Calling all mixers

[everythingliquid]

Greetings you mixing wizards!

We are in the process of developing a new website and are looking to add an all bells & whistles recipes section.  

The idea is that users will be able to add there own recipes to the site using a template.  Every recipe will be publicly available and will be open to reviews and ratings.  

We will be looking to add the following features and also any others that you guys can dream up which may help to create a more open interactive mixing experience.

Current Features / Ideas:

Individual user login

Recipe Categories

Create your own mixing book, giving you the ability to select recipes from the website and save them to your own "Recipe book".  This is a privately accessibly area where you can view all of your favourite recipes

Upscale / Downscale feature, giving you the option to multiply ingredients depending on the batch size your looking to make.

Email, Print or Export the recipes to your phone, computer or tablet device.

"Purchase ingredients".  See a recipe you like?  Buy all of the necessary ingredients with just one click, saving you time and money trawling around different websites trying to find the relevant products.

So this is all a work in progress but something we are working on right now to launch alongside our new website.  Any ideas, recipes or feedback are welcomed.  We want to make mixing simple, interactive and most importantly fun for everyone!



P.S. Mods if this is in the wrong section please let me know, thought mixology would be the most relevant.

[Marcus]

I think this is great.

Was only recently I was discussing this with a friend of mine but with the idea to create an android app where users can upload and browse recipes.

Would be nice to be able to browse by ingredients.. So maybe allow to select upto 5/6 flavours and it would return you all the recipes able to be made with what you have.

Would also be nice if recipes were also searchable via categories.

Maybe ratings as well so users can view the top 10 highest rated.. Or the top 3 custards, fruits, sweets etc.

And the main thing is having which brand flavouring the recipe was made with originally

Great idea... I have 4/5 documents I saved from ECF with 1000's of recipes in.

[Marcus]

If you have the ability to turn it into an app that would be soo much speaker to browse and upload to..

Maybe a user area where all your recipes you have uploaded are stored and easy for you to view and add comments etc to?

[everythingliquid]

Sept 30, 2014 14:17:33 GMT Marcus said:

I think this is great.

Was only recently I was discussing this with a friend of mine but with the idea to create an android app where users can upload and browse recipes.

Would be nice to be able to browse by ingredients.. So maybe allow to select upto 5/6 flavours and it would return you all the recipes able to be made with what you have.

Would also be nice if recipes were also searchable via categories.

Maybe ratings as well so users can view the top 10 highest rated.. Or the top 3 custards, fruits, sweets etc.

And the main thing is having which brand flavouring the recipe was made with originally 

Great idea... I have 4/5 documents I saved from ECF with 1000's of recipes in.

Thanks for all of the input!  We are going to be compiling everyones feedback over the course of the week and pick out some of the best to implement alongside our own feature ideas.

There will be a user area like you said, maybe wasn't too clear on that in my original post.  Love the idea of the top ten recipes, flavour brands will be implemented with alternative suggestions added for those that want to mix it up.

So these 4/5 documents of recipes... any chance you would be willing to share for the greater good?

[Marcus]

Drop me an email address and I'll send you what I have saved on my phone.

Have 2 PDF files on here with over 200 recipes and the best % for each concentrate from TFA/TPA

ECF have them on their forum for anyone to download but happy to send what I have

Like I say it's an idea I have had for a little while and was trying to find someone who could build an app for it seeing how I use an ejuice calculator I have on my phone already so a place to save and view recipes on the same device would be sweet.

[it0mm0]

browse by ingredient would be great

looking forward to using your website

[tomj777]

This is a really nice idea and I applaud you (and all mixing suppliers).

When I first started mixing I read so very much (typical Tom, end result - overloaded with information). I read various FAQ's and guides on vendor sites, forums (especially this one) and received a lot of help from stars disguised people on our beloved forum.
For recipes, I searched this and a few other forums, although most I use had their seeds (or used as is) here.
The two tools, outside of the Mixology section that has been a godsend to me are

The eJuice Me Up program
and the eliquid-recipes.co.uk/ website

For a user like me, anything you put on the website should be downloadable as a .rec file using the eJuice Me Up format (this is a very simple text file with each line being a single field - a description of each field being found in a message fairly low down on the first page of this thread on the creators message board.
breaktru.com/smf/index.php/topic,205 (edit - I can't get that link to play nicely - copy / paste in browser)

Be careful with copyright - the entire vaping community is pretty much open-source but, just in case, you need some wording to protect yourself.

Regarding the recipe website - be mindful that you may be duplicating effort. That said, I see great value in what you're doing, both for your customers and for yourself.
From my own experience, it was a pretty formidable thing to get into (I know, once there, it's really quite easy).

Marcus , I would love to have an app to read the eJuiceMeUp record format on my phone, so that I could show on the fly someone a recipe rather than opening it as a text document and reading to describe ingredients.

[Marcus]

Not the only one buddy! I use "eliquid recipe manager" on Android which allows you to store recipes as well as doing all the calculations for you.

