Pat,I can enable macros in exel through tools/security/macro security and stting level to low.

Comments below based on "Maxi-BIAB Calculator Jul06(sg).xls"

When I load this version (and the previous macro-enabled one) I get a pop-up with a warning about macros:

This workbook contains links to other data sources.

• If you update the links, Excel will attempt to retrieve the latest data.
• If you don't update the lihnks, Excel will use the previous information.

Note that data links can be used to access and share confidential information without your permission and possibly perform other harmful actions. Do not update the links if you do not trust the sources of this workbook.

"Update" "Don't Update" "Help"

If I click on "Don't Update" then the hop chart remains. If I click on "Update" then the rainbow content of the chart goes blank. Where is it trying to go to get an update? The workbook should be self-contained, I feel.


I forgot that not all pots are straight-sided. So yes, pot volume instead of pot depth makes sense.

Confirming that, yes, the quantities change when switching among the choices for units (Metric, English (US), Imperial (UK)). I have enabled macros.

Pat wrote:
ianh: I have been meaning to have a proper look at your Designer for ages. Just had another look then. There's so much great stuff in it. Love the way you have a brew history - brilliant! Also love the Brew Day sheet. Lot of your layout stuff too has things I would have never thought of such as the cells with no border etc.

And, your balance chart is actually very clear! Didn't realise it had the style square and the red dot. Perfect!

Hope you don't mind the things that have been thieved from your spreadsheet and thanks again for continuing to contribute to this thread.

Pat

No problems Pat, it does what I want it to and it is left unprotected so if you want to take bits feel free, if you need anything explaining just ask.

cheers

Ian

sigurdur wrote: 5. Styles for the recipes so we will be able to steal the "box" idea from ianh (thanks ianh )
Cheers,
Sig.

Perphaps for styles the BJCP list is more appropiate than the Australian one I used, attached is a worksheet of the BJCP styles, The list is copyrighted, I got permission to use it in my spreadsheet my sending them an email.

If you want to make it smaller, delete all the comments and the carbonation levels.
cheers

Ian

Sigurdur,

Could you post the updated version? I'll take a look at it tomorrow.

Pat wrote:Stux, you have been busy! Very impressive! I can't believe how much you get done so quickly. I'm onto you though - trying to change the colours on me while my main computer was broken (I have some more formula stuff for you to improve but I'll post that in a day or two.)

From previous 'beta-testing,' I know how easy it is to get lost in details and forget the primary purpose of the tool being created. I don't think this is happening here yet, however it is at this stage where it is most likely to happen that we become blind. So, what I'd like to do here in this post is focus on how the calculator might be 'seen' (interpreted/understood) by a first-time user or new all-grainer and some ways in which we might be able to improve their experience and accelerate their education.

Yes, but another thing it is easy to get lost in is the continual quest for more and more and more.

I will go through your individual points below soon, but I also think that what we have right now is very close to being a MAJOR improvement to the 1.x calculator and that we should finish it off, and release it.

I would propose that the more advanced features be incorporated into the "3.0 Draft" calculator, and then the 2.x Calculator would essentially enter maintenance.

The current 2.0 Draft is so much better than the 1.0 draft that it almost seems criminal to hold it back because of wanting to add more and more and more to it. Get it finished, and get it out there.

We can then work on 3.0 if we want.

So here are some points and thoughts (with a very jumbled order of importance) on what I'll call...

[center]The Big Picture[/center]

1. Three Colours/shadings Needed

There are actually four distinct cells in the sheet and all of them need to be distinguished. (In the help files etc, this distinction will be very important.) The cells are...

a) Clear Cells: Require no user input

b) Dark Green Cells: Can (and usually need) to be changed by every user including virgin all-grainers.

c) Brew History Cells (previously matching BIABrewer.info light green): Cells that must be filled in during a brew day by new brewers to build their history or old brewers to check their figures.

d) Advanced Estimate Cells: Previously with a green shade: These should only be changed by experienced brewers or by new brewers when instructed to do so or when they have completed their brew history figures over 5 brews.

