Thoughts on new software......

[meridianomrebel]

I have been kicking around the idea of writing a new Windows applications, and wanted to get everyone's thoughts on if this is something that would be worthwhile............

I had always been a fan of QBrew - not sure if anyone remembers that. I liked it because it was simple to use, and did have some of the more advanced functions. However, it really is a dead application - there's no development going on with it. I am thinking about seeing about re-writting it as a Windows application, and adding some more useful features (various calculators) to it. Of course, this would be completely free if I did so.

Is this something that folks would be interested in using? Any features people wish was out there that was all bundled into one, easy to use, free application?

 

[broadbill]

Are you familiar with the other applications out there? I don't know Qbrew, but I know this is a pretty saturated market (off the top of my head: BrewSmith, Brewers Friend, Beer Target Pro, Promash, BrewTarget (an open-source)). Can you realistically say that QBrew brings anything unique to the party? More to the point: would QBrew bring anything more than what BrewTarget does (already free, already open-source, actively developed)?

My sorry, I just don't see it.

 

[bruteforce]

I'm always a fan of people doing a new take on that. I do feel like every software developer (go team!) who brews considers this at some point, but honestly, if you think you can make it work and would enjoy it, I would say for for it. Making the software can really enhance your understanding of the brewing process if nothing else. I speak from experience, one of my projects in grad school was making a web based brewing app that easily connected through your desktop/tablet/phone/etc and could do everything from help with shopping, recipe formulation, up through keeping track of when to add your hops and sounding little reminders just in case you're one too many brews in and forgot to set one.

Eventually I want to pick back up on it and hook it into a temp controller, but we'll see. I started cheese making and my development time is pretty well shot now.

 

[meridianomrebel]

Are you familiar with the other applications out there? I don't know Qbrew, but I know this is a pretty saturated market (off the top of my head: BrewSmith, Brewers Friend, Beer Target Pro, Promash, BrewTarget (an open-source)). Can you realistically say that QBrew brings anything unique to the party? More to the point: would QBrew bring anything more than what BrewTarget does (already free, already open-source, actively developed)?

My sorry, I just don't see it.

The biggest difference with QBrew is the ease of use when comparing to other applications out there. While there are a lot of other applications out there, I had always found QBrew to be the easiest to use - no need in setting up a profile, etc..

But then, you could very well be right in that the market is too saturated already. At the least, it may just end up being a good learning experience for me to really get a better grasp on calculations.

Thanks for your thoughts - that does give me something to think about.

 

[day_trippr]

I've been running Qbrew on Windows for years, but it's been rather lonely since I got BS2...

Cheers!

 

[kh54s10]

The biggest difference with QBrew is the ease of use when comparing to other applications out there. While there are a lot of other applications out there, I had always found QBrew to be the easiest to use - no need in setting up a profile, etc..

But then, you could very well be right in that the market is too saturated already. At the least, it may just end up being a good learning experience for me to really get a better grasp on calculations.

Thanks for your thoughts - that does give me something to think about.

In red, Ease of use is great unless it is dumbing down and taking shortcuts that lessen the accuracy of the end product. I don't know how you can be accurate without taking into account each brewers equipment "profile". It would make a pretty big difference between someones rig that leaves a couple of gallons of wort behind, and mine that leaves only a few ounces.....

If you can make an program that is simple "beginner like" and has enough parameters for an advanced brewer, it might go over big. I use Beersmith and though the interface is dated it has enough user adjustable features that make it one of the most respected programs.

For instance. You can select a hop and use the Alpha Acid # that is stored in the program, or if you know that the AA is different with the hops you have you can make the change. You can also add new hops to the list if you get one that is not already there. I know a lot of the "simple" easy to use programs only give you their lists of ingredients, if one is not there you have to pick one that you think is close to what you have.

There is inventory, (again adjustable), shopping lists, cloud storage, constant add-ons for more ingredients or this years parameters etc.,

 

[JonW]

kh54s10 echoed my thoughts exactly. If you're not using profiles, then you're only ball-parking it.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

As a fellow brewer, wanna be developer, I agree that new software is nice.

Brewtarget just got another update rather recently, their code is open source on github, is actively developed by ~20 people, and is pretty easy to use atm.

I agree that ease of use is important as well, which is one thing I hate about BS2 (and I know I'm not alone). To that end I use my mash calculator (link in sig) for all my brew day numbers, and use other software (either bs2 or brew target) for recipe formulation.

 

[meridianomrebel]

Thanks again everyone. It sounds like I'd really just be wasting time (unless counting it as a personal/learning project).

