MacGourmet News

I've submitted 1.0.2 to Apple, typical turnaround has been 5 days or so. It includes bug fixes for the following:

• - The "+ icon can now be tapped to add a new shopping list item.


• - When editing a new item, the blinking cursor now shows that an editing session has been started.


• - Shopping list aisle items are now sorted in a case-insensitive manner.


• - More than one sync per session should be now possible without quitting or leaving the sync tab.


• - Search now works over all item text fields, instead of just the item names.


• - New shopping lists now start with a default item, allowing other items to be added without adding a recipe.


• - Shopping list items now have disclosure buttons that allow the detail to be seen when not editing.


• - Minor user interface and graphical tweaks for usability.

You should get notified of the update when it's available.

The "chef view" in MacGourmet touch was kind of added in at the last minute, and I'm not sure that I'm happy with it.

I'd like some opinions, does this version work any better for people?

Note that the ingredients and directions scroll separately in this version, and that the directions text is also now larger, and the ingredients text smaller.

I understand that while some people are having few or no issues getting their data from their Mac to their iPhone, others are having various kinds of issues.

I'm doing my best to resolve them, and I am in the process of trying to add another means of transferring your data, one that will also work for Mac OS X 10.4 users, but please remember that this is the very first version of the product and even though I filled all of the beta slots during testing and did a pretty extensive beta test, with the way Apple does things right now, we're not really allowed to do a proper (by my standards) closed or even open beta. So the first time a lot of people see an app, there are bound to be issues.

It doesn't help that Apple also doesn't give us a way to let you try before you buy, which is really unfortunate if for some reason you can't get things to work with your configuration.

That said, here are some tips and tricks that may resolve problems you may be having:

Transferring your Data from Your Mac to Your iPhone/iPod touch

To sync your data with an existing Wi-Fi network:

1. Start up MacGourmet 2.4 or Deluxe 1.1


2. Open Preferences > Sharing


3. Make sure sharing is set to be enabled at start up.


4. Specify each list that you want to sync by selecting the list from each pop up menu.


5. Close Preferences. You should be set to sync now.

To sync your data:

1. Open MacGourmet touch and select the Sync tab.


2. Select or unselect each list by clicking on its entry in the table.


3. Choose the name of the Mac running MacGourmet from the sync source list to begin your data transfer.


4. You should see each of your selected lists synced one at a time, until all are completed. Once complete, you should be able to find your that your data has replaced the sample data in each section.

If for some reason syncing doesn't seem to work, restarting both MacGourmet and MacGourmet Touch and trying again should fix things.

Congratulations! You should now have your MacGourmet data on your iPhone or iPod!

Creating a Wireless Network for Syncing

If you don't have a wireless network, or you are having issues transferring your data, but you do have a wireless Mac, you can create a limited wireless network for syncing.

1. Go into System Preferences > Network and turn Airport on if it's not on, and check "Show Airport status in menu bar"


2. Close System Preferences and go to the Airport status menu in your menu bar. Choose "Create Network..." to create your own network. Now you should be able to follow the instructions above, under "Transferring Your Data".

Note: If you already have MacGourmet running when you do this, it won't work. So create the network and THEN start MacGourmet.

Resolving Firewall Issues

The following error:

Error 47: Operations could not be completed. Address family not supported by protocol family

is usually a firewall issue that can be resolved by either turning the firewall off if you don't need it on, or by allowing MacGourmet to get through it and not blocking connections from it.

Other Problems and Solutions

Sometimes, and I'm not sure why, uninstalling and reinstalling the app will resolve problems. Version 1.0 also has a couple of crashing issues, but those should be resolved by the 1.0.1 version that will be out as soon as it's approved by Apple for release.

There are also some solutions to problems listed on the MacGourmet touch FAQ page (which will eventually get updated with this information as well.

Please note the images FAQ item in particular. For some reason, you might need to reduce the image quality to do your transfer, you'll probably have to do this if your sync seems to get hung up on a particular recipe.

Finally you can find some additional setup information, with images, starting here: MacGourmet touch Setup.

I had a surprising (to me anyway) amount of interest in retaining the sample recipes that come with MacGourmet touch. I included them in the touch build for demo purposes, but I've received a lot of requests from people who wanted to keep them. Because of this, I'm making them available to everyone to load into MacGourmet, after which you can sync the ones you like to your phone in the current manner.

First, let me remind people of the free sample packs already available at macgourmet.com. They include a vegan recipe pack, ice cream recipes, and one of the packs used in the iPhone sample pack the "Pork: The Other White Meat" pack.

The other sample recipes are made up of selections from the following additional packs:

National Chicken Cooking Contest 2003
Winning chicken recipes from the 2003 National Chicken Cooking Contest. (51 recipes)
[Download]

National Beef Cook-Off 2005
Winning beef recipes from the 2005 National Beef Cook-Off (20 recipes)
[Download]

The rest already come with a copy of MacGourmet, so you should already have them. If not, they can be found as parts of the various packs available on the sample page.

I've submitted 1.0.1 to Apple, typical turnaround has been 3 days or so. It includes bug fixes for the following:

• - Fixed a problem deleting images on sync. Re-syncing at any point will clean up the orphaned items.


• - Fixed a crash that would occur if you synced one or more items without a name.


• - Fixed a crash that could occur if you selected the Sync tab after a successful sync.

You should get notified of the update when it's available.

Now that the first version of MacGourmet touch is out, which covers basic syncing between MacGourmet and your iPhone/iPod touch, I know people want to know, "What's next?"

The next steps are obvious I think:

• - Editing information on the phone and syncing changes between your iPhone and Mac


• - Multiple lists of your items instead of just one for each type


• - More robust on-device shopping list support


• - Maybe some basic meal planning functionality


• - Etc...

These are all at the forefront and are probably the most requested additions right now. I'm sure there will be others as I get more feedback from people.

I know that on-phone editing is important, but it's also the most complex thing to do, If I made everyone wait until that was done and 100% reliable (didn't screw up your MacGourmet data, etc.) the wait for ANY MacGourmet iPhone app would have been much longer than it already has been. Because of this, version 1 is picking the "low hanging fruit" and providing you with some basic functionality, rather than none at all. Honestly, if Apple can't seem to get syncing right, you know it's not easy (iSync still will screw up my data sometimes).

I recognize that there also needs to be more ways added to actually GET your information to your iPhone. Wi-Fi syncing is nice, but it's not the only way that should be offered as it doesn't always work. Large images right now are a problem (for reasons I haven't exactly figured out) and syncing over Wi-Fi can be slow. I do have some ideas about providing an additional way to get data on your phone, which will allow Mac OS X 10.4 users to sync as well...

MacGourmet touch is brand new and still very early in its development, targeted at a platform itself that is still new, and very early in its development. There's still work to be done, thanks for your patience while the app develops. I am listening to your suggestions so keep them coming!