So, a primary purpose of the new calculator is to be a main educational tool of the site. I'll be having to write and re-write hours of info on this (e.g. all of 'BIABrewer.info Essentials' will need a total re-write and the BIAB recipe templates and at least 5 'BIABrewer.info' standard recipes) and it is very important to me to have a totally unambiguous base to work from. Make sense? (Experienced users can change the colours to whatever but I really need this base.)

The previous colour scheme also matched the site colours and this helps users identify it with BIABrewer.info. I also found it appealing/logical but we'll never all agree on that I suppose. Maybe sig can creat some 'skins'?

I agree, but the original new colour scheme of "white and dark green" was too harsh, there was too much dark green, to the point where it lost the meaning of "special cells that all beginnners should edit"

I propose three main hilite colours

biabrewer dark green
light green (aka original calculator light green)
and light grey.

I would use the Dark green for Very Important fields and page design elements

The light green would be used for editable fields, ie the intermediate/advanced fields

and Light Grey would be used for the history, and perhaps other fields on other pages where it makes sense.

White cells are read only.

The Gravity/Hop Chart

I have written this above but once again, this chart is not a great one. I don't want to field a lot of questions where someone says, "I just put an IPA into the calculator and it is telling me it is extra hoppy." . This would be a perfectly sensible question from a new brewer looking at the current chart.

I think given stux and sigurdur's skills, we can come up with a much better dynamic chart/diagram/pic. I am thinking on this so leave it with me for a bit.

The hop balance chart is cool, but really, belongs more in a recipe designer.

I think we should pull it out of this version of the calculator, or perhaps put it in a separate tab, much like the Maxi-tabs which get deleted for the Standard BIAB Calculotr.

The thing to do at the moment is for Sig to work on a standalone spreadsheet which takes SG and IBUs and Possibly a style popup and draws a lovely BU/GU chart with a style rectange as a standalone sheet.

We can then add that into the BIAB Calculator for 3.0, if it works

Its obvious that 3.0 will have more recipe formulation support.

Combining Grain and Hop Bill Sheets

I'm not sure this is a good idea but I'll throw it out here anyway as I have a good gut feeling on this idea...

If we do have a gravity/hops chart, diagram or pic it might be sensible if the grain bill and hops were on the same sheet called 'Ingredients'. I can see several advantages to this however I can't quite picture the end result in my mind yet.

What I'm seeing as an advantage of this though is that the page could result in a nice clean logical table finishing with a dynamic gravity/hop (style) chart/pic. I'll post a draft if I get a brainstorm.

I do think its a good idea to combine the Grain Bill / Hop Bill/ Yeast / Mash details etc... into one page...

But again, right now... I think we should just focus on getting this baby out there.

Advanced Sheet

If grain/hop sheets were combined, a third sheet with lots of interesting figures such as what is currently seen at the bottom of the 'Grain Bill' sheet could be added there. I think that would be cool. A lot of figures though should not be presented to newbies as they distract them from learning the basics.

What we should have though on the first sheet is a line underneath 'Approximate Mash Volume' is a, 'Can you brew this in your pot?' line with a 'Yes/No' result. (This also would mean adding a 'dark green' pot volume field somewhere but it would be worth it.)

Yes, the problem with that is it requires a Mash Volume field, or a Kettle Height field... as you can see in the Maxi-BIAB Equipment tab.

I specifically did not add Mash Volume, or Kettle Height to the BIAB tab as I was trying to keep it as simple as possible...

BUT if you wanted to we could, it would then simplify the Maxi-BIAB parts...

Now, obvously we can't use Kettle Height as the primary field, as many users don't use straight sided pots, but rather Keggles and other vessels.

I would propose using "Kettle Volume" or something, and then I could actually derive the height from the volume...

for example, 50L Vol / diameter 40cm = approx 40cm height

For keggles and stuff the height parameter derived wouldn't really matter.

Now, if your Mash Volume exceeds your pot volume then the warning would be something like "Mash Volume exceeds Kettle Volume, Top up kettle to BLAH after Mash out"

or something like that... the point is, it can tell you how many L to hold back... but this does move away from pure Full Volume BIAB... and this is something the Maxi-BIAB Calculator already works out...

