well that would be fantabulous, you'd be assisted as far as possible by me and shoeless.
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Fee
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That makes 2 shoelesses then 
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tahir
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I'll be the odd one out 
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dougal
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| tahir wrote: | | ... we've discussed various aspects of the recipes thing but any action would take a LOT of effort so we've sort of held off cos of a perceived lack of interest. |
People keep posting recipes in the body of the forum...
{where there IS a free text search... hmmm}
... and it seems to me that the (only?) advantage of this database was that it could produce title lists fitting whatever *categorisation* (s) you chose to look for.
And I too dunno how useful that actually might be.
If one put in a specific keyword, like &recipe& purely for example, into an actual recipe posting, then people could search the forum specifically for recipe postings including whatever keyword(s) they were hoping to find (whether that be cauliflower {OK or saag} or cheap or italian or whatever...)
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tahir
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Problem is that "+recipe +saag" or "recipe saag" both bring up loads and loads of irrelevant posts.
It doesn't help someone who wants say a vegetarian main meal recipe without any idea of what exactly. That's the main advantage of categorisation as I see it. There should definitely be a way of conducting a free text search on recipes only though.
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hedgewitch
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The categories are OK as long they cover what you want.
I was looking for a recipe for meatballs recently and didn't know how they might've been categorised. I don't like categories alone as people do funny things with them unless they're properly policed. 
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dougal
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| tahir wrote: | Problem is that "+recipe +saag" or "recipe saag" both bring up loads and loads of irrelevant posts.
... |
Which is precisely why I suggested the introduction of a special keyword ! 
An easy F-key job for anyone with mod privileges?
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dougal
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| hedgewitch wrote: | | The categories are OK as long they cover what you want. |
Yeeeeess...
| Quote: | | I was looking for a recipe for meatballs recently and didn't know how they might've been categorised. I don't like categories alone as people do funny things with them unless they're properly policed. |
Is that a librarian-detector alarm I can hear?
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hedgewitch
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| dougal wrote: | | hedgewitch wrote: | | The categories are OK as long they cover what you want. |
Yeeeeess...
| Quote: | | I was looking for a recipe for meatballs recently and didn't know how they might've been categorised. I don't like categories alone as people do funny things with them unless they're properly policed. |
Is that a librarian-detector alarm I can hear? |
 might be
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Barefoot Andrew
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| tahir wrote: | | Fee, glad you've said that, as you know young Andrew is in charge of our Joomla bits n bobs |
Hmm, he's calling me young since I told him I was 40...
Fee, t'would be great if you rustle something up Joomla-wise - you'll likely beat me to it as I'm short of serious time to spend on DS R&D just at the mo.
(Tahir and I have idly chatted about what might be done to tackle various site "issues", the recipes gubbins being just part of that.)
Incidently, this thread is perhaps better off in the "Site problems/announcements" section, so I'll shunt it there.
A.
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Barefoot Andrew
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| tahir wrote: | | Well that would be fantabulous, you'd be assisted as far as possible by me and shoeless. |
An old Cambridge colleague used to call me that. In fact comedy sysadmin thought it'd be a laugh to have an email alias of "shoeless@companyname.co.uk". Side splitting...
A.
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Fee
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It'll be at least after my hols now (leaving on friday for a much needed week - woooop), but will get on to it when I get back
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hedgewitch
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The mouse on tour.... keep us posted...
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Barefoot Andrew
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I shall be installing Joomla 1.5RC2 sometime in near future (probably next week) and having a good old look at its usage, user login, templating and component development framework. All this with a view to assessing its suitability for a DS CMS upgrade.
A.
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tahir
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Excellent news. Has anybody here messed with Joomla 1.5 yet?
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jema
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Must admit I'm steering clear, I started a new Joomla project this morning and stuck with the old version.
One suggestion for change is to remove the "dnr" modules that are no longer maintained and replace them with mod_latestnews which is a lot cleverer.
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Fee
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I've had a tinker, but have stayed to the old version too for customer sites. Will wait until there's a stable release methinks.
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wellington womble
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I started understanding what you said, but have lost you all since. I, too think it would be useful to search recipes free text. It would also be useful if there were more recipes in recipes. It might be useful if a group of mods took responsibility for transferring recipes over? I'm happy to - maybe a PM to the author, and a edit to the recipe post to say it's been added, to stop multiple additions?
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Jamanda
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I'd be happy to do this too.
