23/Nov2008
Getting started with the yum package manager. Use yum check-update and a list of available updates. He has been writing about and developing on Linux for over 10 years and is a veteran Mac. Yum, a recipe manager for the Mac, has been updated to 3.0, adding a new user interface, among other changes. Yum allows users to organize their recipes into categories, assign ratings and create.
This article was modified from its original published form. The most recent modification was on2015-06-14.
It’s time to declutter the house. One of the things I want to get rid of areall the recipe magazines and loose recipes that I have. To do this, I need tokeep the recipes that I like or want to try. I need a recipe managementprogram. I currently use Yum 2.7.4, which is good, but not great. I decidedto seriously evaluate the various recipe management programs available for theMac.
There’s a number of them out there, each with different strengths. I’m goingto be evaluating these programs on the following criteria:
- Browsing: How easy is it to find a recipe without searching?
- Reading: How easy is it to read the recipes, once entered? A “kitchenmode” is nice, but absolutely unnecessary in my kitchen—my iMac is in theoffice. So, I’ll either be reading the recipe to get a sense of the way tomake it (and often just a reminder), or I’ll be printing the recipe.
- Printing: How good does the output look? How much fiddling do I have todo to get multiple recipes on a single page, if they’re small enough? Howmuch fiddling do I have to do to get a longer recipe on a single page?Sure, I can use the n-up feature on my printer, but that shrinks the wholepage down really small.
- Searching: How good is the recipe search?
- Adding/Editing: While I will be reading, searching and printing recipesmost often, I’m going to be most annoyed at a program while adding a recipeby hand.
- Import: I’ve been using Yum (see below) for a while, and while I’m notunhappy with it, it has some major annoyances on recipe entry that keep melooking. Whatever I switch to is going to have to handle importing my Yumdatabase one way or another, without screwing it up. Additionally, sinceI’ll be looking at the latest version of Yum, I want to see the externalimport techniques (from text or the Web).
- Extras: What extras exist for the program? Can I easily transfer arecipe to my iPhone or iPod Touch? Does it have an extensive ingredientlist with nutrition data to give a rough approximation of the caloriccontent? These things aren’t going to be deal breakers, but if everythingelse works, they could be deal makers.
There are more programs available than I am reviewing here. A number of theseprograms presented problems early enough in the review process that I didn’tthink it was worth spending any more time on them. One that I wish had beenbetter was [Measuring Cup]1. It has some really interestingideas including sub-recipes and not distinguishing view and edit modes.Unfortunately, it doesn’t have any import facility to speak of, and thecontrols on the lists are non-standard and finicky. It’s worth looking at ifyou’re just starting your recipe collection. I’m not.
Connoisseur2
Only Connoisseur 1.2 is available for direct download; there is a beta versionreferred to, but you must contact the developer for this information.
- Browsing: A Connoisseur has fairly good browsing. It’s laid out muchlike iTunes with a “sources” list on the left and three filtering criteriaon the main panel under the toolbar: Cuisine, Course, and Ingredient. Thiswill make it easy to find recipes based on the ingredients you have athand and the meal you’re serving.You can great new “groups” (recipe collections/folders) and smart groups(groups with search criteria) pretty easily.
- Reading: C+ After browsing to the recipe, or searching for it, youdouble click on the recipe in the main list to display it3 in asmaller (but resizable) display window. The window isn’t bad, but it’s tooloose: the recipe metadata (such as cook time, yield, etc.) takes up fartoo much space; blank fields are shown; ingredient lines are 1¼linespacing, which is too much.On the up-side, there’s a nice “Cooking View” that fills the screen withthe recipe. The directions are too widely spaced, but this is a muchbetter “view” than the default windowed view. As a nice touch, Connoisseurwill also read the recipe steps to you.
- Printing: F Everything that’s wrong with the display window is wrongwith the print function, and it has additional sins of commission. Thelinespacing per field appears to be about 1½ and the ingredients are still1¼. The empty fields don’t show here, but the amount of space taken up bythe metadata eats up half of the first page. Worse, the metadata isincomplete: it’s cropped if it goes over a certain (small) width. Thedirections for a “2-Minute Fudge” included with Connoisseur don’t beginuntil page two—and the heading “Directions” is on page one. The directionsare cropped if they’re over a certain (small) width.
- Searching: F ⌘F and ⌘⌥F don’t work for search. As far as I can tell,aside from the filtering mechanisms mentioned in browse, there’s no way tosearch for a recipe.