NOW, if we were going to support stiffer mashes to allow people to use smaller than full volume mash pots, what would the limit be? 6:1? 5:1? 4:1?

I dunno, but for example, when someone does a double batch in a 70L pot, how much water do they end up holding back?

I can work out these questions with the Maxi-BIAB Calcultor, but true user experience, is better.

Advanced Button

There are three fields that I really like and understand the logic behind. They are the percentage and ratio fields on the first sheet. They will however confuse/distract new users for sure. I'm wondering if they (and some other fields) can be hidden using some sort of Beginner/Advanced button? This is the greatest danger of developing the calculator - losing sight of it's primary purpose which is to get new brewers under way. Such a button might retain this while giving experienced users lots of the fancy stuff.

I have already added a "hide_scratch" and "show_scratch" macro which hide/shows the fields pointed to by the named range X_Scratch.

We could easily add a new set of macros and another named range which could be used to hide/show ANY fields which can then easily be defined by modifying a named range.

Now, I'm of two minds about hiding the fields. On the one hand it simplifies the spreadsheet for the first impression of a new user, on the other hand, the reason I added those fields was to prevent a new user overwriting a calculated value because they weren't happy with the value derived, and to make it easy to tweak the derived values.

Hiding these fields hides the workings.... but if we have a button to show it, perhaps its not so bad.

Now, an interesting point with the History is that if you copy Brew Length and the various volumes at various points, then we can actually work out the true evaporation and kettle loss etc, and then derive the true Evaporation Correction Factor and Kettle Trub Percentage etc, again, this would flow with the History being grey/lt green, perhaps Lt green are the cells to change, and the grey ones are the read only?

And yes, perhaps we should have a button which copies relevant data into the Actuals/History section.

I had thought it would make sense to have


Current -> 1
1 -> 2
2 -> 3
3 -> 4
4 -> 5
and 5 gets deleted...

So the column would actually be newest to oldest in L->R order and they would fall off the end.

Doing this is actually easier logic than "finding the empty column, using that, and then if there is no empty column, shifting everything right, and using the last column"

Maybe add a date field.

Yeast and Fermentation Info

Maybe on the first page (or 'Ingredients' page if it eventuates) we should add in what yeast/s should be used for the recipe and some basic fermentation instructions. Nothing fancy but just somewhere that the user can type in some info.

One of my philiosophy's of this version 2.0 has been to make it possible to use a Calculator as a means to distribute a recipe

Mash Temp, Yeast type and fermentation temp are necessary characteristics.

I would suggest we could just put a simple field after Recipe Name for the moment

"Wyeast 1056 @ 17C"

Again, a future version 3.0 we could have a much more indepth section on grain/hops/yeast/adjuncts if we wanted... but we are moving further and further away from the goal of getting a vastly improved version of the 1.x calculator out there.

Recipe Report Button

At the moment on BIABrewer.info, we have a 'Recipe Template' which I will also be re-writing. Currently it is laborious to follow the template but imagine how easy it will be with this calculator to print and paste a .txt file? I think we can come up with a report that will set the standard for all recipe reports.

I think this is a good idea.

For an example of how it could work have a look at the EZ Water Calculator http://www.ezwatercalculator.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There is a "Raw Text Format" tab which can either be exported or just copy/pasted

And I think we should use it for 2.0

Summary
So, they are my current ideas on layout. Don't hesitate to let me know if you agree/disagree. Bear in mind though, this tool's primary purpose is an educational one to help new BIABrewers and the slightest oversight we make here has long-term ramifications. I'd also like to see the calculator accommodate advanced users and I suspect that, with a little thought, this will be very easy.

Thanks again to everyone here who is contributing. I'm really very impressed with your detail and skills.


Pat

So, as I see it, the goals for 2.0 should be

1) Fix the bugs in 1.0 [check]
2) Fix the flaws in 1.0 [check]
3) Full Metric/US/UK Imperial support [just about]
4) Recipe Transmission/Scaling/Conversion [check]
5) Look & Feel overhaul [getting there]
6) Any Important Features which *must* be added [uhuh]

And the other Wouldn't It Be Cool features, which are not already there, should probably be held off until the next major version.

sigurdur wrote:Skinning is possible I guess, you will have to tell me what colours you want in each "theme/skin". The theme can be chosen from a drop down list when a colours have been decided.

