Auto formatting of text/flavor fields. Please fix if possible

[Arnie]

This site is one of my favorite online calculator/recipe databases, but one thing that annoys me (and may have been covered already by someone else) is the automatic formatting of the text in the flavor fields. I like to make my recipes as versatile as possible, but the software seems to replace my text with stock text.

For instance, there are two versions of CAP Vanilla Custard. I want to use just “Vanilla Custard (CAP)” to let folks decide for themselves which version they would like to use based on their individual tastes (there are fans of both). But the software replaces it with v1. Additionally, I will often list 2 flavor makers for a particular flavor like “(CAP/TFA)”, to let folks know they can use either, but for some reason, when I go back to the recipe, only "(CAP) is there.

This seems to happen automatically when you first enter the recipe, but on subsequent editing and when changing them back, it seems to stay put like I want it, Because I have so many recipes, this is a real pain in the ass, and a lot of my recipes have been altered from the copies that are on ecigvape.com. Can this be fixed? I want whatever text I enter to remain unaltered. Most folks already know TFA sweetener contains sucralose, and while it may help new mixers, I think its probably not necessary. Thanks in advance for listening to me suggestion.

[ringling]

Actually I have noticed at times this is annoying as well. I keep trying to capitalize a flavor in my stash as following…

kaluha & cream - change to - Kaluha & Cream

The system keeps going back to kaluha & cream. I have even gone as far as deleting the flavor from my stash and still it comes back as kaluha & cream. Have the feeling I would have to delete every recipe with the kaluha & cream, then delete it from my stash, and hopefully work then. Of course I’m not gonna delete my recipes.

[daath]

First of all let me tell you, that I am relieved to see that you’re still active in the community I was kind of worried for a while, when I saw that you posted you “final” recipe, on reddit.

With regards to flavor naming. I think it would make more sense to make a recipe with what you prefer, be it Cap or TPA, and in the recipe notes, write that Cap can be replaced with TPA, or that flavor X is optional (or suggest that flavor X can be added at Y%)… One of the biggest problems with ELR, is that there are too many flavors

The reason you’ve experienced (Cap/TPA) have been replaced with one or the other, is because once in a while, me or someone else uses the duplicate flavor tool to clean up a bit, just as I replace TFA with TPA

As I’ve written before, one of my biggest goals in the near future, is to eliminate all duplicate flavorings, that there will only be one “Blueberry”, but many brands of that one flavor - special ones like “Blueberry Extra” will probably only have one brand though. This task will be of epic proportions, but it will lead to a much better “What can I make” and “Search by stash”…

To start with, I have contemplated changing the recipe creation page, so that you can only add flavorings that you have in your stash to recipes… I am still undecided on that though

[SthrnMixer]

[quote=“daath, post:3, topic:15244”]To start with, I have contemplated changing the recipe creation page, so that you can only add flavorings that you have in your stash to recipes… I am still undecided on that though
[/quote]

I don’t think that’s the best idea because you want people to come here for whatever DIY purpose they have, be that looking for recipes, sharing recipes, or looking for/posting ideas for recipes. If a person’s ability to create a recipe and save it is dependent on their flavor stash and they don’t have the flavor, then they are limited to putting it in notes, entering a flavor into their stash that they really don’t have, or just not entering it at all. Then they move elsewhere to accomplish their task. However, perhaps you can limit making recipes public to only those for which you have the flavor entered into the stash. I can see where not making a recipe public that a person doesn’t have flavoring for being perhaps an attempt to not let people post out things they haven’t tried…not that it would insure anything to the contrary.

As far as the flavor database is concerned…it’s a daunting task to be sure. However, using your example and only allowing “Blueberry” regardless of vendor will inherently lead to more work on the poster’s part. Because people want to know what’s in a recipe and posters want to be sure others know what they are using. There is a very substantial difference between Juicy Peach by Capella vs TPA. I don’t want to have to clarify each time…just let me type then choose the correct one.

[daath]

@SthrnMixer

I don’t think that’s the best idea because you want people to come here for whatever DIY purpose they have, be that looking for recipes, sharing recipes, or looking for/posting ideas for recipes. If a person’s ability to create a recipe and save it is dependent on their flavor stash and they don’t have the flavor, then they are limited to putting it in notes, entering a flavor into their stash that they really don’t have, or just not entering it at all. Then they move elsewhere to accomplish their task.