I've played around with BeerSmith, and to be honest, I really don't like it - which was my thought process behind just writing something myself. I'll take a look at Brewtarget and maybe see about contributing to the project.

 

[meridianomrebel]

As a fellow brewer, wanna be developer, I agree that new software is nice.

Brewtarget just got another update rather recently, their code is open source on github, is actively developed by ~20 people, and is pretty easy to use atm.

I agree that ease of use is important as well, which is one thing I hate about BS2 (and I know I'm not alone). To that end I use my mash calculator (link in sig) for all my brew day numbers, and use other software (either bs2 or brew target) for recipe formulation.

By the way, your calculator rocks man.

 

[cdubbaya]

To be honest I think the IoT space is largely untapped in the brewing world. There's a couple decent applications for Raspberry Pi (Strangebrew, Craftbeerpi, Brewpi), but there's not a full software suite in that space yet.

CraftbeerPi seems like its the best full feature set, but the user base is pretty small and it doesn't get updates as often as it needs.

I'm a software project manager with a little programming skill, but I'd be happy to contribute to a project on the planning/UX side. Admittedly, it would be a huge undertaking with quite a bit of risk.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Thanks again everyone. It sounds like I'd really just be wasting time (unless counting it as a personal/learning project).

I've played around with BeerSmith, and to be honest, I really don't like it - which was my thought process behind just writing something myself. I'll take a look at Brewtarget and maybe see about contributing to the project.

I'm reaching out to them as well and seeing if they'd like to work together.

 

[day_trippr]

[...]I've played around with BeerSmith, and to be honest, I really don't like it - which was my thought process behind just writing something myself. I'll take a look at Brewtarget and maybe see about contributing to the project.

Trust me, there are a hella lot of folks who hold their noses while using BeerSmith...

Cheers!

 

[meridianomrebel]

I'm reaching out to them as well and seeing if they'd like to work together.

Let me know if you need any help.

 

[Hommel]

I was in a similar boat where I could make off the shelf software work but since I couldn't see what it was doing under the covers I had little faith in its output. So, I built my own along with all the calculators I needed.

http://www.hommelhomebrew.com/brewdesign/

Not sure anyone else will like it but it works the way my brain works which I'm fairly comfortable with Long list of stuff I'd like to do with it but I've been doing all my recipes on it for about 6 months now with no issues. I've been fairly active with BrewPi as well but I'd love to collaborate with anyone who has fun brew projects going although my skillz are limited to web based stuff (html/php/css/bootstrap/javascript) and i've just built my first few iOS apps (xCode/Swift2).

 

[pricelessbrewing]

I was in a similar boat where I could make off the shelf software work but since I couldn't see what it was doing under the covers I had little faith in its output. So, I built my own along with all the calculators I needed.

http://www.hommelhomebrew.com/brewdesign/

Not sure anyone else will like it but it works the way my brain works which I'm fairly comfortable with Long list of stuff I'd like to do with it but I've been doing all my recipes on it for about 6 months now with no issues. I've been fairly active with BrewPi as well but I'd love to collaborate with anyone who has fun brew projects going although my skillz are limited to web based stuff (html/php/css/bootstrap/javascript) and i've just built my first few iOS apps (xCode/Swift2).

First time I've seen this one. I'll look at it and offer any comments I can.

The UI looks nice at least! I don't particularly care for the color scheme, it's a bit bright for my preferences but that's usually the case. Might be a couple days till you get feedback, but I'll send a PM with a list of questions/comments

Let me know if you need any help.

Regarding brewtarget, I found the lead developers email. Don't know why there is no contact information on their website, rather frustrating.

If you're offering to help me out, I would gladly accept anything you can assist with (also anyone else reading, the more the merrier, be aware everything I do will be open source and free to use and view on github). While I'm happy with what I have right now, I need to add a couple radios, a recipe section with filters and drop downs, some buttons to scale grain bills, scale hop additions for utilization, SRM display (formulas are easy). I can do the math part, and I have a big emphasis on ease of use, but integrating new html into my existing code is getting very frustrating for me, I can get simple examples to work in jfiddle/codepen but when I try and integrate it just never works out and requires several hours of re-working it and trouble shooting. So mostly would like someone to do the web developer side of things, at least to set up a framework that I can edit to my desires and expand on after I see how to integrate and to tell me when my sloppy approach isn't the best way to go about that particular problem.

Also while typing this out, my video card finally died on me. Radeon 6870. Fragments everywhere, no blown capacitors, no overheating, fan works. Tried several drivers. Using integrated intel display chipset...