Its possible, but i'm of the opinion that skinning is an over-complication which gets the end user nothing

If we get the colour scheme right it can both be clear and usable and biabrewer branded

smyrnaquince wrote:Sigurdur,

Could you post the updated version? I'll take a look at it tomorrow.

2nded

I'm considering having another crack at the spreadsheet later... but if I have a crack at the last version you uploaded, then you might need to make your changes again

How did you make it so that Row 1 doesn't scroll?

Pat,

Try a color wheel? http://colorschemedesigner.com/
http://www.worqx.com/color/complements.htm

Sorry, Try a colour wheel?

The Calculator 2.x is coming together quite nicely!

Sigurdur -- The Hop Chart works for me now. It does not disappear and the dot moves appropriately.

Stux -- To get the top row not to scroll, on the View tab, use Freeze Panes.

I agree that skins don't add much. Let's not get caught up in Creeping Featurism (Feeping Creaturism, as we used to say).

Now, if your Mash Volume exceeds your pot volume then the warning would be something like "Mash Volume exceeds Kettle Volume, Top up kettle to BLAH after Mash out"

This would actually be good for people like me. It turns out that for a Mini-BIAB, my pot is 4 gallons, not 5 gallons, so to do a half-batch (2.5 gallons into bottles), I can't get all the water plus grain into the pot.

Yes, but another thing it is easy to get lost in is the continual quest for more and more and more.

I will go through your individual points below soon, but I also think that what we have right now is very close to being a MAJOR improvement to the 1.x calculator and that we should finish it off, and release it.

I would propose that the more advanced features be incorporated into the "3.0 Draft" calculator, and then the 2.x Calculator would essentially enter maintenance.

I agree. Make whatever is in the current 2.x solid and release it.

When you change from Metric to US etc, none of the fields in 'Brew History are changing. Not sure how you'll sort that one out but it would be greatly appreciated and avoid a lot of confusion etc.

I noticed this, too, but is willing to let it go because it was *my* brew history and I know the units. I agree, though, that it would be better if the brew history converted, as well.

Regarding the Brew History:

• The pot diameter is auto-filled. At first this surprised me, but then I realized that this chart is to develop a history for the brewer and he can save a second spreadsheet if he uses a second (different) pot to develop a history for that pot. The pot diameter does convert with a change in units.
• Some of the entries in the Brew History are calculated and some are filled in by the user. We should highlight/color the cells that we expect the user to fill in.
• I filled in a Brew History column (cells without formulas) to match my Column B entries. For English (US), these entries in the Brew History did not get calculated correctly:
  • Efficiency into Fermenter
  • End of Boil Efficiency
  • Efficiency into Kettle
  • Grain Absorption
• When I clicked to convert to Metric, as expected the entries I typed in did not convert, so pretty much everything was wrong

Let me preface this by saying that you guys are doing a great job on the Calculator. I am afraid that it sounds like I am always complaining. All I'm trying to do is find the bugs, not throw stones!

Just a couple of quick notes after having looked at the "Layout" version:

• The "Fermenter Trub Percentage" should be calculated in the Brew History even though it is a "fill-in" in the Column B entries. The user will want to plug the average of these percentages from the Brew History back into Column B for future brews--we shouldn't make him do the math to come up with the percentage.
• The formula in the "Evaporation Correction Factor" row in the Brew History is wrong. It divides the Brew History "Evaporation Per Hour" by the Estimated (Column B) "Evaporation Per Hour", which doesn't make any sense. This error is also in the non-layout version.

From a quick look at it, I quite liked the layout and thought it looked a lot easier to use than V1.0
For me, the colours looked good too.

You're definitely on the right track

HC

stux wrote:How did you make it so that Row 1 doesn't scroll?

In Excel 2007 I go View, Freeze Panes, Freeze top Row

Edit should read all posts before answering.

