Automatically generating grocery list by clicking on cooking recipes ?

[Cass P]

Hello everyone, 

New here, using TW since a year ago but only for simple notekeeping which didn't use a lot of in deep knowledge with it.

I'm currently using the latest version available of TW (the v5.2.0 I think ?).

So here's my problem. As an effort to manage a bit more my money and my time, I decided to invest in a batch cooking book which has proven great overtime.

My problem is that each week, I need to manually type the cooking list on my phone/computer.

I decided if I keep on doing it for a long time, I could as well simplify the process. I thought about using TW but I am at loss as how to do it.

What I would want ideally : 

- To click on or in the tiddler "Week 1" for example and have an automatic generated list of all the ingredients I need to buy for this week

- At the same time, I wish I could check/uncheck which recipe I would want to in this week or not and have the adapted grocery list

- As an add-on, it would be great if I could check multiples ingredients and see recipe which contain them

The first thing (in my mind) doesn't seem complicated as I can simply write the grocery list in "hard".

But I can't even begin to imagine how to "uncheck" a recipe of this week and "decrease" the grocery list accordingly. 

As a very very very basic knowledge (minimal), it would be like for exemple creating a variable for "egg" which would contain "4" if all recipe are checked but if I uncheck recipe for the tuesday which contain an egg, the variable egg will be "3".

And to do it for all ingredients / recipe.

Is someone here has an idea how to begin or to do something similar, I'm all ear !

Thank for your answers

[Télumire]

You could do it like this :

Create a data tiddler for a recipe with a quantity associated to each ingredient. To make things easier the unit will be hardcoded in grams (or whatever you like, but always the same).

Then you can select your recipe for the week with a select widget for example (https://tiddlywiki.com/#SelectWidget), use the data of the widget in a list widget (https://tiddlywiki.com/#ListWidget) which will sum the values of each unique index accross the data-tiddlers you selected.

I think you will need the count Operator (https://tiddlywiki.com/#count%20Operator),  getindex Operator (https://tiddlywiki.com/#getindex%20Operator),  sum Operator  (https://tiddlywiki.com/#sum%20Operator). Good luck and let me know if you need help to understand something :)

[Charlie Veniot]

G'day,

Whatever you are thinking, start by forgetting about TiddlyWiki for now.  Put on a "systems/business analyst" hat, and think "information modelling", what is the end-result you want, and then start going backwards, figuring out what information you need to get to the current stage you are looking at.  The current stage is information transformed somehow from some state in a previous stage.

And you keep going back and back and back, towards the raw data that however many stages back.

Consider using a spreadsheet, the first columns of which are the end result you would like.  Then it columns after that, the information as it probably needs to be before, and how it gets transformed to the current.

For example, say onions is in your grocery list for this week.  How do you figure out how many onions?  The number is based on how many onions you need for each recipe you are making this week.  But it is also based on how many servings of each recipe.  If some recipe normally calls for 1 onion to serve two people, but you are having two other people for supper, then you need twice the amount of onion.

But in the grocery list you print out, before going to the store, you might check your onion inventory in the fridge.  And you remember you picked up a whole bunch of onions last time because they were on sale.  So you realize you don't need as much onion, or maybe none at all.  So you will scratch some notes on your printed grocery list to adjust the numbers.

So mock-up a grocery list for some week, and figure out the steps to get from recipes and ingredients to a tidy grocery list.  What information do you need, and what are the transformations from A-Z.

Yeah, may not seem like fun, but I love that kind of stuff ...

[Charlie Veniot]

Example of something to keep in mind: if a recipe calls for 100grams of onion, you'll want to convert that into something useful for grocery shopping.

Probably good to instead talk about a measure of an onion for groceries.  You won't be buying a 100 g onion, so you'll want to have 1 onion, regardless of size and know you'll have left-over onion for your omelette the next day.  Because you need about 1/4 of a small onion, or whatever  of a big onion.

But if you need an amount of grams o' onion that requires a large onion, then you'll want a way to say a large onion.  Or two small onions.  Or whatever.  Knowing you'll be doing a little bit of rough math at the grocery store.

Your grocery list will get messy if you have 1 small onion and 1 large onion when the onions are in a bag.

All of that to say, don't be to quick to start building everything in TW until you can visualize (spreadsheet or whatever) get a somewhat reasonable amount of "stuff" for the big picture.

This process will help you decide to what degree of complex you want, and how/what/where to simplify when you don't want to get that bogged down in complexity, yadda yadda.

[Álvaro]

As they said, you have to think about how save the ingredients of the recipe in the tiddler, you can use the index of a data tiddler for recipe or simply the field of a tiddler for recipe.

Then you would need to use the filters and their operators. You will need to retrieve the data for your grocery list.

[Cass P]

Thank you all for your answer !