I guess you’re right. I need to mull it over a bit more

@SthrnMixer

owever, using your example and only allowing “Blueberry” regardless of vendor will inherently lead to more work on the poster’s part. Because people want to know what’s in a recipe and posters want to be sure others know what they are using. There is a very substantial difference between Juicy Peach by Capella vs TPA. I don’t want to have to clarify each time…just let me type then choose the correct one.

Ah, yes, don’t get me wrong - It would still be very clear on the recipe that it was Capella or The Flavor/Perfumer’s Apprentice used - I won’t be removing that - It would just be shown differently than it is now

[ringling]

Hi Daath; I agree with SthrnMixer as well. I feel that should people have to enter all their favors into the stash before they could actually enter a recipe that called for it, I think many would not do it and thus not near the creativity. Though not perfect (and what is perfect, right) the way things are at present works pretty good. Just minor annoyances at times.

[daath]

Noted. I’m convinced. I will find a way to keep it easy to create recipes, while trying to minimize the duplicates… My thoughts now, are that adding a flavor will be a four step, instead of a three step process.

• Click Add flavor
• Pick brand
• Pick flavor
• Specify %

RIght now brand and flavor are one… I feel that would be a good enough compromise. The majority of brands would be “locked down”; so that you would not be able to enter a new flavor for Capella’s for example, only pick amongst the existing ones - I’ll find a way to make it …not so annoying

[SthrnMixer]

You just rock brother!

[Arnie]

I appreciate the response daath. Yes, I am still active in the DIY community, but my concentration now is on revising/testing/updating my existing recipes. 200 is plenty.

I don’t use the stash function. In terms of “what folks can make” or that function, the truth is a person can make whatever they please with any combination of any flavors. It all up to the mixer, DIY is a very personal thing and recipes are generally made to the tastes of the creator. So people should not feel limited to what recipes others have come up with via some “what can I make function”. You can make WHATEVER your heart desires. WHATEVER your imagination can dream up. And WHATEVER your personal tastes may require. Which can and will be different from everyone else’s.

So, If you have 15 flavors, you can make hundreds of combinations, in any random way you like, whether someone has thought up a recipe for a particular combo or not. So these functions are pretty much useless to me. Since I am actively revising recipes now and updating stuff, my only concern is that I can easily copy recipes from ecigvape to this website without my recipes being altered or auto formatted.

Preserving them exactly as I created them. I don’t want to have to put in the notes that someone can sub this for that, with so many recipes, that is just more work than I am willing to do, especially when I can just use “CAP/TFA/FW” notation in the flavor text fields. It took me several days to copy all my recipes (and those of others) over from ecigvape. So I was quite upset, going back and seeing stuff removed by the software. Which forces me to tell folks to go to ecigvape to see the original and correct versions.

Sorry for the rant. But with DIY the possibilities are truly endless and not limited to 6,000 or even a hundred thousand recipes that other folks have created based on their own particular tastes. . .

[daath]

@Arnie

I appreciate the response daath. Yes, I am still active in the DIY community, but my concentration now is on revising/testing/updating my existing recipes. 200 is plenty.

That’s good to hear!

I can totally understand why you were upset. I’d be upset too, if I’d input that many recipes, and found that a lot of them had been standardized…

Yes, people really can create whatever they want - Sometimes though, it is nice to see what others have come up with. Sometimes you’re unsure of what ratio two particular flavors are. Or need inspiration as to what to make with one flavor. This is especially true for less experienced DIY’ers. “What can I make” is a great tool for those - I’ve used it myself many times, out of curiosity and to get inspiration. Your own recipes would show up for people using the functionality.

Another thing the standardization is good for, is to create interesting statistics as to minimum, average, median and maximum flavor percentage - which is also useful to many…

[Arnie]

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all the work you have put into this site. And I love the fact that so many people are sharing publicily (something I am an ardent proponent of), however I think any altering or modification of a user inputed recipe should be done by the actual mixers/prospective mixers themselves, not by the website software. Let the people who are looking at the recipe modify, adapt, adjust, and be inspired by the original “untouched” creation. I think all of the text fields should be static, just like an artist’s canvas or a writer’s notepad/paper. But that is just my opinion and you may need to standardize them to make use of the “what can I make” or other tools on the site…

Frankly, f I had known I’d have to go back to each recipe to “fix” something that had been standardized, I probably would not have taken the time to copy all the recipes on my page at ecigvape over to this site and this is especially important for Dr. Dash’s and other contributors recipes. Creativity is a great thing.It is an amazing thing, a wonderful thing, Its why I love DIY so much. That and individuality.