Pat wrote:[I'd normally try and condense the below by re-writing it a hundred times but I want to think on the whole layout side of things more asap so apologies for the stream of consciousness and non-acknowledgement of some posts above.]

Whilst the below is focussed on replying to stux's posts today, it is relevant to all of you who are contributing here so well. Truly impressive effort by all of you.

Feel sorry for you stux having to wade through all the posts above. Great effort mate and once again, I hope you aren't feeling steam-rolled!

Here's a few thoughts - no major worries as you'll see...

Releasing BIC 2.0

I'm happy for the BIABrewer.info Calculator 2.0 (BIC2.0 ??? )

Not a fan of the acronymn "BIC"

I would suggest

"BIABrewer.info BIAB Calculator 2.0"

The shortened version would be

"BIAB Calculator 2.0"

As we really don't need to have "BIABrewer.info" in the file name, it is in big bold letters in the frozen first row.

Speaking of frozen first rows. If we make all the tabs have the same frozen first row, that will probably look neat.

and then the acronymn would be "BC2" or "BC2.0"

to be put on the main forum pretty much anytime as a beta version. This means, as you say, a much improved version is out there for everyone to enjoy. What I couldn't do is put it out there now as the only version as it will take 50-100 hours to re-write the forum so as it matches all other BIABrewer Essentials and 'official' BIABrewer recipes, let alone writing a guide on how to use BIBC 2.0. (The latter won't be too hard as the BeerSmith2 Guide was written as a semi-draft for BIC 2.0.)

Well, I still want to get this wrapped up in the next few weeks as a 2.0. We can post it as "2.0 Beta" or something in the same place as Calculator 1.1.

I would suggest instead of immediately editing everything, it might be worthwhile make a few notes on various threads that there is a 2.0 Beta available.

Making it the 'official version' and only version available before everything is re-written will cause many problems. (I can just see PistolPatch having to write essays explaining 'THe Commentary' only matches this calculator not that one )

There's no need to make it the only official version right now. If the easiest thing to do is to have 1.0 and 2.0 available as various documents are modified then that is what should be done.

So, no problems in getting it out there but people must realise that I can't instantly re-write the guts of the forum - it is really hard and I need Simon's help to do it as individual posts have to be date=stamped so as they appear in correct order etc, etc.

But the thing to realise is the guts have never really been finished or perfect anyway right? I mean, The Commentary is a very important document, but that's not finished, right?

I'm sure we all would like everything to be perfect, but its not, and probably never will be, so perhaps there shouldn't be so much re-re-re-writing and the focus should perhaps be on getting the new documents to be updated before going back to work on the old ones?

I can however write the, "Guide to the BIABrewer,info Calculator 2.0 (BIC 2.0)" before doing any of the other 'Essentials'. As long as the basics are in place (e.g. a name such as BIC 2.0) I am happy with it being unleashed even before the guide is ready. Some other basics are...

Yes, A guide to the BIAB Calculator 2.0, would be good article, a necessary article, and should be the first article written.

The other recipe posts can easily be amended with a 2.0 Calculator post

My experience with writing this sortof stuff is don't use "BIC 2.0" or "BC2.0" in the guide, use the long hand "BIAB Calculator 2.0" every time you refer to the calculator.

(those who haven't worked it out yet, I develop, release and maintain software for a living)

Colours and Layout

Before writing this post, I started to employ the three colours on a draft of a new layout and then noticed several logical errors. For example, the logic of the colours on Sheet 1 does not match the logic of the colours on Sheet 2 and 3. After finishing here, I am going to focus on how to solve this logic problem.

I noticed the dull green was back

In your latest layout you're using

Dark Green, Mid Green and a sortof Khaki/Dull Green

I'm conerned that the Mid and Dark green hues are too close together, this is why I had used the Light Green colour that was a strong contrast to the Dark green colour

The dull green does look okay, but I can't actually seem to pick that with the Office 11 colour picker any more :(

I'm attaching an image which shows the four colours I thought worked well for cell hiliting The dark and light grey are also a good contrast, and I would suggest them for the history area

These sort of things have serious ramifications and can easily be over-looked.

