Homebrew Buddy MK2

[ScottM]

What a journey this one has been

Firstly I wrote a little program in Excel/VBA in order to help me calculate recipes and costs etc. As great as it is/was I struggled to have a central location where I could update from. Sometimes I would be in work when writing a recipe, sometimes at home, etc. This meant that I needed to carry a memory stick with me with the program on. After making a few changes/upgrades to the program I could no longer use it in work, as there were differences in the controls I was using and I had no option to change. This meant that I could only use the program on PCs with Office 2010.

This led me onto MK2. Now, as much as I'm a beginner with VBA etc... I'm a COMPLETE beginner with PHP. I've never done any webdesign other than making very basic websites via frontpage. I was determined though and after a full month of googling my ass off I've finally managed to make a working site. This mini-saga has given me a fantastic insight into PHP and the inner workings of webpages. I'm still a complete novice but it's nice to put the old noodle to work every now and again.

Anyway, enough blah blah. I got a hold of the domain today so it's now up and running...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rFr8RRzhgk

 

[Djtrouble1982]

Looks good

 

[joe1002]

:thumb:

 

[PD]

from what I could make of it, it looked very good indeed, very professional.
Pity there was no sound with it ....... and mores the pity it can't be downloaded.......

Well done.

 

[ScottM]

Cheers guys

from what I could make of it, it looked very good indeed, very professional.
Pity there was no sound with it ....... and mores the pity it can't be downloaded.......

Well done.

Sound... as in me talking? The Scottish accent with homebrew slur would make even less sense to you southerners

Basically you create a recipe name, description and select which type of recipe it is. From there you can then add ingredients, which will alter the cost, OG and FG. Once you are finished simply select the yeast you are using and the final gravity will be updated based on the attenuation of the yeast you have chosen. The other screens "Ingredients" and "Yeast" are simply for adding ingredients and yeasts... along with their fermentability, yield and, in the case of yeast, attenuation. The calculators page is just for doing the maths all for you. One of the calculators works out the fermentables required in order to have a certain alcohol strength for example.

It's not a program as such... it's a website. So no need to download. Simple logon to access it. I'm looking into developing it right now so that I can allow others to access it

Would need about £5 a year to help towards server fees though. Myself and my mate from work are using it at the moment.

 

[PD]

sounds brilliant well done.

 

[ScottM]

I've opened up some of the site for viewing purposes. If any of you get some time could you have a look over it and see if anything breaks?

First time doing this sort of work so I'm unsure how to test it all thoroughly etc, thought testing in the field would be easiest

If any of you guys are experienced with PHP, Script, HTML etc.... could you have a nosey around to check the site is secure? I know nothing is ever 100% secure but I would like to have it at a reasonable level if possible.

Thanks :)

Oh....

http://www.homebrewbuddy.co.uk/

Addy

 

[ScottM]

Nobody? Had 20 views since posting the link


Happy with any feedback, positive or negative. Constructive negative feedback would probably be most helpful :)

 

[BrotherMalice]

Will try and have a look at it tonight :) - I have limited web design knowledge but it cant hurt to have a look :ugeek:

 

[alanywiseman.]

Great Job Scott :clap:

I will try and have a wee look and see if i spot anything :thumb:

 

[graysalchemy]

Great Job Scott :thumb:

 

[ScottM]

Cheers guys.

I had no experience with PHP prior to this, other than installing a forum years ago... no actual PHP coding though, so I'm green as it gets here.

I basically fumbled my way through all the coding, so it isn't by any means the correct way of doing it.... but it seems to work. My main worry is security as I don't want to go to all that effort only for it to be blown apart by any old script kiddy

 

[Baldbrewer]

Nicely done Scott, had a quick play at work tried my best to bugger about but nicely locked out of any fields.

Just a thought for your Mk3 what about some automated volume calcs? boiler volume, sparge volume based on mash profiles etc.

Now here's an idea what about an inventory of ingredients based on the forums sponsors?

perhaps it could be of mutual benefit? your users get slightly reduced costs and the suppliers get free advertising!