One of the problems with the “what can I make” tool as I see it, as an example, is if a user has cucumber and chocolate, there just are no public recipes here using that particular combination of flavor, and if those are the only two flavors a user has, how many results would be returned by the tool? Is the user to assume that because there are no recipes with both, that such a thing is not possible? And this doesn’t mean that the user is not going to like a chocolate covered cucumber recipe, or a cucumber chocolate mix. Sounds disgusting to me, but taste in juice/flavor is extraordinarily subjective and everyone is different, has different tastes and desires. I don’t want folks thinking, because there are no recipes for Tomato and Mint, that they would not like such a combination.

I do like the “make flavor base tool” and especially the search function of the website, this makes the website superior to many IMO. I also like these forums. The search function is very, very useful. Would it be as useful without standardization? Probably, from what I can remember of my Java and HTML programming days.

Yes, there are folks who just like to find recipes and use them, and nothing terribly wrong with that per se, especially for the new mixers (and I am answering questions all the time on Facebook and elsewhere about mixing as though I were some sort of DIY guru), but I’d like to see more mixers coming up with original ideas rather than posting stuff like “this is what I have. what can I make?”, which kind of annoys me even though I understand it.

[ringling]

I have a idea that could work for this flavor/vendor problem, duplicates and the like. Add a variable to the database for vendor. Take all vendor data out of the flavor name and that vendor data would be put into the new vendor variable. this way you do not have 10+ blueberry, 10+ strawberry, and so on. Choose your favor, choose from major vendors or other, and you’re set to go. Yes, I know that there will be a little work but it seems there’s a lot of work going on with the duplicates and such. What you think?

[daath]

The “What can I make” is not meant to be an exhaustive thing - I just think that rephrasing it to “What have others made with the flavors I have” would sound clunky

Of course it won’t give you recipes that doesn’t exist - Hey, maybe we can make such a tool? A sort of randomizer, perhaps coupled with the site’s statistics and make a “flavor pairing table”

I understand what you want with the “blank canvas” - it is just not very compatible the functionalities that I would like to implement on ELR… That means, to achieve what you want on ELR, you would have to make use of the notes field a lot more…

@ringling

I have a idea that could work for this flavor/vendor problem, duplicates and the like. Add a variable to the database for vendor. Take all vendor data out of the flavor name and that vendor data would be put into the new vendor variable. this way you do not have 10+ blueberry, 10+ strawberry, and so on. Choose your favor, choose from major vendors or other, and you’re set to go. Yes, I know that there will be a little work but it seems there’s a lot of work going on with the duplicates and such. What you think?

Essentially what I described earlier It is quite a task though!

[ringling]

Yes, I understand that. It would entail new routines in a number of pages I’m sure. I think the end result just might be worth it for you with the savings of time messing with dups and the like. Just might be the only way to actually solve that problem…

[daath]

I think so too! Now all I need it time!

[Alisa]

Do you have a ‘suggestions’ thread somewhere? If so, I cannot find it.

[daath]

You’re welcome to just create a new topic under General/Feedback

[Don3]

@ringling

I feel that should people have to enter all their favors into the stash before they could actually enter a recipe that called for it,

Not quite sure how that would work with the ‘adapt’ function… I have noticed that when you adapt a recipe that uses a flavor that is not in your stash, it adds it…

Knowing this, it doesn’t bother me at all to go into my stash and delete the added recipe that I don’t own, but I like keeping the original "adapted’ recipe and adding to the notes what I substituted in and keeping it set to private so duplicates don’t show up when someone searches.

[Kooljuice]

Regarding creating a new recipe with only flavors from the flavor stash.
This would be appreciated.
It would be helpful to choose flavors based on our flavor stash from a list just like the search by flavor stash search has with the check boxes. It would be nice to add all the flavors at one time but selecting them one at a time from our flavor stash is okay too.
With all the brands and flavors when I go to add a flavor in a recipe I sometimes forget what brand I have. Also seeing all your flavors in front of you as your making a recipe could help you make better choices and add flavors you had forgotten.
Creating a recipe by flavor stash would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Josephine_van_Rijn]

@Don3

it doesn’t bother me at all to go into my stash and delete the added recipe that I don’t own

I don’t mind deleting flavours from my stash either. The only problem I run into sometimes is when I’m not sure I have a certain flavour or not and have a quick look at my stash. My stash will tell me I have it because I’ve used a recipe that contains it while in actual fact I don’t have it at all. I will have to adopt @daath’s system of putting numbers on my bottles and put them in a spreadsheet for quick reference.