Ez-Mix - a new mixing calculator - I need your help

[Hoosier]

Review of Ez-Mix by Hoosier:

Quick and easy interface. It works and is fairly simple to use.

What I liked:
Fields changing color to indicate that data is needed to complete all calculations.
Suggestion popup when attempting to input ratios that will not work as set.

What I did not like:
Flavoring name field is too small. I cannot put in the full name of many flavorings and adding the producer of the flavoring means I end up with a series of abbreviations that adds to the cryptic nature of my mixing notes as it is. This is one place I do not want more shorthand.

Thinks I could care less about either way:
Cost breakdown. The calculator I currently use has this and I don't use it.
Default file name on save.

It's not as well suited to me so as to make it perfect, nor to make me switch from the calculator I do use. The clean interface containing such a fairly in-depth function set should be appealing for many.

 

[SouthernBliss]

Do you mean the entire window?

Yes the whole thing so I can make it bigger. I guess I'm a bit use to my programs taking up scads of screen space. Would being able to enlarge that potentially solve the issue of not enough space for some flavor names?

 

[VitalSparks]

Well, getting the entire interface to scale proportionally would take some effort. I have tried doing that on other programs before, and it is fraught with problems - font scaling in particular. I chose the current window size to make it convenient to have several windows open on the screen at the same time. I stuck with MS design recommendations regarding screen font sizes, which generally dictates the height for edit-boxes etc. - the whole thing is a balancing act.

The reason why there is a restriction on the field width for flavours has mainly to do with formatting for print output, and making sure that small index cards can be accommodated with reasonable font sizes. I may experiment with reducing the flavour titles to F1, F2, F3 etc. That would give more room for flavour name text - we'll see. I do not want to introduce too many changes at this late stage.

 

[eratikmind]

I just started DIY juices. Will your program run on Mac OS X 10.7.5?

- Andy

 

[crxess]

PM sent

I build/customize tune all my own laptops - a hobby for me. All Dells running custom graphics cards where available. windows 32 & 64 bit operating systems.

 

[VitalSparks]

I just started DIY juices. Will your program run on Mac OS X 10.7.5?

You tell me... That is what this preview phase is all about.

I know nothing about Macs, but from what I read, as long as your machine is intel-based, and has the facility to run Windows programs, there is a good chance it will. I wrote this program using development tools that ensure the program will run on an OS as old as Win98 - before .net so Mac/Windows converters should be able to cope with it. Send me a PM, and give it a try.

 

[eratikmind]

Jeff . . . You have mail.

- Andy

 

[SouthernBliss]

Well, getting the entire interface to scale proportionally would take some effort. I have tried doing that on other programs before, and it is fraught with problems - font scaling in particular. I chose the current window size to make it convenient to have several windows open on the screen at the same time. I stuck with MS design recommendations regarding screen font sizes, which generally dictates the height for edit-boxes etc. - the whole thing is a balancing act.

Understood. And I had not thought about having several windows up for reference so that is a good point. I bow to your wisdom!

The reason why there is a restriction on the field width for flavours has mainly to do with formatting for print output, and making sure that small index cards can be accommodated with reasonable font sizes. I may experiment with reducing the flavour titles to F1, F2, F3 etc. That would give more room for flavour name text - we'll see. I do not want to introduce too many changes at this late stage.

Would be nice to be able to sneak in a few extra letters but I understand all to well not wanting to add/change at this point. I have a test team for my products and all to often I have to point out that we are done and I just need to know if the files load without errors.

 

[eratikmind]

Haven't been able to get it to run on my Mac, yet. Perhaps, I'll try WineBottler, next.

- Andy

 

[BMWRTMike]

So I put it through it's paces tonight and came across a problem. To some it may be of no consequence, but it is a problem for me. The program is rounding up to the .0 instead of .00 and changing the nic level.

Two recipes mixed with a base of 50mg 100% pg nic @ 6mg nic strength 50/50 pg/vg 15 ml bottle.

recipe 1

flavor 1 9%
flavor 2 7%
flavor 3 3%
flavor 4 4%
This results in a nic volume of 1.6ml which is not right.

recipe 2

flavor 1 10%
flavor 2 2%

This results in a nic volume of 1.8 which is correct

A difference of .2ml of nic in a 15ml bottle is a bit much I think.

 

[Turbo]

Haven't been able to get it to run on my Mac, yet. Perhaps, I'll try WineBottler, next.