- Adding/Editing: F I’m not sure where to begin with the problemspresented by Connoisseur’s add/edit recipe sheet. When adding or editing arecipe, you are presented with a modal sheet on the main program window.If you’re copying information from another recipe, you have to first havedisplayed that recipe in a separate window before you start editing thecurrent one. The recipe sheet is tabbed and has far too many controls onit (at the bottom of the sheet is a help question mark, previous, next, a“cooked” checkbox, cancel, and save. The recipe scaling feature looksimpressive, but I’m not sure why it’s part of the recipe editing—this issomething that Connoisseur should be able to figure out automatically, onthe fly.The ingredients and directions are on separate tabs, requiring flippingtabs to make sure you’re correctly using all of the ingredients as you’rewriting the recipe down (as someone who creates recipes from time to time,this matters). Ingredient and direction entry is more complex than itshould be, relying on
+/-
buttons on each and every ingredient and step. - Import: B Will not import directly from the Yum database format, butrecognized the Yum XML format reasonably well. The import itself wasfairly pedestrian, although my imported recipes had stupid errors, suchas: “2. 1. In a small bowl…” There’s some level of intelligence thatshould be applied here. There’s no import from a webpage, and the importfrom text is a little hit-and-miss (in my test of a copied recipe from theNew York Times, the instructions were inserted as ingredients, possiblybecause they were numbered).
- Extras: There’s a nice set of default recipes included. You canadd a recipe to a shopping list and export it to an iPod as a list,or to the Palm program “HandyShopper” and “SplashShopper” (whichwould be useful if I used a Palm device anymore). There’s an onlinecomponent for shared recipes and you can download others’ sharedrecipes, too. It looks like there’s a moderation process to therecipes, though.
This is not a program that I would recommend to anyone at this point. It lookspretty, and the filtering mechanism is superb, but I don’t think that this isa usable program.
Cookware Deluxe
The version reviewed is 3.2.
- Browsing: B- Cookware Deluxe starts in a recipe view, requiringexplicit switching to a browser. The browse interface is a filteringinterface that’s rather busy and confusing. The display has three panels.The recipes are in the main panel on the right, and there is a switch(“First/Any”, defaulting to “First”), followed by the alphabet, “All”, anda heart symbol. Clicking on a letter will filter the display of recipesbased on the presence of that letter at the beginning of a word in therecipe name; if the switch is set to “first”, only the first word isconsidered. Clicking on “All” clears the filters and clicking on the heartselects “collected” recipes (those that carry from version to version).The upper panel on the left has five tabs that act as filters: Cookbook,Ingredient, Region, Course, Bev (the alcoholic beverage one would havewith the recipe, generally limited to wines and some beers). These filtersare not co-operative filters; they work independently (one cannot selectan ingredient of “Asparagus” and a beverage of “Pinot Grigio” to filterfor recipes that call for both). The lower panel are for saved searchtemplates (loading a saved search goes to the Find window) and menu sets(collecting several recipes that are intended to go together as a meal).Clicking on “All” above the menu list removes any of the filters appliedfrom the left panel, too.Cookware Deluxe also has a planner view where meals and menus can beplanned in advance. There’s both a monthly calendar and a weekly calendarview (called “Planner” and “Details”, confusingly). There is no option tomake Monday the beginning of the week.
- Reading: B- The recipe display panel is fairly decent, divided intotwo panels (a large upper panel shaped like a recipe card and a lowertabbed panel). The recipe card is divided into three columns. The firstcolumn is a quarter of the entire card and contains the name of therecipe, a tabbed box for photographs of the recipe, and other importantmetadata (cooking time, oven pre-heat temperature, difficulty).The second column is the ingredient column and also takes up a quarter ofthe recipe card. The third column has a small toolbar (about 1⁄10 of thevertical space), a description area (about 1⁄5 of the vertical space), andthe directions. The toolbar over the directions provide a checkbox(“Multi-Print”), four buttons (Tools, Custom Print Layout, User Prefs, andLarge Print Display), another checkbox (“Collected Recipe”, see above),and a bronze badge with a check mark inside for checking spelling.The font in all of these sections is small, but there are two icons ofinterest for this: in the lower left hand of the card is an icon thatlooks like a two item bar graph. Clicking on the taller bar zooms theinterface larger; the shorter bar zooms it smaller (and it will go smallerthan the default). In the toolbar over the directions column the lastbutton will display the current recipe in a window with a much larger fontfor viewing from a distance. It’s not as good as Connoisseur’s full screendisplay, but it works (it also only shows the ingredients and directions).The bottom tabbed panel allows for category information (cookbooks,course, main ingredient, region, beverage, source, recipes it requires,and recipes that work well with it); additional source information, WeightWatchers™ points, and nutritional data (unformatted and not calculated onpurpose); and notesand substitutions.
