More section:
Change the table of calculated options on the left to a couple dropdowns for alternative formulas. There’s no need to see the calculated values of all for color/srm formulas at the same time. This will allow the more section to be shrunk down some and not eat up so much vertical space. Low priority.
Make the recipe stats a sticky nav bar, so when you scroll below it then it stays at the top of the screen. This was a great recommendation by blue ball brewer @
https://www.brewersfriend.com/forum/threads/possible-change-to-recipe-editor.12045/ moderate priority
Browsing recipes: When viewing an existing public recipe, I would change “copy” to “copy and edit”. It’s not exactly clear what you need to do to open the recipe in the editor. Low priority.
In addition to everything I’ve stated previously regarding the last updates beta testing discussion thread reposted, and expanded slightly below.
Creating/managing my groups:
Love the homebrew group setting, where are you pulling the data from? I’d guess that it’s the AHA site but the homebrew group listings aren’t exactly data friendly directly from the site as it’s not formatted very well last I looked.
I’d like the option that the groups have public/private settings similar to how facebook handles it. Public vs private, open vs closed vs invite only via link (permanent or temporary), with the group having an optional question for vetting members before an admin approves the member joining.
For example above, I could not search, add, or otherwise request to join another users group without an invitation.
Would be nice to invite members via a permanent link to join, or to be able to search brewers friend members like how “start a new conversation” works without knowing the other users email address.
moderate priority
This would also not change any existing user workflows or create confusion in existing recipes.
“auto scale down:” There are different ways to scale recipes, a link to the formula being applied here would be beneficial or at the least an explanation on how this works. For example, is the grain bill % being held as a constant, or are specialty grains kept at a lb/gal consistent basis? Are ibus changed due to scaling of the hops? Is the grain bill readjusted slightly to keep SRM consistent?
In the group dashboard page (my groups/GroupName) there should be a tab (say between members, and inventory) that is for group recipes that lists all group recipes, style, abv, IBU, and recipe owner.
Recipe editor:
I think it would be better to have the author and the group setting be separate variables so you can still see who made the recipe even though it’s now part of the group. Wouldn't it make more sense to keep the author input field where it is, and either add a new field, or place a "share with groups" multiselect dropdown w/ checkboxes near the share recipe radio? Currently, there's a few issues I see, 1) Ownership and crediting. As it stands, if I share a recipe with a group, I am no longer the author. This is a big issue for some. 2) I can only share a recipe with one group. I know there will be some users that wish to share recipes with more than one group. Alternatively, perhaps move this function outside the recipe editor, and instead move it to the "My Recipes dashboard” as an option for “Bulk actions”
High priority due to ownership of intellectual property.
I see an animation was added to the post boil volume calc button. Good solution to the problem that’s already been discussed at length in other posts.
The mash steps are also movable via clickable arrows. Personally I would move the arrow below the trash can, it will make each section smaller as currently the arrow is all by itself on a row and adding height to each step. Done, but needs to be documented.
Several sections have hamburger menus added with links to relevant standalone calculators (mash guidelines, water chemistry, yeast, priming). Needs documentation.
The layout of the mash guidelines section was redone, but spacing and alignment needs to be reviewed. Personally, I would translate the target temp/time to the right, add left padding to the start temp so it aligns with the type dropdown box, remove some padding from the right of Desc
Inventory item:
Validate the units available based on the type/form of the ingredient. IE Hops->Pellet should only show weight units, hop->extract should only show volume etc.
New “My recipes” page.
Love the versioning file system, I’ve been using hosting my recipe files on github and using the version history in a similar manner but this is much easier to read.
However I would recommend disabling the default of checkbox for snapshots, as I doubt many of the non CS oriented will be familiar with the concept. I’d add a tooltip explanation as well and/or a link to the documentation for it (
https://docs.brewersfriend.com/faq/brew-sessions#brewsessions1) which is not very thorough. Enabling snapshots by default will lead to many users thinking their recipes were deleted until they figure it out.
The recipe folder structure is a great addition. I’d suggest the ability to make a bulk action of exporting the selected recipe files as well. Yes, an export recipes function exists but currently it only exports ALL user recipes and is not able to pick and choose.
There’s a horizontal scroll bar for me at least on the div foldertablecontainer, just need to add an overflow-x: hidden; to .folderlist.recipelist .recipeitems.folderitems and it’ll take care of it unless you want to mess with the sizing again and use relative sizes instead of fixed max widths.
High priority, Five second fix, there’s no reason this hasn’t been patched.
Also the bulk actions div needs to be realigned. Looks like this was done.
Searchable recipes for specific ingredients, lovely. Didn’t know that was there. Would make a suggestion that it automatically updates the search based on an event listener like onchange instead of solely listening for keypress of enter or when search is clicked. That way it will behave identically to searches for users on private messages, and ingredients in the recipe editor. Low priority for smoother UX.
Side note not related to this update:
I don’t see an option for IBU per gallons in either fermentables, custom, or in hops. This can be used for example to support blending finished beers, which is extremely common in pro settings, or prehopped wort. Low-medium priority, higher priority for pros, especially sour/funky brewers than homebrewers.
pH would be nice too for those blending sour beers, although the math is not straightforward due to differences in gravity as well, there's a spreadsheet I have saved from milk the funk somewhere that has it if interested. Low priority.
Question regarding the changelog, there’s an entry below, but I do not see any place where mash thickness can be set as an input parameter or a displayed calculation in the recipe editor. I did not explore the brew session logs.
“Mash Guidelines water calc.
Auto adjusts strike water with mash thickness change.”
Alright, I think that's everything I've got right now.