@CJ : for the practical aspect of the grocery list, I already have a pretty good idea of the function I want as I'm already be using the book for quite some time. The serving doesn't need to be adapted.

Most ingredients are either in gram or in unity (for exemple, most of the vegetable is indicated as "two onions". Pasta or rice are indicated in gram).

I am confortable enough with the recipes and cooking in general to adapt which type (volume) of onion I need even if it's roughly indicated I need 4 onions.

The biggest problem for me right now is the programming part as I have no education in the matter unfortunately haha.

@Télumire : thank for the proceding, I did understand the reasoning but I'm having troubles for implementing it.

As said just now, I don't have a good programming knowledge and I think the most I knew where how to print the famous HelloWorld haha.

For now, I did create the  data tiddler for all recipes of week 1.  I did implement a simple multiple select but with no function in it because I can't write it.

From what I understand in the pure logic form (correct me if I'm wrong) : 

I need to write a formula which will take into account which data tiddler I selected in the multiple select. With selected data tiddlers, I will need to show the name property with the index value associated (which I need to get with getindex). In case there are multiples same named property, I need to use the function SUM.

One big obstacle for me is how to use operator in Tiddlywiki. Just copy-pasting the formula doesn't seem to work because I guess I need to put something to tell Tiddler that what I'm writing is a formula. Until now, using the bracet [] for simple list were enough. I think I don't know the basic of the basic to implement formula in my tiddler. 

Do you have a good ressource to learn from ? I saw TW page for developper but I don't know if it's adapted. Ressources with already written formula from which I can inspire myself is a big help too ^^ (for example, a pratical use of the getindex in action and not in the example of the TW. If not, it's okay !).

I am not in hurry, it's more of a fun side project so learning it to do it myself could be benefical in the long term if I want to use Tiddlywiki more ^^ !

[Charlie Veniot]

There are loads of ridiculously adept TiddlyWiki folk who can help you out.

I'll have to bail, because trying to help out with this kind of thing via any forum is way too chaotic and disorganised for me to contribute towards the development of good stuff.  (Information Systems/Business Analyst and software developer I am, but I have a cognitive disability and quickly become dysfunctional in this kind of environment.)

I look forward to seeing the end-result, because what you have in mind is an awesome use-case for TiddlyWiki.

Cheers  and best regards!

[Mat]

Feeding in individual food items into TW is a tedious task. IF you intend to do this, may I recommend the NewTids macro.

<:-)

[Stobot]

I wish I had more time to dedicate to this, but the attachment should give you a very basic idea, and I left some bits in there to give you an idea of where to go from here (like servings-per-unit). There are many ways to address your question from a structure standpoint. Some make it very easy to setup recipes and ingredients but harder to use filter operators, and vice-versa. I consider this (what I've attached) as somewhat of a middle ground. Each recipe is a tiddler, each ingredient is a tiddler, tiddlers are tagged as either 'recipe' or 'ingredient' and then there's a `meal plan` tiddler with a list with buttons to select, and a dynamic list of needed ingredients with quantities. This is about as far as I can go with the short time I have available. 

If you'll allow me to digress, I've had the idea that almost the exact use-case would make a great thing to build a series of incremental tutorials on. I envision - "learning TiddlyWiki in steps" and use a recipe book to show how you can have something functional at very-little learning (mostly hard-coded) all the way through something super dynamic and complicated. Also on a somewhat related note, as there are lots of discussions in the forums about how to make documentation better, I had the thought of using something like recipes as a single, universal context on which to show examples. It's already used in some places in the official documentation, and the more consistency there is from operator to operator, widget to widget around the same concept, the easier that things can tie together in the minds of the learner - or at least I think so. 

Anyways, I hope this makes sense. Drag the .json to TiddlyWiki.com and go to meal plan and then the other tiddlers to see how it's assembled.

[John D]

One big obstacle for me is how to use operator in Tiddlywiki

@Cass, at first tiddlywiki seems a bit weird in its logic, the best advice I can give you is to search for system tiddler and see how everything is done :) I also highly recommend you to read GrokTiddlywiki, it's a very good book (the chapter Variables, Macros, and Transclusions in particular should give you all the info you need).

To sum it up : filter expressions can be used either as-is in widgets with a filter attribute (like the list widget, set widget, etc), or as a filtered transclusion (between {{{ }}}).

From what I understand in the pure logic form (correct me if I'm wrong) : 

I need to write a formula which will take into account which data tiddler I selected in the multiple select. With selected data tiddlers, I will need to show the name property with the index value associated (which I need to get with getindex). In case there are multiples same named property, I need to use the function SUM.

Yup, that sounds about right ! You may need to nest several list widget but it should be possible to do it for each ingredient in one filter. Also you may need to use the indexes Operator to get the list of ingredient name in a data tiddler

I don't have a lot of time right now but I did make a quick tool for you to use in your wiki, to easily fill up data tiddler. It should give you a good idea on how to achieve what you want.