While I'm on a roll what about a recipe link to our forums recipe database?

The customers click on a recipe and the ingredients are generated on a direct shopping list to say "the Malt Miller" or "the homebrew company" etc. you get a small commission or they fund your project as they get the autogenerated sales.

Similar to iBrewmaster but a UK based version?

Sorry if I've rambled on,
Love the JC !

 

[Hawks]

Looks good :thumb:

 

[JimmyB78]

You could do with containing the whole thing in a div that stops it spreading all across the screen on wider screens. 2 methods -

in the body tag you've set the style as "min-width:1000px;" Change this to "width:1000px;margin:0 auto;"

or ideally add a new div just below the body tag with the style as "width:1000px;margin:0 auto;" and then close it just before the closing body tag at the bottom of the page.

Can't really comment on the recipes etc as am still currently a kit brewer but looks to be a good way of accessing recipes :thumb:

 

[ScottM]

Thanks again guys!

Nicely done Scott, had a quick play at work tried my best to bugger about but nicely locked out of any fields.

Just a thought for your Mk3 what about some automated volume calcs? boiler volume, sparge volume based on mash profiles etc.

That would be a nice addition. I don't have the drive to do anything AG based at the moment as I'm only really into extract as far as my beers go. If I ever cross over to the dark side it'll definitely be on my to-do list

Now here's an idea what about an inventory of ingredients based on the forums sponsors?

perhaps it could be of mutual benefit? your users get slightly reduced costs and the suppliers get free advertising!

While I'm on a roll what about a recipe link to our forums recipe database?

The customers click on a recipe and the ingredients are generated on a direct shopping list to say "the Malt Miller" or "the homebrew company" etc. you get a small commission or they fund your project as they get the autogenerated sales.

Similar to iBrewmaster but a UK based version?

Sorry if I've rambled on,
Love the JC !

Firstly I'll take it as a compliment that you think I have any idea how to do all of that

All great ideas and possibly something I will look into, once I get more experience with PHP etc. It's definitely an on-going project, hopefully in it for the long haul. I've only really picked up what I know about PHP through designing with dreamweaver. It auto-generates the PHP for you. From there I tweaked some of the code to get it to do what I want, lots of trial and error here. That along with a lot of googling got me a running site. From there I concentrated more on learning the PHP side of things and over the last 3 days I've been customising just about all the PHP code to work exactly as I want, rather than bloated auto-generated code. It may be rough around the edges but considering my experience I'm over the moon with how it's came around.

I've always loved the Buddy Christ from Dogma. Quick photoshop made it a keeper

 

[ScottM]

You could do with containing the whole thing in a div that stops it spreading all across the screen on wider screens. 2 methods -

in the body tag you've set the style as "min-width:1000px;" Change this to "width:1000px;margin:0 auto;"

or ideally add a new div just below the body tag with the style as "width:1000px;margin:0 auto;" and then close it just before the closing body tag at the bottom of the page.

Can't really comment on the recipes etc as am still currently a kit brewer but looks to be a good way of accessing recipes :thumb:

Good spot, I'll do just that. I kind of got wrapped up on the screen that I was viewing on rather than thinking about others

Thanks :thumb:

 

[Baldbrewer]

Dogma! There's a film !
Silent Bob is comedy gold!

 

[alanywiseman.]

I had a wee play. Seems nice, I like it.

I can not help with the security (I know less than you) but it may be nice to have a tasting notes section where you can comment on how the taste changes over time to find the optimum point?

 

[ScottM]

I had a wee play. Seems nice, I like it.

I can not help with the security (I know less than you) but it may be nice to have a tasting notes section where you can comment on how the taste changes over time to find the optimum point?

Cheers :)

I had that in mind for the "Brewlog". If you click on "Brewlog" then on one of the recipes, it shows you all the notes for that particular recipe. There can be an unlimited amount of notes for each recipe/log. Through time I will be updating the recipes with the tasting notes. Believe it or not I haven't actually tasted most of them yet lol.