MacGourmet News

Just a quick post to say that MacGourmet, as of version 2.2, should work perfectly fine on Leopard. I say "should" because Apple never seeded developers outside of Apple with the final build, so until I've tested with that, I can't say it will work with 100% certainty yet. During the development cycle of Leopard though, the problems found were minor, so my guess is that things will work as expected, and that MacGourmet IS Leopard-ready.

[Update: After testing with Leopard, everything seems to still work fine. If you encounter any bugs, please use Send Feedback in the MacGourmet Help menu to send in a report.]

[Update: It looks like they changed the default table tab behavior in Leopard. I'm looking into ways to bring back the ability to tab from cell to cell and from the last cell in a row to the first cell in the next row. This no longer works in Leopard, but it's not a MacGourmet-specific thing.]

MacGourmet 2.2.2, another free, minor update is now available.

For a full list of changes, please see the release notes.

As always, MacGourmet 2.2.2 can be downloaded from the MacGourmet download page.

According to Apple's "Hot News" page, they now officially plan to have an iPhone SDK in the hands of developers (like moi) in February.

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

This is very good news. I REALLY want to do a mobile version of MacGourmet, and this will allow that, so you can be sure I'll be blocking off some time in February to work on it. No ETA yet on a release of MacGourmet:To Go of course, but stay tuned!

Kitchen Gadgets has an interesting post on how rampant recipe copying is on the internet. I've seen this personally myself, because so much of what I do involves searching for recipe content: often times you'll find the exact same recipe on a lot of sites, but often without the original source.

Content tracking company Attributor recently conducted a study to get an idea of how frequently online recipes are copied and reposted to other sites. What it found might concern some recipe publishers.

Attributor collected all the original recipes that appear on Epicurious.com, Allrecipes.com and RachaelRay.com. The software then checked those recipes against what was available elsewhere on the Web, looking for what they call matches--or instances in which two recipes are similar enough to be possibly copyright infringing...

Based on the results, Attributor found that copying recipes online is "rampant," said Rich Pearson, senior marketing director for the company. Attributor found just over 10,000 copies of recipes that originated on the three sites. In more than 60 percent of those cases, the reposted recipes weren't attributed to their original sources.

Now, granted, a LOT of that copying was from blogs set up just to steal click-traffic from other sites when you are searching, a bogus and annoying trend. But still, even without this "stolen" content, recipe copying is widespread.

One "problem" is that recipe sharing is a common behavior, and has been for years.

...recipe sharing isn't exactly a new phenomenon. Dig around in just about any kitchen and you're sure to find a box full of recipes that have been copied from cookbooks and cooking magazines. Sharing recipes has been part of the culture of cooking for decades, if not centuries.

The other problem is that recipes are very hard to copyright. I've done a lot of research into recipe copyright, and except for entire collections (cookbooks) and recipes with directions that are far beyond the normal "whip cream for 3 minutes" copyright rarely if ever can be defended.

According to the U.S. Copyright Office, a list of ingredients isn't protected by copyright law, but the instructions and any other "substantial literary expression" that go with it may be. But does directing a reader to whip egg whites at speed 4 on his stand mixer constitute "substantial literary expression"? Possibly. But it wouldn't be the easiest copyright to enforce.

An interesting read for anyone who is wondering about this kind of thing. Some of the things I do is out of respect for the recipe sources. In theory, the one step web import plug-ins MacGourmet has could drain content from the recipe sites without you having to open a web browser. Instead I make it so that when you visit the sites, you can make a clipping from what you are viewing. I also try to make sure that any recipes posted here or that are ever distributed retain the original source, and are distributed with permission.

Read the entire post: Pirates in the kitchen: Recipe copying 'rampant' online.

Nutrition 1.0.2, a small maintenance release, is now available.

This update adds necessary support for recognizing changed ingredients without saving a recipe, which was recently added in MacGourmet 2.2.1.

For a full list of changes, please see the release notes.

MacGourmet:Nutrition 1.0.2 can be downloaded from the main Nutrition page.

MacGourmet 2.2.1, another free, minor update is now available.

This version makes MacGourmet Leopard-ready. Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) will be released some time this month, according to Apple. This update also fixes some minor issues, and address site changes for Epicurious.com and AllRecipes.com.

For a full list of changes, please see the release notes.

As always, MacGourmet 2.2.1 can be downloaded from the MacGourmet download page.

Macworld magazine is opening up nominations for the Reader's Choice awards. This year, they are making it easier for small indie Mac developers (like me) to get recognized.

After last year’s awards, we asked for your suggestions on ways to improve the Readers’ Choice Awards. We received a lot of constructive feedback. But perhaps the two most common suggestions could be summarized thusly:

1. You want the opportunity to hand out more honors to more deserving products.

2. You’re particularly interested in recognizing third-party developers, especially those who produce low-cost software, shareware, and freeware.

Well, you’ve got it. For 2007, we’re doubling the number of reader awards to four. And we’re introducing some new categories which, ideally, will give more developers a shot at earning some accolades.

So, do you think that MacGourmet could be "Third-Party Software of the Year?" How about "Mac Gem of the Year?" If so, Macworld is asking for nominations in this forum thread so you can let others know! There are so many great applications from indie Mac developers, do don't forget to nomimate your other favorite Mac apps there as well.

So, now that version 2.2 and Nutrition have been released, you may be wondering, "what's next?"

Well aside from any bug fixes on the new releases, making some cosmetic tweaks for Leopard, and adding a way to enter your own nutritional items to Nutrition, the next big thing on the ol' "To Do" list is menu planning. The heavy design "lifting" has already been done, as have some of the UI elements I'll be using, so it's actually already underway. My hope is that this feature will be simple, and easy to use in a variety of manners. Being redone alongside menu planning will be shopping lists. I've already done the design for this as well, and plan on rolling in a lot of the things people have been asking for. Still, if you have anything specific you'd like to see in either menu planning or shopping lists, feel free to post them in the comments.

You will probably also see some other things in the interim, like new importers and exporters, and maybe some new plug-ins. I'm actually thinking of opening the MacGourmet "Test Kitchen," a place where you can download and try things before they are ready for release, but I haven't finalized the specifics of that yet, it's just an idea I've been kicking around.

So far 90% of the sales of MacGourmet have been to English-speaking countries, so another thing I'm planning to do is, again, try and get localizations done. I had made a push in the past, but that kind of fell flat. Because MacGourmet changes often, and there is so much language, it's been hard to get to a point where localizations can be done. Hopefully version 2.2 will be a good jumping off point. I already have some localizations that had been submitted by people in the past, and I plan to see where I'm at with those. Once that's determined, I'll probably be looking for people to help localize and test localizations, not all at once, but one at a time. Here's the thing though: I'm not sure how I can support non-english speakers. Localizations, while great, I think set the expectations that support will be available in the different languages. We'll have to see how this shakes out. I'd be interested in thoughts from people who are in support of localization in their language. I also don't know how to publicize MacGourmet once it's available in the different languages, so any help with French/German/etc. Mac sites would be welcome.

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