1. What is this F.A.Q. for? Gourmet is intended to be as intuitive to use as possible. If you find something in gourmet counterintuitive, confusing, or hard-to-use, I'll consider it a bug and try my best to fix it. Although Gourmet is intended to be intuitive to use, it is not always so. Rather than write a complete manual, I've put together a brief list of pointers in the form of this F.A.Q., trying to focus on those elements of Gourmet that are not as transparent to the user. 2. Getting recipes 2.a Where can I get some recipes for Gourmet? Gourmet can easily import mealmaster and mastercook files. There are large archives of these files available on the web -- search for the kind of recipes you're interested in and "mealmaster" or "mastercook", and you should find them. Gourmet can also import recipes from websites. A very few websites have support for automated import. In most cases, Gourmet will pop up a window asking you to identify the title, source, ingredients, etc. from the text of the recipe on the webpage. Then Gourmet will ask if you want to choose any images from the webpage to associate with the web page. 2.b. What is that funny dialog about "encoding" that comes up when I import? There exist many different ways to "encode" the same characters. When a recipe includes accented characters or symbols (like the degree symbol), it is important that Gourmet choose the right encoding to read the recipe, or all of these characters will come out wrong. When Gourmet encounters a file with unusual characters, it limits the possible encodings to as few choices as possible and then presents you with a choice, showing you the file with different encodings. The lines where the different encodings result in different characters are highlighted yellow, so you can quickly scroll to them and see which encoding looks right. 3. How do I do complicated searches? By default, Gourmet does a simple search for the text you enter anywhere. If you want to combine multiple searches, just hit return and start typing again. For example, to search for desserts with oranges, type "dessert", hit return, and then type "orange." You can also type "or" to search for one thing or another. By clicking "Show Search Options," you can further narrow your search results, searching only in a given part of a recipe (e.g. in ingredients). You can also turn on support for regular expressions, which will allow programmers and others familiar with regular expressions to do more powerful searches. 3.b Searching is too slow, what can I do? If your computer is slow and/or your database is big, you may find that Gourmet is sluggish when you are searching. This is because, by default, Gourmet tries to search as you type. By clicking "Show Search Options" and then unchecking "Search as you type," you can turn off this feature. In this mode, you have to type "return" or click "find" to actually run a search. If Gourmet is still sluggish in this case, you may need to select more specific searches instead of using the default "search anywhere" option. For most users this should be no problem, but it is possible that with a very large database and a slow machine, you will run into performance problems. 4. Shopping lists 4.a. How do I create a shopping list? There are two ways: Click on the "Shop" button in a recipe card, or, select "Add to shopping list" from the right-click menu or the Action menu of the index view. You can also type "Control-L" (for list) from either view to add to the shopping list more quickly. 4.b. What is the "pantry" for? The idea of the "pantry" list is to record ingredients that you do not want to shop for. In my kitchen, for example, I almost never need to buy any of the basic spices, or staples like flour, butter and sugar, so I put them in my pantry list. The reason these are added to a list rather than simply deleted from your shopping list is so that you can always see what ingredients a recipe calls for -- for the rare cases when you've run out of a staple that's usually in your pantry. The pantry list is *not* designed to list all the contents of your pantry. Only the items on your shopping list will be printed when you print a shopping list. If you don't want something to be included on the shopping list, drag it to your pantry list. If you do want it included, drag it back form the pantry list to the shopping list. In either case, Gourmet will remember what you did for next time. 4.c. How can I delete items from my shopping list? Drag them to the pantry list. Or use the "remove from shopping list" button on the toolbar. Or type "Control-D" while the item is selected. The idea of the "pantry" is just a metaphor -- you should put anything you don't want on your shopping list into the pantry list, regardless of whether you actually have those items. 4.d. So how can I move something from my pantry back onto my shopping list. Drag the item from the pantry list to the shopping list. Or use the button on the toolbar. Or type "Control-B" ("B" for Back) while the item is selected. 5. Entering and Editing recipes 5.a. How do I edit recipes When you create a recipe card, you will see the recipe editor window, a window with multiple tabs. Each tab allows you to edit a different aspect of the recipe (ingredients, instrucitons, etc.) When you open a previously created recipe, you'll see a simpler "Recipe Card" display that puts all the information you need on one screen. If you want to edit any part of this display, click on the "Edit" button next to the relevant section. For example, next to the "Ingredients" header, there's a "Edit ingredients" button which will open the edit window on the ingredients tab. 5.b. How do I convert units? Just edit the unit by clicking on the "unit" cell in your ingredient list. Gourmet will then offer you a choice between simply changing the unit and converting the item. If you select 1/2 cup milk, for example, and change "cup" to "g.", Gourmet will ask you whether you want to convert it (121.69 grams) or simply change the unit (1/2 g.). Although Gourmet does know the density of milk (allowing it to calculate this example), it can't always do weight-to-volume conversions! If you would like a manual unit calculator, you can activate the "Unit Converter" plugin, which will make a handy unit calculator accessible in the "Tools" menu. 5.c. What if about OR ingredients - this ingredient OR that? You can replicate the effect of a recipe calling for one ingredient or another by making both of the ingredients you want to choose between optional. When