Test it online : Data Tiddler Editor or download it here.

Demo :

 data tiddler editor.avi

I'll see tonight if I can help you further :)

In the meantime, good luck !

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[John D]

Seems like google group doesnt like avi files, here's a GIF instead :

[John D]

I ended up procrastinating so here's the solution :

!!! 1. Select the recipes

<$select field='selection' multiple size={{{[tag[recipe]type[application/json]count[]]}}}>
<$list filter='[tag[recipe]type[application/json]]'>
<option><$view field='title'/></option>
</$list>
</$select>

Recipe selected : {{!!selection}}

!!! 2. List of ingredients

<table>
<$list filter="[list[!!selection]indexes[]]" variable=ingredient>
<tr><td><<ingredient>></td><td>{{{ [list[!!selection]getindex<ingredient>sum[]]}}}</td></tr>
</$list>
</table>

Online demo : https://telumire.be/TiddlyTweaks/index.html#:%5B%5BGrocery%20list%5D%5D%5B%5Brecipe%202%5D%5D%5B%5Brecipe%201%5D%5D%5B%5BData%20Tiddler%20Editor%5D%5D

[John D]

check multiples ingredients and see recipe which contain them

To get the recipes with a specific ingredient :

<$list filter="[[apple]] [[banana]]" variable=ingredient>

<<ingredient>> = {{{ [has:index<ingredient>] }}}

</$list>

[Cass P]

Thank you all !

In the order :

@CJ : thank you for your help ! I can see how the type of plateform for developing can be awful to use haha. Hope my little project was interessing for you ! Cheers =D

@Mat : I'm keeping the NewTids macro in my mind for future use, it does seem pretty useful ! For now, with a mix of google lens on my phone and copy pasting directly in my computer, I'm doing it pretty fast ! Just a bit of tweaking and adjusting the format is fine.
I work in a field which sometime is a bit taxing mentally and I find doing simple repetitive task help me allievate the stress haha.

@Stobot : thank you for the files ! I imported both yours and John D methods and while Télumire's is more completed, I really like your idea and how you formated it ! I think it can be pretty useful for a lot of situation.

As a total newbie, TW was a bit hard to get into at first. I watched a serie of tutorial video and read some more to only begin to have a normal functionnal TW.

Your idea of incremental tutotal could be a great way to facilitate the appropriation of the TW for beginner !

@And finally Télumire/John D : thank you a lot for all your work ! I tested it and it worked just fine. It answers to all my problem and more haha.

Reading the programing behind was very interessing ! I understood where it comes from (but I never could have written it as easily as you and not for a bit of time).

Thank you as well for the ressources you listed. I will read it to optimize my utilisation of TW which is such a great tool but I only scraped the surface.

The Data Tiddler Editor you writted was way way way too complicated for me to understand but I can really appreciate what it does ^^ !

Anyway, thank you again !

With thing as they are now, I guess I can do a pretty good version of the TW I imagined. I will maybe post it here when it will be a bit fuller but I'm french so all the tiddly/recipe/ingredient would be too. Not sure if it could help someone without the book (which is "Je batch cook toute l'année" of Sandra Thomann).

Thank you all again !

[Charlie Veniot]

"Je batch cook? "  Moi too, et thank le p'tit bébé Jésus parc'que-j'batch mange...

Which makes me think right away of "Le Chiac est la solution" and something a gal once told me:  "ma soeur va shack-é up avec son boyfriend."

BTW: I love "development" with/in TiddlyWiki, from the mostly-all-about-data-and-organization (Le P'tit Aurèle) to some pretty out-there kind of "programming" (BASIC Anywhere Machine).  The stuff that can be done with TiddlyWiki is really amazing.

But collaborative "development" via forums?  Yeah, that's major heartburn for this kid.

[Télumire]

This thread was a very interesting read and a fun coding experience, thanks to all of you ^^
And @cassandra, I'm french too and happen to have an interest in cooking so please share your work ! :)

[John D]

/!\ I discovered there is a small issue with my data tiddler editor : plugins tiddlers are also affected by the viewtemplate ! This is a bit annoying so here's how to fix it :

replace

<$list filter="[is[current]get[type]match[application/json]]" variable=_>

by

<$list filter="[is[current]!is[shadow]!has[plugin-type]get[type]match[application/json]]" variable=_>

Updated tiddler : download it here

Also please note that this tool will only work with application/json data tiddler, in the form { "key":"value", "key2":"value2" } (no nested data!)

To create a new recipe, create a new tiddler and set the type to application/json (or clone an existing recipe).

If you only want this viewTemplate to work for data tiddler with the tag recipe, change the list filter to

"[tag[recipe]is[current]!is[shadow]!has[plugin-type]get[type]match[application/json]]"

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