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tahir
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| wellington womble wrote: | | It might be useful if a group of mods took responsibility for transferring recipes over? I'm happy to - maybe a PM to the author, and a edit to the recipe post to say it's been added, to stop multiple additions? |
I'd be very happy for you to do this. Must say I've been very slack in this regard. Can't believe how unproductive I am at the mo. Need to leave work.
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tahir
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| Jamanda wrote: | | I'd be happy to do this too. |
Brill, all you have to do is log in to the home page and then "add recipe"
If you 2 do the adding, I'll do the messing about to get em published.
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wellington womble
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| tahir wrote: | | wellington womble wrote: | | It might be useful if a group of mods took responsibility for transferring recipes over? I'm happy to - maybe a PM to the author, and a edit to the recipe post to say it's been added, to stop multiple additions? |
I'd be very happy for you to do this. Must say I've been very slack in this regard. Can't believe how unproductive I am at the mo. Need to leave work. |
Me too - right, I'll keep a look out for recipes. In order to simplfy things, a PM saying the recipe has been added, but could be removed if the user minds, rather than waiting for a reply may be easier. We could also add a sticky to R,P & HB to say this is the normal process, and to contact me or Jamanda if anyone would like their recipe not to go in the database. I can't see anyone actually minding, so I think it'll be quicker that way, and everyone should be forwarned.
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tahir
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| wellington womble wrote: | | Me too - right, I'll keep a look out for recipes. In order to simplfy things, a PM saying the recipe has been added, but could be removed if the user minds, rather than waiting for a reply may be easier. We could also add a sticky to R,P & HB to say this is the normal process, and to contact me or Jamanda if anyone would like their recipe not to go in the database. I can't see anyone actually minding, so I think it'll be quicker that way, and everyone should be forwarned. |
Excellent.
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Fee
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What's the thoughts on a new recipe component?
If the consensus is that I should have a look at it at some stage, might be better not to do any mass uploading of new recipes just yet.
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Jamanda
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I'm just a lacky. If it wants doing I'll do it. If you are going to do clever techie stuff I'll wait.
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tahir
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| Fee wrote: | What's the thoughts on a new recipe component?
If the consensus is that I should have a look at it at some stage, might be better not to do any mass uploading of new recipes just yet. |
The consensus is that we should do it. I think the main issue is when, not if we change it. I'm assuming it'd be possible to extract all the necessary data from the existing tables to migrate fairly painlessly.
What are your thoughts and what kind of time frame are you looking at to make a start?
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Fee
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I think it comes back to the ability to search the recipes with free text search, which would definitely improve the tool IMHO.
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Fee
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| tahir wrote: |
What are your thoughts and what kind of time frame are you looking at to make a start? |
True, will be at least the weekend, or next week before I get any time, though I might have a look at it this evening...depends how much stuff I get done today really
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wellington womble
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Hey, when it comes to techie stuff, I do as I'm told (as long as you tell me in english!) I'm just data entry!
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Barefoot Andrew
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Non-technical gubbins:-
WW and Jamanda, great if you could encourage the transfer of recipes from forum to recipes database - the latter seems an under-utilised resource!
When recipes are submitted via the front page they don't appear in the recipes section straight away - they need to be "published" in Joomla. I'd be happy to do this and undertake any edits/corrections as my tiny contribution to this transfer process.
A.
PS Just fixed various typos herein: can't do English today.
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Barefoot Andrew
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Slightly technical gubbins:-
I personally think that RapidRecipe should be replaced with sommat better - it has various shortcomings (in bugginess and features).
So Fee, it seems you'll likely have time to look into this before I, so I'd say yes - go ahead and ponder a new component. I have no idea off-hand the quality of RR's documentation, but I would imagine that somehow RR's database schema can be sussed out reasonably readily. It could be that a custom tool would be needed to transfer RR recipe records into the new component.
Jema's & Fee's concerns about the status/stability of Joomla 1.5 noted, but at some point it might become attractive as an upgrade, and as a basis for tackling other site issues like unified login etc. Who knows. But - note to Fee - it's worth keeping this possibility in mind, and building scope for forward upgrade into any new component you write.
(Do you use any form of versioning system (like CVS) ?) If not, I can very much recommend Subversion 1.4 from Tigris).
A.
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Barefoot Andrew
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Contrary to earlier comments in this thread, it'll be a little while longer before I get to have a look at J1.5RC2 for testing / development purposes. I'm going to be up to my eyeballs in DTP until at least the middle of the week after next.
A.
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