A Cook's Books - 1.2.8

First off, I've used this program for many years, since it was offered as a low beta number, and have a lifetime license. The author is very helpful and responsive with email communication. You couldn't ask for more there. It is very stable. I never experience any crashes. It has many features included with it that others require you to purchase separately. Think Nutritional Information, planning menus for weeks out at a time. Creating shopping lists based on your upcoming menus. Features I don't use, but will weigh in on other peoples' decision.

At the time of purchase, it was very promising, and still is, as long as you don't mind the interface. Many people do like it, and claim it sheds the "cutsey" goodness that is Aqua and eyecandy and all that. That's where it loses me now. The main window seems like nothing but a regular program's preference pane turned on its side. Check it out. Go to Mail, open preferences, click on Accounts. There's your A Cooks Book interface minus the toolbar along the top and the list along the left side. And of course it's right side up instead of on the side. I always put up with it because I was a lifetime licensee, and it is a solid program.

Since Leopard, the annoying tabbing issue caused me to look at other options out there. I just finished up trying out many listed here and MacGourmet has stole my heart. I used it for about 5 minutes and I immediately fell in love with it. It is very Mac like, in that it is visually just like using Mail, iTunes, iCal iLife and iWork (all programs which I enjoy using).

Is adding a toolbar eyecandy? I don't know. But it sure would be useful in A Cook's Book to enter a new recipe instead of having to choose it from the menu or keyboard shortcut. When I compose a new message in Mail, I don't use the keyboard shortcut to initiate it.

So, farewell A Cook's Book for now. You have served me well in the past, and I will continue to look in on you time to time. But I have found something I like better right now, and you know what I am looking for should you ever want to bring in other users like me.

Topcat, thanks for taking the time to reply to my comments. Yes, I did find your software somewhat rough around the edges -- but keep in mind, I still ranked it second best in a big field! I should also say that the reason there is such a list of negatives is not to imply that the negatives outweigh the positives, or that other software didn't have similar or more serious problems. If I seemed to be nitpicking, that's probably because I spent more time testing your program than many of the others -- because in most cases I saw more promise in the features of your program. So please, consider this a compliment.

In relation to your repeated assertions that I misrepresented your product, I would just say this ... You are the developer -- I won't pretend to understand your software as well as you do. But that's the whole point to user feedback -- if a user reports having problems using your program, before jumping to the conclusion that they are either (a) lying, or (b) an idiot, try to understand the reasons why they had trouble, and consider how the software (not the instruction manual) might address these issues -- be they real or perceived in your view. Like I said before 'If I have overlooked any feature, it's possibly an indication that the feature was difficult to find or unintuitive to use'...

I'll respond specifically to some of your points:

>Me: The main navigation tabs read vertically — this adds nothing to the interface and impairs readability
>Comment: Lot's of of cookbooks have side-tabs.

And lot's don't have side-tabs -- who cares? The point is, there is absolutely no good reason why the tabs need to be vertical when it makes them more difficult to read.

>Me:'Print' shouldn't be one of the main navigation tabs
>Comment: Why not? This allows the user to view/edit the page(s) prior to printing. You can also save the resulting text in a number of formats.

It's a question of logical association of interface elements by proximity. The print button simply doesn't belong in a group alongside 'Reference', 'Planner' and 'Recipes' (in my opinion!)

>Me: The program doesn't make it at all obvious that the user has to manually save cookbook file to work with recipes (Save dialogues come up at various times if you have not done this, with no explanation as to why, or what is being saved.)
>Factually incorrect: The save dialog comes up in exactly one circumstance: when a user clicks the 'Save Changes' button and there's no active cookbook open.

No, not 'factually incorrect'. I just tested the product again briefly, and yes -- it gave me a 'save as' dialogue after deleting a recipe (I selected cancel) and then again after I added a new recipe.

I stand by what I said. The version I tested gave me save dialogues on a number of occasions and at first I had no idea what I was being asked to save. It is not immediately obvious that the program works with multiple documents (called cookbooks) which you have to manually save -- and I don't recall this confusion with the other software I tested. (I suspect most simply maintain a single database per user -- much like iTunes, iPhoto, etc.) Familiar applications that are geared more towards document creation, like Word, Photoshop, etc, seem to manage this without the confusion that I first felt in your program. At very least, you could title the window of a new unsaved document 'Untitled.acbk' or similar.

>Kalsta didn't follow the Getting Started instructions (Help Menu or Help pdf) that suggest creating a cookbook to work in.

You're darn tootin I didn't! Nor did I for the other products -- aside from features, I was most interested in comparing ease of use and the intuitiveness of each interface. The best designed products tends to require less explaining. I use a myriad of programs on a daily basis to accomplish tasks far more complex than recipe management, and have done so for over 10 years on the Mac. If I can't figure out how to drive this baby without consulting a manual, the interface probably needs improving. If that sounds arrogant, remember: a good user interface accommodates the way people work, not the other way around.

>Me: Editing and creating recipes is not intuitive
>Factually incorrect: Editing and creating recipes is quite intuitive.

Factually incorrect? How can my opinion of what is intuitive be 'factually incorrect'? It's my opinion!

>Me: e.g. Course categories should pop up or auto-fill when you enter this field or start typing — you have to try and remember what categories you use.
>Comment continued: A Cook's Books doesn't use popups for recipe meta-data like Author, course, region, etc. For the most part I don't see people having the issue Kalsta alludes to.