It also takes many hours changing layouts etc so what I would ask is that any layout changes I propose are considered/discussed seriously amongst the majority of those contributing here before being reversed. So, I propose...

If I make a layout change to the latest version in this thread, I will append it with 'Layout'.

I would that until it is determined whether the proposal is accepted, those of you writing formulas etc, add formulas to both versions (if it is easy for you) and post both the original version and layout version with your improvements. This will save me many hours. Once it is discussed whether my proposed layout (or anyone else's) is accepted or not, then we can delete one of the files from the 'latest.'

Maintaining correct formulas/behaviour in two places is also very hard, especially if the formulas are getting broken due to layout changes. In fact, I would say that debugging the formulas/macros and getting them correct is harder, and in fact, more critical.

I would suggest that the layout experiments can and should continue, and the 'formulas' can continue. When you all are happy with the final layout 'look' then that should be ported back to the definitive version of the sheet

Alternatively, if we are all agreed on a change/layout change, then that should be immediately ported to the definitive version of the sheet.

I think we are all agreed that the Very Important fields need a dark colouring, and that is the Dark Green. The editable fields need another colouring. Non editable fields should be white, and important values are bold

I think that another pair of colours should be used for the History, and I think that should be Light and Dark grey

If we do this, it will enable layout changes to be discussed properly and prevent proposers having to re-do all layout changes from scratch.

Gravity Hop Chart

I think Sig has done an excellent job on reducing the file size and plotting the ratio. Making it work properly though would require using ianh's idea of a lookup table on styles. (See acknowledgements below). I, agree stux that this is not a priority now but it should perhaps be moved to an advanced tab that becomes visible when clicked. (Sig could probably do this easilly.)

Not sure if we can hide/show tabs

I am going to draft a new layout working off the latest version here and I will move the chart to another tab.

Combining Grain and Hop Bill Sheet

I am going to have a crack at this as it may solve the logical colour problem I mentioned above.

I find the new combined grain/hop bill sheet slightly confusing.

One of the beautiful things with the current calculator is its driven by OG. Pretty much everything else doesn't matter, ie Efficiency etc except for the recipe ratios and the final OG. Everything else will be derived from that.

Hop Bill is a bit different because it has to be driven by calculated or defined IBUs and to calculate the original recipes IBUs you need its volume/gravity... except that the final gravity is assumed to be the OG.

Are you trying to capture all possible bits of information that people have lying around about a certain recipe, or are you trying to build a BIAB Calculator which can do its job without complication?

Advanced Sheet

I like your solution to the kettle volume thing. Excellent! I'll whack a field in for it in my new layout draft.

I also agree that BIC 2.0 should only address full-volume BIAB. If the warning comes up, then the answer is to reduce 'Volume into Kegs/Bottles' or seek advice on Maxi_BIAB techniques. (Maybe Maxi-BIAB tabs should remain in BIC 2.0 but only become visible when the Advanced button is clicked?)

Not convinced that "Grain Dry Volume" or "Grain Dry Displacement" is actually an "advanced" thing. Its a very useful bit of information for all brewers to have...

And I thought it actually made very good sense to have it on the grain bill page, most of the other numbers are less helpful, or perhaps less critical, and most of those numbers are there because the Maxi calculator uses them, and they had to go somewhere

Yes, the extract points is "advanced" and actually its just a necessary value, and for educational purposes I displayed it

Advanced Button

I'm also in two minds about hiding the fields. Maybe the advanced button could simply change those fields from being non-editable to editable

there is no such thing though, as we're not using protection on this spreadsheet

as well as making an 'advanced' tab visible (and maybe the Maxi ones?) Maybe with a pop-up warning? If this is a good idea, maybe Sig could do it easily? If he (or you) can do stuff like this easily then why not?

I don't think there is much harm for now leaving the 'adjustment' cells visible.

I also love your idea of moving the history to the right on each brew. Can you really do that? (Calculated history cells all need modifying btw, to suit your 'named cells' as I can't work this side of things as yet and just referred to cells sorry).

