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Working on a recipe database


tentacles

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My buddy and I are working on a database for recipes - I keep looking at pyro formulas all over, to see what I can make with x,y,z ingredients, and it's getting irritating. I'm not sure yet if it's something we can do in Excel (we should be able to, but there may be too many limitations) or if it will be SQL or simply programmed in visual basic.

 

The big whammy will be a search page where you can put in what ingredients you have, and it will spit out what you can make with them. Also there will be a feature to list formulas with the same ingredients you have, but also other ingredients you don't have. I plan on categorizing the formulas (also with subtypes) so you can search by type of composition, and then, say, color. I was going to add what formulas I could find online and easily import/imput into the DB.

 

The search page will have a pair of list boxes, on the left side is ingredients availible, and on the right you copy the ingredients you have over, then fill out the rest of the form, and a search button.

 

I was thinking of adding some code so that when you view the recipe, you can put in how much you want to make, it will tell you how much of each ingredient to use.

 

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The specs so far:

 

recipes will have the following information:

name

ingredients (also qty, probably will be in %)

description

instructions

type

subtype

source

 

The ingredients will be listed in each recipe by assigning each ingredient a number, and there will be a table of ingredients to numbers so that misspellings/etc will be avoided.

 

Depending on what we are able to program the DB in, there may be a regular search page also where you can search by name, source or type/subtype. If it's done in Excel, this feature is already present.

 

I want to have a static list of ingredients-you-have also so that you don't have to select them all, every time.

 

I'm fishing for suggestions on possible features to add? Is there any interest for such a program? I was thinking of adding a rating field to the recipes also, so when we have tried each one, it can be given a rating (percentage, #/10 etc) to sort the search listings by. That way if you try a blue comp, and it sucks, give it a low rating, etc.

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Oh, you mean like what Passfire has on their site? It's basically what you're talking about, only thing is passfire is a pay site so people who haven't paid for it won't be able to access the reference material there.

 

I would definitely think there would be an interest in what you're trying to do, especially if it's free to all :D

 

by the way, if you've never been to passfire.com it's truelly worth the money you pay for it. Kyle did a fantastic job with all the tutorials and stuff on there.

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That's along the lines of what I would like to create - but where they give you the option to select one search chemical (ie i want a blue star based on KCLO4), I want to be able to put in everything you own - and it listing everything you can make (or narrowing it down by type/color/keyword)

 

Also, yes, I would absolutely make it free and probably open source. Although having seen what passfire has, it almost hurts to remake something that's almost what I want.. I had thought an SQL version would be ideal to put on the web, with individual accounts to keep track of favorite formulas, and what chems you have in stock, etc. Plus you can share formulas like on passfire. But having seen passfire, I'm not interested in competing with what they have there.

 

I'm checking out passfire on a guest account, very nice stuff!

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Not only does passfire have quite a bit, but your search feature is close to what the forumulary at www.jackerypyro.com has. It is free as well. Only there's not a way to make a full list of chemcals to search, give it a look and you'll see what I mean. And your small program for changing percentages into parts is alot like the one on Alan Yates site. If you could combine them into a working singular database, that would be awesome.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Just like to add a bit of an update - progress is coming along nicely, the form for adding new recipes is done, and looks great - I think you guys will like it. He's doing it in visual basic as he found a very nice, very small SQL .DLL that does everything he could possibly need. My only regret here is a web interface would need to be written from scratch, if we ever get that motivated.

 

It will absolutely be possible to import formulae from a file - I've discussed this extensively, and the most time consuming part is formatting the file (ie, copying and pasting into notepad or similar with the right tab-spacing or line breaks). If anyone wants to add their formulas, please just email or PM them to me in a format something like this:

 

What you call it (name)

Type of formula (break, star, fountain, etc)

color/subtype (glitter, blue, crackling)

description

chemical 1 name/%

chem2

etc

<empty line>

preparation instructions

your name/source

comments

rating (a number between 1 and 10, 1 being crap 10 being awesome)

<two empty lines between next formula>

 

 

note that this isn't even a decided format for submissions (dare i say it?) or import files, but the program (and SQL) are very flexible at this point (plus i have a lot of free time at work) so i'm more interested in getting some good formulas from people who want to share, than setting any formats in stone per se

 

I will be adding various formula compilations i've found on the net at some point as well. I do plan on trying to weed out duplicates, and possibly having a feature that suggests similar/duplicate formulations when you use the add formula form

 

there we go... clear as mud

 

deadman: the DB at jackerypyro is nice, but not *quite* what I want, and my compatriot was very excited to start this project, as it's been a long term dream of his to create this same program (go figure) when we're done, i'll see if i can't persuade my friend to make a webUI for this, and add some sharing/export functionality. If we can make a program that stores your formulas on your computer, and allows you to share and grab formulas off of web db (plus being able to rate the formulas and post comments!) i think that would be neat. I know I would sure like to give some of the smoke formulations I've tried a rating @%#! That's a very ambitious goal, though. for now we are interested in getting the core functionality working 100% and then going from there.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Composition, not recipe.
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  • 11 years later...

sounds like pyrodata.com

they have a selection where you can choose a chemical you have to see what stars can be made with it.

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