In article >,
Jim Elbrecht > wrote:

> A couple of comments on Isaac's list-
>
> isw > wrote:
> -snip-
> >
> >There are a lot of issues with using any sort of text editor for recipes:
> >
> >It makes it very difficult to treat the ingredients differently from the
> >preparation method, etc. -- you want to be able to search on "egg"
> >without finding every instance of "beat the egg whites ..." for example.
> >
> >Separating recipes in any way into separate files is awkward, too; where
> >do you put "sausage gravy" -- in "sausages" or in "gravies"? The huge
> >advantage of having a single database is that any given item can be in
> >as many different categories as it needs to, and it can be moved
> >instantly between them.
> >
> >Also, it's nice to be able to link recipes that are related -- say, a
> >frosting you use with several cakes, so you don't need to have the
> >frosting repeated over and over -- and what do you do when you need to
> >change something about the frosting; find every instance of it and
> >change them all? Good luck.
> >
> >Or how about scaling recipes for different numbers of servings? Word
> >can't even begin to do that.
> >
> >Or attaching ratings -- how can you search for all your "three star"
> >recipes, using Word?
>
> This is one that's no problem-- I have 3, 4, & 5 start recipes marked
> with 3,4, & 5 asterisks.

OK. Now how do you get a list of just the recipes with three or more
asterisks?

Or view all your top-rated lamb dishes?

I know you can find all the instances of three (or maybe more, if your
app allows certain sorts of wildcard matches) asterisks, but generally
you don't want to find the asterisks -- you want to look at the names of
the recipes.

> I still like MSWord for recipes I'm working on. I find it easier to
> annotate & change. That might just be because of familiarity- but
> I'm an old dog & it's hard to learn new tricks.

I just use the editing capabilities of the recipe app (which are really
just the generic OS X text editing functions)-- plus a couple of
Applescripts I wrote to regularize the abbreviations and so on (it's
just amazing how many ways people have found to abbreviate "teaspoons"
or "tablespoons"). Plus, if you're not careful when using a full-tilt
word processor, you can wind up with some odd formatting cruft in your
recipes.

Isaac