- Printing: A- Very strong. Includes the ability to customize whereeach section of a recipe, although the sections themselves include veryweak formatting. The “Multi-print” selection (in recipes and the browselist) allows you to print multiple recipes on a single page (if they fit).
- Searching: C Has relatively strong search capabilities, but thelayout is pretty confusing.
- Adding/Editing: B- Recipes can only be created from the “Recipe”view; not from the “Browser” view. The strengths of the recipe view arepresent, but each of the fields is unformatted, leaving it to the user toknow the appropriate abbreviations and names of each ingredient. Thismakes for easy cut and paste, but explains why the “main ingredient” mustbe entered separately; the ingredients are not stored individually, but inaggregate. Note that I did not attempt drag and drop adding, but I wouldexpect it to work well given the lack of formatting in the fields.
- Import: C- Only supports importing past CookWare recipes, recipesets, and MasterCook recipes. This is found under the application menu,not a “File” menu.
- Extras: Supports an iPod cookbook or recipe (presumably just a textnote). Supports QuickTime movies for each recipe. Has a Windows version.
This is another program that I can’t recommend. There are some nice features,but this program is written on top of FileMaker and it feels like it. Thelayout is crowded and hard to read; if there’s been thought given to makingthis program easier to use, it seems to have been hampered by FileMaker formsoptions.
MacGourmet
I reviewed version 2.3. MacGourmet and MacGourmet Deluxe are essentially thesame program. MacGourmet Deluxe includes all of the available MacGourmetplug-ins (“Cookbook”, “Mealplan”, and “Nutrition”) and is a better value thanbuying the plug-ins individually. Because the plug-ins are extra forMacGourmet, I will only cover them in the Extras section of the review.
- Browsing: B+ The interface for MacGourmet looks like the Apple Mailor NetNewsWire interface with sources and folders on the left, a recipeindex on the top right and recipe details on the bottom right. There aretwo views for the recipe index: a standard tabular view and a simplifiedimage, name, source, and rating view. By default, the simplified view onlyshows two recipes at a time; the standard view shows seven.
- Reading: A The recipe layout is beautiful. The ingredients are in aformatted box with the source, yield, pictures, and other metadata on theright side of the recipe4. The directions are below theingredients. There’s a very readable chef view; as a nice touch, ifmultiple recipes are selected, the chef view is a tabbed interface, onetab per recipe. In the standard view, only one recipe can be displayed ata time; multiple recipes can be displayed in separate chef view windows aswell.
- Printing: A Standard printing facilities are superb and supportprinting on Avery 3x5 and 4x6 cards as well as several other templates.
- Searching: A Simple but effective rule-based “cupboard” searching(like Spotlight) with ⌘F. ⌘⌥F provides access to the quick search box,which is very effective. Explicit note, recipe, and wine note searches arealso available.
- Adding/Editing: B- Some of the problems seen in Connoisseur’sadd/edit screen are here to a lesser degree. By default the recipeadd/edit screen isn’t a modal sheet (but it can be configured as such),but it is a modal dialog that blocks the main view. Otherwise, it takes aniTunes approach to editing: multiple tabs for Info, Ingredients,Directions, Preparation, Notes, Picture, and Nutrition data (which can becalculated from the ingredient list). The ingredients list is pretty easyto use, but there are two columns of checkboxes (“D” and “M”) which aren’texplained in the help documents. “D” marks the ingredient line as adescriptive title separating distinct portions of the ingredient list; Ihaven’t figured out what “M” does. The other sections are unformatted textentry.
- Import: A Importing is strengthened by the clippings section to turnclipboard results into recipes relatively quickly. Featured recipes fromMacGourmet.com and Amazon.com are also automatically importable throughthe “Featured” section. It supports importing from Yum, but only imported70 of the 116 recipes that I have in Yum; I’m not sure if this is a demolimitation or not.