I'm pretty certain that we can do this. We will also need to add metric/imperial conversions, which is a big PITA, but can be done.

Yes, all correction factors etc would be derived from the bare minimum information. I should be able to work out the critical values to record.

Essentially the columsn would be

Actual, Previous #1, #2, #3, #4 etc

Not sure on the headings... but i'll take a look at what *must* be recorded, and then generate everyhting else. Later i'll add the metrification stuff

However, a single brew should never update automatically any of the 'Estimate Fields'. The new brewer must do five brews to get an average if that makes sense.

No, never.

The way I see it, the user records the critical information, the calculator derives the rest of the information FOR THAT BREW. The previous brew is copied to the right and the average updates with all the history. The user can then choose to update the factors to the experimentally derives average if they want. Hell, maybe we could even put a button to do it.

Yeast and Fermentation Info

I'll look at this in my next layout draft. Certainly, nothing much is needed for now.

I think this is a good idea, and not much is needed.

I think it might be a good idea to add some "Notes" fields in a few places.

I used to like using The Calculator as my brew record for a given brew.

Recipe Report Button

Excellent! I will look at the order and layout of fields I think should be included. This feature will have tremendous, positive ramifications.

Not sure if we can get a nice export, but I think we can probbaly make a button which will copy the critical details into the clipboard

Skinning

Yep, agreed. Can it!

canned

Acknowledgemts

I am really impressed with how the brewers in this thread are communicating and contributing. Whilst BIABrewer.info and Stu will remain up the top of the sheet, I think, 'Main Contributors' and 'Major Beta Testers' or something similiar should be included perhaps at the bottom of the first sheet.

We should add an "About" tab.

This tab should have Major Contirbutors, Testers, and Version History etc... again, have a look at the EZ Water calculator

It would also have a bit of a blurb and a few links to BIABrewer.info

Finally, I'm going to press on now while the above is fresh in my mind and see if I can solve some of these layout logic problems. I'll work off Jul07(sg) so if anyone is about to post a major update soon, let me know!

Hope the above isn't too scrambled
Pat

Spent all my available dev time today answering these messages instead of working on it

Pat wrote:Another problem for you computer guys to work out sorry ...

When you change from Metric to US etc, none of the fields in 'Brew History are changing. Not sure how you'll sort that one out but it would be greatly appreciated and avoid a lot of confusion etc.

(Thanks Bob! Will check it out - I think that is one that was lurking in the back of my mind. Won't look at it now though, otherwise I'll make a mistake in what I am doing )

Its a PITA, but I think i've got a good idea how to handle it.

Just don't worry about it for the moment please

Okay,

First thing look at Brew History implementation

We need to decide what figures we want the user to record...

Do they record the trub values... or do they record the transferred values...

For example

If we have "Volume Into Fermenter" then we can either have the user record "Packaged Volume" and then we can calculate Fermenter Trub (and then Trub Percentage). Or we can have them tell us the volume of the Fermenter Trub and we can then derive the Packaged Volume. We can't really do both.

I'm of the opinion that its a pointless excercise asking someone to measure their trub, so it makes more sense for them to tell us their packaged volume (at least a guess) and then we can work out the fermenter "loss" (because loss comes from hydrometer samples too...)

The same problem flows into the Kettle To Fermenter section. Either the user enters the kettle trub figures and chiller losses by measuring them... might not be practical... or more likely they tell us their volume into the fermenter... in which case we derive them...

Again, can't be both ways

Same logic applies to the Boil part... where we ARE asking for the Start and End of Boil volumes... after all, we wouldn't want the user to measure the evaporation

So, my point boils down that the user should only be expected to enter the Pre, Post, Fementer and Packaged Volumes (and relevant gravities) and we should be able to derive the evaporation correction factor and trub percentages.

I can then use unit conversion on those 4 values, and derive the rest with formulas.

So,

Would people rather record the "Kettle Losses" or "Volume Into Fermenter"?

Would people rather record the "Fermenter Losses" or "Volume into Kegs/Bottles"?

I think I'm going to go with "record the losses" or alternatively, if you know your volume, you can diddle your losses to get your actual volumes