- Andy

Me either on OSX 10.8.3, but one probably needs Parallels or Bootcamp to which I have neither. I didn't try too hard, so I'll have to look into it some more.

 

[eratikmind]

Me either on OSX 10.8.3, but one probably needs Parallels or Bootcamp to which I have neither. I didn't try too hard, so I'll have to look into it some more.

I had Parallels on this rig for Auto Cad on the run, so to speak. However, I removed it when I retired . . . Doh!

- Andy

 

[VitalSparks]

So I put it through it's paces tonight and came across a problem. To some it may be of no consequence, but it is a problem for me. The program is rounding up to the .0 instead of .00 and changing the nic level.

Two recipes mixed with a base of 50mg 100% pg nic @ 6mg nic strength 50/50 pg/vg 15 ml bottle.

recipe 1

flavor 1 9%
flavor 2 7%
flavor 3 3%
flavor 4 4%
This results in a nic volume of 1.6ml which is not right.

recipe 2

flavor 1 10%
flavor 2 2%

This results in a nic volume of 1.8 which is correct

A difference of .2ml of nic in a 15ml bottle is a bit much I think.

That is why there is a '1/100 ml' checkbox option in the 'mix volumes' panel - to set required precision. Click on this, and all will be OK. - it's in the Help file BTW

Maybe I should add the state of this checkbox to the registry, so that it remembers the user preference?

 

[VitalSparks]

I hear the call from a few of you asking for longer flavour names. I cannot do too much in this respect without upsetting the formatting of screen/printer layout. But I have done a bit of re-jigging, and squeezed an extra 5 characters in without interfering with the underlying code.



Sorry about small size of this image - the forum did this, and I can't see how to make it bigger.

 

[VitalSparks]

I hope this fixes it - I originally used png file - is now jpg.



nope! file size is within limits, and so is pixel size - go figure...

 

[VitalSparks]

It's very quiet around here - fed up with it already?

Actually, I'm a little bit disappointed. Of the 48 people that have taken part, only 18 have reported back.

Fortunately, noone has found anything drastically wrong, or been able to break it (as far as I know), which is really good news, and I've had some kind glowing remarks about it.

I've been doing some testing too, and found a glitch today - If someone wanted zero-nic, and hadn't entered a value for Base Nic strength, then it was not possible to choose a PG/VG ratio for the mix, other than the default 100%PG. This was because the boxes on the Mix Nic Strength line were all disabled (due to no Base Nic). I have corrected this and rearranged the items in the Specification panel to accommodate the change.

I've also looked into the 'rounding' problem that was mentioned when using only one decimal place. It is unlikely to happen very often, but the example given told me that I should look at it. This I have done, and am about to modify the code so that adjustments are only made to PG or VG, not Nic, to correct for accumulated rounding errors in the visible volume values. You see, all calculations are done at full floating-point accuracy internally. It is only when they are displayed that rounding is done, and if no remedial action is taken, then the values you see may not add up exactly to the chosen Mix Volume, which would be 'ugly'. Adjustment to the PG/VG would only slightly affect the PG/VG ratio, whereas ajusting the Nic Base volume (which is what I originall did) will affect the Nic Strength (OK, only slightly, but questions would be asked about calculation accuracy). Of course, choosing the '1/100ml' option reduces rounding errors by a factor of 10, and the problem virtually disappears.

Sometime tomorrow I am going to upload a revised version for you to look at, which also includes the longer Flavour names.

BTW, any progress on that Mac investigation?

 

[eratikmind]

With regard to the Mac, no, not yet.

I have tried a couple different methods, which included WineBottler, as well. Hopeully, I'll figure it out between phone calls.

- Andy

 

[VitalSparks]

Thanks Andy - You're the man!

Here's a thought - ever since Win98, Microsoft have changed their Help system over to HTML Help (which I use here), which apparently needs something in Internet Explorer for it to work. I wonder how the Mac would cope with that?

 

[gtbb]

I have just downloaded it. Looks good but can't work with it till tomorrow. Thanks and I'll report as I can.

 

[lbjustintime]

I'm still playing with it a bit but no issues with running it on a Mac via Parallels. Printed fine as well, my VM is Windows 7 Ultimate.

Overall it works as a base calculator, nothing too special about it. I will report back in more detail once I get a chance to stab at it a bit more.