Yet another recipe calculator - i had to...

[jusu]

I just released my recipe calculator, yes, another recipe calculator... hear me out.

I'm a weird pickle and being unable to find calculators with the features that i needed almost forced me to make this tool, i made it for my use locally, but a friend saw it and convinced me to publish it, it took me a lot of time to convert it. It's still in beta still so A LOT of features are still missing, i'm going to wait and see if there's at least one user that likes it to prioritize the development and implementation of features.

Yes, it's empty, it was just released

I would love to hear your opinions and thoughts on it and how can be improved, after all ECF was one of the main inspirations for this tool.

Too much ranting... here's the url: jusulab.com

Thank you for your knowledge and patience,
jusu.

 

[jusu]

A new feature was introduced today:

Pre-Mixed Bases Support, you can use your own VG/PG pre-mixed base on a calculation.

The calculator is public and from the first post some bugs were addressed.

I hope that you enjoy it and i can't wait to see your suggestions, critiques and recipes.

All the best,
jusu.

 

[newyork13]

thanks for creating the calculator.
But, I'm having a problem with it.
I put together a simple recipe to try out your tool. when i go to it, it doesn't show me the weights. What am I doing wrong?

 

[jusu]

thanks for creating the calculator.
But, I'm having a problem with it.
I put together a simple recipe to try out your tool. when i go to it, it doesn't show me the weights. What am I doing wrong?

Thank you for trying the tool.

Let me try and duplicate the behaviour you're having, do you mean weights in the new recipe form?

The calculator is in beta so there are some wrinkles i need to iron out, i can only do it with your help.

Thank you again for giving it a go.

 

[newyork13]

I'm trying to retrace my steps and am having difficulty doing so. I was able to do a single flavor recipe with premixed 50/50 base, and it showed me the weights. But, now don't see how I did that.
So, for starters, where did I do that?
When i now try to do a recipe it won't let me do a single flavor.
Second, when I go to my mixes, the recipe is there but doesn't display weights just %'s.

 

[jusu]

I'm trying to retrace my steps and am having difficulty doing so.

Thank you for your patience, i know it's hard to retrace steps when something is not working as we expect it.

I was able to do a single flavor recipe with premixed 50/50 base, and it showed me the weights. But, now don't see how I did that.
So, for starters, where did I do that?

The weights are shown on the Calculator. When you go to a single flavor page or a recipe page, on the top of that page will be a big button that says "MIX", when you click on it, it will show the calculator, there you will see all the weights you need for your mix.

When i now try to do a recipe it won't let me do a single flavor.

You need to go to the flavor you want to mix and click on the "MIX" button on that page.

Second, when I go to my mixes, the recipe is there but doesn't display weights just %'s.

The weights on the saved mixes are shown only when ingredients, either bases or flavors, from your personal stock are used to mix a recipe or a single flavor, otherwise only the ratios you chose are presented (Flavor, VG/PG, Nicotine) etc.

I hope i understood your difficulties, if i'm wrong please let me know, i'm also learning with you on how to make the tool clearer for everyone.

Thank you again.
jusu

 

[newyork13]

thanks for your patience too.
Ok, so I see now how I got the single flavor recipe and I see the weights.
But, the single flavor is in my stock, and when I look at the saved recipe in My Lab, it shows only %.

If I want to create a recipe with several flavors, and be able to save it with weights, how would I do this?

 

[newyork13]

Wait, I think I've got it figured out.
I go to My Recipes, click on it, click on Mix, and there is my new 2 flavor recipe with weights.

 

[jusu]

thanks for your patience too.
Ok, so I see now how I got the single flavor recipe and I see the weights.
But, the single flavor is in my stock, and when I look at the saved recipe in My Lab, it shows only %.

If I want to create a recipe with several flavors, and be able to save it with weights, how would I do this?

There are 2 optional steps for each calculation, the first step saves the curreny mix to your mixes list, in this step a button will appear at the bottom with the title "Next Step" that will take you to the last step of the mix, and that is the stock update, a form will be presented to update your stock. Only after this step the details of your mix will show the weights but only for the stocked ingredients.