you go to add the recipe to a shopping list, you'll be given an option of which items to add, and you can choose. This isn't perfect of course, because it allows you to add both or neither ingredient, which is not what the recipe calls for! However, I haven't thought of a more elegant way to allow for "or" items in ingredient lists yet. 6. How do I save recipes in a menu? Gourmet allows you to add a recipe to any other recipe as an ingredients by pressing on the "Add recipe as ingredient" button in the "Ingredients" tab of a recipe editor. Using this feature, you can create a menu by creating a "New Recipe" and then adding as many recipes as "ingredients" as you like. You can also activate the "Shopping List Saver" plugin (under Tools) to allow you to save everything you've added to your shopping list as a recipe for future use. A frequent request is to have gourmet support saving collections of recipes as a menu or daily/weekly/monthly plan. This has yet to be implemented. 7. What are plugins? Gourmet strives to provide a simple basic interface for all users while allowing powerful features to be accessed by users who are interested in them. Plugins in Gourmet allow access to more powerful features. Those plugins that are unlikely to "get in the way" of the user, such as different import filters, are activated by default. Those plugins that may only annoy some users, such as nutritional information, are disabled by default. To activate or deactivate plugins, select "Plugins" from the "Settings" menu. Note that plugins can also fail for various reasons. Sometimes, for example, a plugin will require another software library that you may not have installed. Gourmet tries to give you useful information when it encounters a situation like this. At any rate, if a plugin does not load correctly, the rest of Gourmet should still be able to run without issue. 8. Can I calculate nutritional information with Gourmet? Yes! Gourmet includes a copy of the USDA nutritional database, which has thousands of items. For now, Gourmet doesn't know about any ingredients by default--unless you tell it about your ingredients, Gourmet will always say it is "missing nutritional information" for the items in your recipe. If you care about nutritional information, click "Edit" and a new window will pop up and ask you to give it the information it needs to calculate nutritional information, either using the USDA database foods or entering nutritional information by hand if necessary. 9. What are ingredient "key"s? By default, ingredient "keys" are not shown to the user and are not needed for Gourmet. However, users interested in advanced features, such as customizing nutritional information or shopping lists, will want to activate the plugins that allow for viewing and editing ingredient keys. Ingredient "keys" are the standardized name for an ingredient that will go on your shopping list and, in future versions of gourmet, be used to look up nutritional information. An ingredient like "Tomatoes, seeded and finely chopped" should be keyed as "tomato" or "tomato, red" -- whatever you want to appear on your shopping list. Standardizing keys means your shopping list can properly combine ingredients from various recipes, understanding that "Tomatoes, seeded and finely chopped", "ripe tomatoes", and "3 tomatoes, in slices", are all the same thing. If this doesn't matter to you, don't worry about making your ingredient keys standard. 9.a. Is there a fast way to fix up ingredient keys? Yes. The "Key Editor" plugin (under "Tools") allows you to browse and search all the ingredient keys in your database. This way, you can search for all instances of "pepper" and standardize "pepper", "pepper, black" and "black pepper" to one key. You can also see what recipe different keys are used in, so that if you see something is obviously wrong, you can go correct it. Finally, the Key Editor allows you to easily change amounts and units as well, either for individual instances or en masse. Using the Key Editor, you can easily change all instances of ts. to tsp., or you could tell it that for water, you'd like to change all instances of 1 kg. to 1 liter. 10. Can I do fancy printing with Gourmet? When you print from Gourmet, you can choose a variety of useful settings under the "Page Layout" tab of the print dialog. This will allow you to choose the format you want to print in (index cards, columns, etc.) and the base font size you would like to use. 11. Where does Gourmet store its data (including my recipes)? On Linux, Gourmet stores its data by default in ~/.gourmet (i.e. a hidden subfolder of your home directory named .gourmet -- mind the dot). On Windows, the gourmet directory (without the dot) is buried somewhere in your user directory (normally <UserDir>\AppData\Roaming\gourmet). If you can't find it, use Windows Explorer to search it within your user directory. You can change that location by use of the `--gourmet-directory` command line option. (Try `gourmet --help` for a list of all available options.) Also note the `--database-url` option which allows specifying an [SQLAlchemy-style database URL](http://docs.sqlalchemy.org/en/rel_0_8/core/engines.html#database-urls) (which by default is something like `sqlite:///~/.gourmet/recipes.db`, but could also be e.g. `mysql://gourmetrecipe:password@localhost/gourmetrecipe` if you're using a MySQL database, which by the way could also reside on some remote server.) 12. How can I change the font size? On my high resolution display, I can hardly read the text that is being displayed. Within a Gnome environment, Gourmet respects the desktop-wide preferences. On Windows, you can download a program that lets you tweak GTK+ settings and change the font size. It's called "Change GTK2 Appearance" and can be found at http://gtk-win.sourceforge.net/home/index.php/Main/GTKPreferenceTool 13. Further Questions 13.a. What if I have a good idea for how to improve Gourmet? Please submit a an issue tagged with the 'feature-request' label (and possibly other applicable labels) at the following website: https://github.com/thinkle/gourmet/issues 13.b. What if I find a bug? Please submit an issue tagged with the 'bug' label (and possibly other applicable labels) at the following website: https://github.com/thinkle/gourmet/issues 13.c. What if I have a question not answered here? Post your question in the Gourmet Help Forum here: https://answers.launchpad.net/gourmet Or, if for some reason that won't work, feel free to e-mail me at: Thomas_Hinkle@alumni.brown.edu