No? They're all just text fields. What's to say I won't accidentally give a recipe a rating of '8' (meaning 8 out of 10) one day, '80%' another, or even 'Good' another? What if I call the course 'dessert' one day and on another 'supper', or 'sweets', or 'desert' (misspelled)? The usefulness of such data is questionable.

>Plus, forcing users to use popups slows down recipe entry.

Then use auto-fill in the text fields.

>Me: Drop down lists of ingredients don't jump to the item you have currently selected (they take you back to the start of the list)
>That is standard behavior for a drop-down box. I don't know why Apple chose that behavior.

Yes, that is weird if that's how Apple has made it. Even standard drop down menus in HTML forms start at the currently selected item when you click on them. Standard drop downs also allow you to start typing to jump to another word, whereas the drop-down ingredient box does not seem to allow this.

>Me: Individual serve scaling is not intuitive — number of servings not visible in main window
>Factually incorrect: The Individual serving is listed in the title bar like this: My Cookbook: African Peanut Soup - Serves 4.

You're right -- there it is. Was it there in version v.9.19? (which I can't test now) -- perhaps I just missed it.

>Me: Nutritional information for each recipe is rendered useless when your ingredients are not included because 'the unit of measurement can't be converted' or 'not found in the food list'.
>Comment: This is true: if A Cook's Books can't find the food, it can't find the nutrition. I'm curious how that's a criticism.

I do agree it's a good feature. I simply pointed out the limitations of the feature as quickly evident in even some of the sample recipes provided.

>You don't even need to look at the nutrition results to know that has occurred because A Cook's Books provides visual feed back right in the ingredient list. (Preferences:Auto-fill:Ingredients:Tint when not fount)

Perhaps I'm missing something -- I have 'tint' turned on, but I don't see any obvious tinting in the ingredient list.

>Comment continued: Nutrition is not an easy thing to do. Plenty of programs let you look up a food and see the nutrition, but very few attempt to calculate recipe nutrition the way A Cook's Books does. Getting accurate nutrition from A Cook's Books does require setup and effort, but those interested in accurate results typically don't mind the effort.

Yes, I agree that yours is quite an ambitious implementation -- and useful if people can make it work for them.

>Me: If you quit application before saving your planner, no warning is given and the data appears to be lost.
>Comment: A known issue with a fix planned for the near future

Glad to hear it.

Good:

• Filtering/classification with 'quick list'
• Individual serve scaling
• Meal planner
• Shopping list
• Nutritional database

Bad:

• The main navigation tabs read vertically — this adds nothing to the interface and impairs readability
• 'Print' shouldn't be one of the main navigation tabs
• The program doesn't make it at all obvious that the user has to manually save cookbook file to work with recipes (Save dialogues come up at various times if you have not done this, with no explanation as to why, or what is being saved.)
• Useful information about each recipe, which should be included in the main window, is hidden away in drop-down sheets which are accessed via a menu command — not very efficient! (Although I since discovered that preferences allow you to change this to an 'Inspector' window which can be visible at all times.)
• Editing and creating recipes is not intuitive: e.g. Course categories should pop up or auto-fill when you enter this field or start typing — you have to try and remember what categories you use.
• Auto-fill on ingredients sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.
• Drop down lists of ingredients don't jump to the item you have currently selected (they take you back to the start of the list)
• Individual serve scaling is not intuitive — number of servings not visible in main window
• Nutritional information for each recipe is rendered useless when your ingredients are not included because 'the unit of measurement can't be converted' or 'not found in the food list'.
• If you quit application before saving your planner, no warning is given and the data appears to be lost.
• Shopping list is buggy — when I first generated shopping list form weekly planner, units of measurement were appearing in the ingredient column with enormous quantities beside them. When I generated shopping list again, the problem was gone.

This program has tried to incorporate all the right features. In fact it's probably the most fully-featured program I have tested. What a shame it's not easier to use. If a user-friendly interface is more important to you and you can do without the meal planner and nutritional database, you might consider Connoisseur instead. Keeping in mind that A Cook's Books is still beta software, it shows lots of promise.

The programs I tested, roughly in order of preference were:

1. Connoisseur 1.1.7 (great interface)
2. A Cook's Books 0.9.19 (feature rich)
3. Shop'NCook 3.1 (includes nutritional database)
4. Organized Gourmet 1.2 (calendar based meal planning)
5. MacGourmet 1.1.7 (attractive interface, includes wine notes)
6. iCuistot 1.1.1 (includes nutritional database — sort of)
7. Kitchen 1.0 (simple interface)
8. Yum 0.7.8 (simple recipe manager)
9. Measuring Cup 1.1.1 (simple interface)
10. CookWare Deluxe 2.1 (includes a very basic meal planner)
11. The Computer Cookbook 3.1

Note: There are many others that I didn't test at all because they looked less promising, based on their descriptions and other people's reviews. There is one commercial product (TheRecipeManager) I refuse to test because of the developer's crazy policy of buy before you try. While I have tried to give a fair and honest appraisal of each product, I don't pretend that each review is exhaustive or totally without error. If I have overlooked any feature, it's possibly an indication that the feature was difficult to find or unintuitive to use — so in any case the reviews are a valid record of my opinion and individual experience.

The download won't unstuff. Can't even get it to start to open. Mac OS 10.4.2

I have been using this program for over a year and find it to be a great place to gather all your recipes together into categories for easy recall. It has many features that can be useful to the most conscientious dieter/cook. The creator, Tony, and his Cats, are very dedicated and have given me lots of help with earlier "hang-ups". He (they) have things going very smoothly now. This is easily one of the best, most useful and best supported apps that I have!