Currently the calculator does not show the full amounts on the mix page as default, i will add this to the list to features to consider, i think it will be useful for other users as well.

On a related note, i have, on my todo list for the tool, a remix feature (or fill up) where you can refill your bottle with the same exact values you used, even if the bottle is only half spent, that's why as you save the mix you can input the bottle weight.

Thank you so much for your input, with your help i will try to make the most complete and professional calculator that i can.

 

[newyork13]

After I got the hang of your calculator, I like it a lot.
I'm not sure if it's the way I would have programmed it, and I'll think about it more and let you know what I would suggest.
You don't have to answer, but if you want to, who are you, why did you construct the calculator? From your grammar, you aren't English speaking by birth.
But, that's none of my business really. Just always curious about my fellow humans.
Anyway, thanks for your efforts, and I plan on using it for my mixing.

 

[jusu]

After I got the hang of your calculator, I like it a lot.
I'm not sure if it's the way I would have programmed it, and I'll think about it more and let you know what I would suggest.
You don't have to answer, but if you want to, who are you, why did you construct the calculator? From your grammar, you aren't English speaking by birth.
But, that's none of my business really. Just always curious about my fellow humans.
Anyway, thanks for your efforts, and I plan on using it for my mixing.

Thank you so much for your feedback, it's really motivating for someone to like what you did, or at least give it a fair try.

You're right, i'm not from an english speaking country, i'm from Portugal.

I'm a natural born tinkerer that needs to understand deeply how things work. Some years ago, and to my wife's delight, i became really drawn into aromatherapy and mixing oils and fragrances, even though i suck when it comes to creating aromatherapy recipes (later i will continue to suck at creating vaping recipes also ), i became obssesed by the possibilities and intricacies of mixing my own oils, either for texture, longevity, smoothness and of course aroma, just change one thing and the result is completely different and i liked that.

Two years ago i dropped the cigarettes and started vaping, at the time i couldn't even smell the ashtray i was laying the ashes on, vaping cleared all of that. I learn that you could make your own flavors and simple aromas were available, well, the parallel with aromatherapy was to great to ignore, so i delved into the art (if you can call floating on the surface delving) and looked at the already established calculators, none gave me what i wanted for my needs, so i made my own in a weekend, and worked quite well, i could do stuff that i couldn't find in any other calculator that i have tried, like the ability to input the weight of an ingredient and the calculator recalculates all other ingredients based of that, or tracking my mixes, or everything else i've implemented on the calculator.

Basically i've made the calculator for my own personal use, and then i showed it to a good friend who suggested that i should make it public. Why should i make it public? what's my motivation to spend a quite considerable amount of time making this tool usable by a, theoretical, large population when there are so many tools like it? I still don't know, maybe to show there are other ways of making the same thing, different paradigms that can be applied to the same problem, give back to the community from whom i've learned and taken so much but haven't even thanked, maybe it will be useful to someone, i don't know. The only thing i know is that i want to make my tool as useful as possible, as complete as possible and as professional as possible without any other motive other that learn from the very, very talented mixers everywhere.

It's not my intention to replace so many good resources just complement them. I just want one person to find the tool useful, to use it and forget it until the next time it needs it, like all good tools.

Sorry for the enormous post and the ranting, i can't Thank You enough for your willing to be a pioneer and betting in an unknown like me, without prejudice or praise, a truly unbiased pioneer.

jusu.

 

[newyork13]

Thank you for your reply and candor. And you never ranted, just answered my question with completeness.
As I said, I'm liking and will continue to use your calculator.
When I come up with suggestions for you, I'll post them.
Great job!

 

[Sloth Tonight]

What a wholesome exchange. I'll give this a shot next time I mix.

 

[newyork13]

ok, so if I want to mix with flavors which aren't in your database, such as Purilum, how do I do this?

