Meal Time is a HyperCard recipe program which allows you to store your recipes for easy retrieval. It can re-calculate your recipe ingredients if you want to serve fewer or more people than your recipe calls for. You can move recipes to a Shopping List, and/or Guest List. If you are not sure what recipe you want to view, you can generate a list of recipes containing selected Key Words. Eight slots exist for users to add their own Key Words, and users may change existing Key Words. Conditional AND/OR supported. You may even enter one or more ingredients to generate a list of recipes which contain those ingredients, if you desire to find recipes which use food you currently have in your cupboards. Includes a variety of print options. Export your recipes and share them with someone else. Import new recipes that others have exported.
Advertisement: Meal Time is a Hypercard recipe program which allows recipe storage for flexible retrieval. Re-calculate ingredient quantities for fewer or more people. Move recipes to a shopping list and/or guest list. Select recipes by pre-defined, or user Key Words, and/or ingredients. Conditional AND/OR support. Import / Export your recipes to share with others.
Meal Time has four sections:
RECIPE SECTION
Every recipe has its own card. This is where the ingredients, directions, cooking time, and recipe descriptions are stored. The program also stores a scaled list of the ingredients on the card. (The original serving size may be 4, but you may want to scale the ingredients to 25). It will store both lists on the same card. Select the NEW button to make additonal recipe cards. Enter the name of the recipe, the serving size, and the preparation time. You may sort recipes by name or preparation time. You can also sort your list of ingredients. Click on the Key Words list to modify or add key words that help to identify this recipe. While on a recipe card you can move the recipe to the shopping list, or to the guest list.
SHOPPING LIST SECTION
The shopping list provides a listing of the ingredients for the recipes you chose to move to the shopping list. (You must be in the recipe section to move recipes to the shopping list). You may have as many seperate lists as you like; however, it will be less confusing if you simply delete the old list when it is time to generate a new list. As the list is generated, new items will be added to the bottom of the list while existing items on the list will simply be incremented. Later, you can sort your list alphabetically if you choose. As a shopping list is generated, the date the list was created will appear at the top, and the date the list was modified will appear next. After that, each recipe which was used in the shopping list will appear, and finally, the list of ingredients.
GUEST LIST SECTION
If you entertain frequently, you may want to enter the names of people you regularly serve, into the guest list section. Each guest will have their own card. When in the recipe section, if you decide to log a recipe to the guest list, you click on the guest list icon and you will be transferred to the last guest you viewed. (If you have not viewed any guests recently, the find dialog box will ask you what you want to find.) Simply click on the flashing recipe name, and it will be logged into the list. If the date is not correct click on it to change it.
IMPORT / EXPORT RECIPES
Allows you to write all your recipes, and associated Key Words, to a small text file format. This option can be used if you want to send your recipes to a friend, or save your recipes in a text document. The import feature allows you to read a text file that you or someone else has created, and read those recipes into your recipe stack. Because every user of Meal Time has the option to customize their Key Words, Meal Time will import a recipe, and only the Key Words which match your Key Words will be included. You will be notified if there is a difference.
CHOICES SECTION
The Choices section is where you can list any or all of your recipes, if you are not sure what you want to view. You can show all the recipes, or you can choose to show only those recipes which match the Key Words you choose. To generate a list, click the Generate List button. If you did not click on any Key Words, all the recipes will be shown. If you clicked on any key words, and/or entered any ingredients (at the top of the card is a field for you to enter ingredients if you desire to show only recipes which use what you enter. If you have a large quantity of peanut butter in your cupboard, you could enter that and show recipes which use peanut butter.), only recipes which contain those key words (or ingredients) will be shown. Once a list is generated, click on the item you wish to view and click the select button to view that recipe. Any of the key word buttons may be changed if you feel they need to be more specific. You also have ten empty key word buttons that you can use. You may want to change some of these to special holidays or whatever. To change a Key Word button, hold down the option key while clicking on it.
REBUILD KEY WORD LISTS
Every Key Word on the Choices card has its own field. Take the Key Word 'Poultry' for example. It has its own hidden field. If you mark any of your recipes with the Key Word 'Poultry', the name of that recipe is stored in this hidden field. Therefore, you have a link. The Key Word 'Poultry' has a listing of every recipe in your stack that is marked with 'Poultry', and each recipe card which contains the Key Word 'Poultry', will have the word 'Poultry' in the list of Key Words on the recipe card. If data in these hidden fields should become deleted (highly unlikely, but possible) selecting this button will delete all the contents of these hidden Key Word fields on the choices card, and will then go to each recipe in your stack, and re-enter the name of that recipe in each hidden field with that Key Word. There is no visible evidence that will tell you to do this, nor is there visible evidence that will tell you the action has been accomplished. Under certain circumstances, the program will notify you that you must rebuild the Key Word lists however.