Would be nice if we could create the recipes with all the info and have then saved in some format type which can be read by "said" app and would give you all the specific measurements on your calculator interface.

Would also make it really easy to share recipes! Imagine at a vape shop or similar and being able to Bluetooth of NFC your latest recipe over!!

There is nothing out there like this at all which is why I have spoke with fellow Vapors and given it a LOT of thought!

[tomj777]

Marcus
I just revisited that forum out of curiosity regarding an Android app... Looks like the creator is open to offers to help....
breaktru.com/smf/index.php/topic,576.0.html

Sorry for the thread hijack.

[Marcus]

Will have a butchers.

Would love to get something going to fill the space in the app market.
If it could be done with a vendor or vendors working with you then the concentrates listed in the recipe could be linked straight to the product page of the specific vendor in your region/country.

Would make searching and buying very streamlined and could prove to be very lucrative for a vendor who can provide a large selection of concentrates from multiple manufacturers

[everythingliquid]

Sept 30, 2014 17:11:09 GMT tomj777 said:

This is a really nice idea and I applaud you (and all mixing suppliers).

When I first started mixing I read so very much (typical Tom, end result - overloaded with information). I read various FAQ's and guides on vendor sites, forums (especially this one) and received a lot of help from stars disguised people on our beloved forum.
For recipes, I searched this and a few other forums, although most I use had their seeds (or used as is) here.
The two tools, outside of the Mixology section that has been a godsend to me are

The eJuice Me Up program
and the eliquid-recipes.co.uk/ website

For a user like me, anything you put on the website should be downloadable as a .rec file using the eJuice Me Up format (this is a very simple text file with each line being a single field - a description of each field being found in a message fairly low down on the first page of this thread on the creators message board.
breaktru.com/smf/index.php/topic,205 (edit - I can't get that link to play nicely - copy / paste in browser)

Be careful with copyright - the entire vaping community is pretty much open-source but, just in case, you need some wording to protect yourself.

Regarding the recipe website - be mindful that you may be duplicating effort. That said, I see great value in what you're doing, both for your customers and for yourself.
From my own experience, it was a pretty formidable thing to get into (I know, once there, it's really quite easy).

Marcus , I would love to have an app to read the eJuiceMeUp record format on my phone, so that I could show on the fly someone a recipe rather than opening it as a text document and reading to describe ingredients. 

Thanks Tom, really appreciate the time you've taken to share your personal experience / feedback for our idea.

In regards to copyright, we really don't intend on stealing peoples recipes but more allowing users to submit ones that they are willing to share.  We would like users to be able to be able to see who wrote the recipes as opposed to passing them off as our own.  The idea was more to create an open source style database, allowing people to view popular recipes and make them at home.

Been getting some brilliant ideas across the board, one was a suggestion of allowing users to enter concentrates they currently own to bring up a list of recipes that include these concentrates.

Sounds like the coding for the site could be a tricky / expensive operation, however I reckon this could be a valuable tool for those who enjoy mixing others recipes.

Thanks again for your input everybody!

[Marcus]

This was the dilemma I had when I was thinking about making an app.
The initial outlay, though TBH I would be happy to pay a 99p or £1.50 to download and use if I saw it on the Google play store for instance.

The other option is to try and find someone already involved with the vaping community who can code!!

The idea of being able to select what you have and a list of things you could make would be the USP
similar things exist for food, I know there are 1 or two websites where you can do this so it's definitely do-able.

Also any recipe posted online is pretty much "open source" can't see how you could claim copyright to something that anyone could make and you are informing people how to make it.
Its not like you will be gaining financially from it so I wouldn't see any problem.

[tomj777]

Regarding copyright, my thoughts were most certainly not the possibility one might steal, more the risk of `cease and desist` type letters or worse still some litigious organisation with money objecting to, say, a recipe for, say, Silky Cut tobacco flavour (regardless of the recipe) or something described as tasting like some Big Tobacco owned eliquid... I guess the former is about trade mark protection... Either way, I found myself wondering about the exposure to any commercial enterprise, however altruistic (and what you're proposing truly is). I think for a community / not for profit that there isn't quite the same exposure (how do you sue a community)... Note that I've not a legal background.

I agree, if you had a coder with time on their hands and willingness, it's viable, especially if KISS principles are applied.

More than that, everythingliquid, you're proposing a very useful resource and, if my skill set was to fit, I'd be inclined to offer my hobbyist help.

Tom (an early step within the product management lifecycle is to gather as many considerations, both positive and `negative`, and explore with a very cold light - there you get a hint of my skill set).

[Marcus]

Agreed! If I had any skulls to offer I certainly would have already made an app and would be more than willing to help you.

Hopefully this can get off the ground.

All it would need to start a user base is a decent looking finished site with a clean, easy to use interface and then a few links on the appropriate forums, reddit etc and you have the start of a growing community

If you get it up and running I would be happy to enter every recipe I have saved! Hell I worked in data input for 2 years