 

[GOMuniEsq]

Huh. So it's an incomplete program that does very little now, but with enough encouragement to the author, might one day might compare with what Juice Calculator already does. And if the author ever does complete the tool, it's hosted online and will go offline when the author stops receiving enough profit to cover the hosting bill. But we shouldn't complain, because it's "free" and the author is just following the recommendation of a friend. Where's your Patreon link?

Back in the day an author wrote a complete program that did everything to satisfy his own personal needs. And then he shared it to the community out of generosity. He didn't seek attention.

 

[newyork13]

First, as best as I can tell (and do correct me if I got it wrong) the Juice Calculator you mentioned is for Windows, so us Mac users can't avail ourselves of it.
Second, your post was harsh and added absolutely nothing of any substance.

 

[jusu]

ok, so if I want to mix with flavors which aren't in your database, such as Purilum, how do I do this?

Sorry, i've only saw this topic now. Give me an hour to insert the purilium flavors.

 

[jusu]

ok, so if I want to mix with flavors which aren't in your database, such as Purilum, how do I do this?

Purilum is now on the database.

As of now the insertion of flavors is restricted to me only. I have on the todo list the ability to users to specify custom flavors, the implementation is not scheduled yet.

Thank you for the continuous feedback.

 

[jusu]

Huh. So it's an incomplete program that does very little now, but with enough encouragement to the author, might one day might compare with what Juice Calculator already does. And if the author ever does complete the tool, it's hosted online and will go offline when the author stops receiving enough profit to cover the hosting bill. But we shouldn't complain, because it's "free" and the author is just following the recommendation of a friend. Where's your Patreon link?

Back in the day an author wrote a complete program that did everything to satisfy his own personal needs. And then he shared it to the community out of generosity. He didn't seek attention.

Thank you for your feedback.

You addressed some very important and valid points, let me give you my perspective on them.

Huh. So it's an incomplete program that does very little now, but with enough encouragement to the author, might one day might compare with what Juice Calculator already does.

Yes it is incomplete, in the sense that i have a mile long list of improvements, features and ideas to develop and implement. As of today i haven't seen a single piece of software that's "complete", the constant updates we make on our computers, mobile devices and even tv sets are proof of that.

If you think that the tool is unusable, then you haven't used it yet, it has features that no other calculator have while doing what most do. This being said, it's still in a beta stage, so some inaccuracies might appear, and the layout is not yet polished.

I like Juice Calculator, i think it's a great tool, but i'm on a linux system, and i don't want to deal with WINE (a windows emulator) just to use it.

And if the author ever does complete the tool, it's hosted online and will go offline when the author stops receiving enough profit to cover the hosting bill. But we shouldn't complain, because it's "free" and the author is just following the recommendation of a friend.

There are a lot of advantages to an online tool that a purely machine bound tool cannot compete with, such as universal availability, instant interconnection and zero updates or configurations to go through. Of course there are downsides also, like security and speed, locally run programs are much faster and secure than a remote piece of software, if you think the tool is too slow, please tell me so i can address it, my main concern was speed and responsiveness.

I'm not receiving any profit by sharing this tool, zero.

Yes, it's free, not in quotes, very much free.
No ads, tracking cookies, sponsored content or money begging (this is what it says when you open the tool on your browser) And it will continue to be like that.

Where's your Patreon link?

I don't even have a Patreon account.

Back in the day an author wrote a complete program that did everything to satisfy his own personal needs. And then he shared it to the community out of generosity. He didn't seek attention.

That's exactly what i'm trying to do, i don't need/want attention, i just made a single post, that was it, the rest were replies to inquires.

Bottom line is, if you think this tool is useful to you, then use it. If it's not useful, then don't use it. I'd really would like for you to try the tool without any kind of preconception and give it a run for it's money, even better if i could get some feedback to better the tool.

I really do understand your frustration and skepticism, i'm exactly the same way. One of the reasons i've made this tool was to have a calculator without ads or money begging.

Thank you for your comment, it helped me get a glimpse on the friction some people might be feeling when it comes to this calculator. And i thought people ran from it because it was too pink

Be great,
jusu.

 

[newyork13]

Thanks for the Purilum.
And I think you answered that person's criticisms well.