Openeats's Blog

Site has moved

openeats — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 23:21:31 +0000

The development site has moved please visit the new site at http://oe2.openeats.org/

Development has started again

openeats — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 01:08:46 +0000

Good news everyone development has been under way for about a month now of the OpenEats 2.0. This is a complete re-write, and a switch of the language it is created in. I am changing the project from PHP to Python, using Django web framework. More news to follow……

OpenEats 2 – Adding Recipes

openeats — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:21:14 +0000

As development is moving forward on the next major release of OpenEats, I wanted to take time out and solicit some information. I am about to start to work on the form for adding recipes to OpenEats, and wanted to know what everyone would like to see improved from the previous version. What don’t you like about how you add recipes now? What do you like about it? How would you like to change it? Please leave suggestions in the comments.

OpenEats 2 Development has begun

openeats — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:29:03 +0000

After a long planning sessions and a bit of a break, I have started working on OpenEats 2. Here is a quick snap shot of what it is looking like so far. Still a ton of work to do though. This screen shot is mostly a mock up, the links and data are just hard coded. I am working on getting the look right first before coding.

OpenEats 2

OpenEats Design for version 2

openeats — Tue, 26 May 2009 23:53:05 +0000

We have been busy trying to lay out the design plan for the next release of OpenEats 2. In order to know what we are building we thought it would be wise to lay it out so we have a map to follow along this journey. So far we are around 25% through the design. We are just fleshing out some of the high level details and features. To view our current work head over to http://oecode.openeats.org/oe2_design/ As the design grows this page will be updated.

Features for OpenEats 2.0

openeats — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:50:29 +0000

I have been brain storming over the last few weeks and have came up with a list of features that I want to include in the 2.o version of OpenEats. Please feel free to add any comments below for features you would like to see.

Frame Work

Use symfony 1.2 for the frame work

Use Jquery for the Javascript frame work

Design

Create a new UI that transitions between pages smoothly

Create a new layout and theme

Have the recipe pictures be larger and stand out more

Internalization

Become fully I8LN

Release with at least one other language pack besides English

Become UTF-8 compliant

Database

Allow other databases besides MySQL to be used

Allow rollback using try/catch to prevent recipes from being half entered

Social

Allow users to have avatars (may use gravatar for this)

Allow users to become friends of other users so they can follow what they are doing

Expand the comments section to other areas

Create a way to export the meal planner to Ical

Expand the Headline module to more like a CMS or a blog to post cooking tips etc.

Expand on the rating system allow users to re-rate recipes and each other

Expand on the tag/keyword system making a more intercal part of the site.

Misc

Create it more modular by turning modules into plugins so that a user can choose to include or not include the features that they want

Allow recipes to be exported into PDF’s

Create a mobile version of the site, mainly around the grocery list

WYSIYWG editor http://markitup.jaysalvat.com/documentation/ to be used through out the site

Security

Prevent spam in the comments section

Enable output escaping to prevent XSS attacks

Enable session tokens in forms to prevent CSRF attacks

Grocery List

Show the recipes along with the grocery list that users have added to the list

Allow users to remove a recipe from the grocery list that would remove all the ingredients they added

Installer

Use RSS feeds to notify users when logged into the admin panel that an update is available

Installer and Updater integrated into the app using Symfony

Spring Break from Coding OpenEats

openeats — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 17:15:12 +0000

I have mixed news to report today. The 1.2 version of OpenEats that was released a few days ago, will be the last of the 1.x releases, not including bug fixes. This means that any future releases of the 1.x version of OpenEats will only include bug fixes not any new features.

Fear not, this does not mean the project is done. I will be busy planing the next version of OpenEats, version 2.0. This is going to be a complete re-write from the ground up. I have learned a lot about programming since I started OpenEats and I want to improve the software. Some big features have been requested, such as internationalization. I could “tack” features such as this on to the current code base, but it wouldn’t be 100%. To do it right I need to start from scratch.

The days are getting warmer and warmer and I will not be coding to much during Spring and Summer. Instead I will be working with people to plan, and design the 2.0 version of OpenEats. Along with a new version, we are going to start coming up with a marketing plan on how to get OpenEats used by more people.

I will start posting features for the 2.0 release here so stay tuned.

OpenEats releases version 1.2

openeats — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:27:01 +0000

Today a new version of OpenEats has been released. The 1.2 version introduces a “Admin Interface”. I have created several new modules allowing you to control the backend of OpenEats with out having to get your hands dirty using SQL statements. This new version offers some of the following new features;

New Administrative module to edit and delete ingredients
New Administrative module to add, edit, and delete courses
New Administrative module to add, edit, and delete ethnicity types
New Administrative module to edit, and delete users
New Administrative tools to edit, delete recipes and change the owner of recipes
New Administrative tools for maintenance of your site.
Separate “Quick Menus” for both moderators and administrators of the site to quickly access the Admin tools
New Admin application that ties all the admin modules together

You can download this new reelase here

OpenEats 1.2 is on its way

openeats — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 11:34:06 +0000

I know activity has been slow on getting 1.2 out the door. I haven’t had as much time as I like to work on it. Good news however, over the last week I have ended up on a programming role, and have most of the new admin interface done so look for version 1.2 in the coming weeks.

OpenEats 1.1.1 Release fixes major bug with 1.1

openeats — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:19:50 +0000

It seems a major bug was recenlty found for people who did a fresh install of OpenEats 1.1. I had a typo in the class files that link to the database, and when you saved a recipe, it would call the wrong table name. This was not a issue for people who did the upgrade from 1.0 to 1.1 so it took a while to find it. This has now been fixed in the 1.1.1 release that was just released.