- Extras: There’s a shopping list, a generic note list, and wine notes.Easily supports publishing to standalone sites or weblogs (the ability touse a weblog publisher like MarsEdit would be nice). The Cookbook Builderplug-in is a fairly nice idea and works reasonably well (drag and droprecipes into the appropriate places), although I don’t think it’ssomething that I would use often, if at all. The meal planner workssimilarly but is a little finicky as to where things should be dragged (ifI drag the “breakfast” meal into the day area, even if it’s not on the dayrow, the “breakfast” meal should land in the right spot; don’t make mecare about your hierarchies when adding—you just need to do the rightthing). It’s nice that the meal planner can easily become a shopping list.The nutritional plug-in is a little confusing as to how it works atfirst (you need to edit the recipe to calculate the nutritional value forit based on ingredients), but it does a very nice job of calculating onceit’s clear.
- Update: Michael Dupuis, the developer of MacGourmet, indicated thatthe Yum import failure with MacGourmet is related to an XML format changein the Yum format, not a limitation in the demo. This will be fixed in thenext update of MacGourmet. I discovered that I had forgotten to put agrade on the Import feature. He also mentioned that the “D” and “M”checkboxes in recipes are explained on pages 23–24 of the user guide as“Divider” (descriptive title, as I surmised) and “Main Ingredient”.Finally, the post editor allows you to choose an extern blog posting toolsuch as MarsEdit by choosing it under the “Post using” menu.
This is a great program. There’s enough here that I can possibly seereplacing Yum with MacGourmet. I suspect that although I don’t see myselfusing the cookbook builder, I would consider using the meal planner and thenutrition calculator, so I might go with MacGourmet Deluxe.
SousChef
I reviewed version 1.0.1.
- Browsing: A- The app is divided into three panels: a source list, arecipe list, and a recipe display. It looks very much like the AddressBook application provided with Mac OS X. The source list contains a masterrecipe library, a search results entry, recent imports, and thenuser-added folders and collections. Folders can only contain collections;collections contain recipes. Collections are associative; recipes canbelong to more than one collection at a time. Deleting a recipe from acollection only deletes it from the collection; it does not appear thatthere is a way to delete a recipe from the recipe library permanentlyexcept using the recipe library view.
- Reading: A The reading pane is clear, well laid out, and easyto read. This is not as flexible as the display in MacGourmet, but Iam pleased to say that it’s easily readable. The full-screen “Cook”view is the best I’ve seen in any of these programs: it will notonly speak your recipe (which Connoisseur also does), but you canalso turn on voice recognition so that you can tell it you want thenext instruction to be read. Drop down menus in the ingredients listlet you search for other recipes with this ingredient with ease.
- Printing: B- The print layout is functional and well laid out,but you can’t print more than one recipe at a time.
- Searching: A+ Excellent search on ingredients, name, category, orcuisine. Simultaneously searches local and “cloud” recipes.
- Adding/Editing: A- Heavy reminders of Address Book here; ingredientsand directions are added and removed with the red “-” and green “+”circles. Can’t drag and drop ingredients, and the green “+” isn’t alwaysvisible on entry. Sub-recipes (the crust for a cheesecake) are handledmanually (possibly poorly). Directions are automatically numbered. Notesare automatically bulleted.
- Import: B Can only import one recipe at a time essentially from theclipboard or a single text file. Does not handle heavily formatted recipeswell. No support for Yum importing.
- Extras: Blogging, although how it works is not clear without alicence. “Cloud” recipe sharing of recipes in yours and others cookbooks.
This is another program that I really like. I’m not happy about the state ofimport for multiple recipes—I have an extensive collection that I want toimport already. Conversion utilities would be very useful here. I’d also liketo see print improved some, or at least some sort of iPhone integration.
Yum5
Yum was recently acquired by “Dare to be Creative” and has been turned into ashareware program as of Yum 3.0. I’m currently using Yum 2.7.4 which is nolonger supported—and I’m reasonably happy with it. This review is based on thetrial version of Yum 3.0.
- Browsing: A- Like several other recipe programs, Yum uses a 3 columnlayout. In this case, it’s category, recipe list, and then the recipeitself. Categories are associative (and in Yum 2.7.4, able to be managedin the “categories drawer”; this appears to be read-only in Yum 3). A nicetouch carried over from Yum 2.7 is that when you select a recipe, all ofthe categories to which it belongs are highlighted (similar to AddressBook).
- Reading: A- Simple, well-laid out. Ingredients are always on theleft; the method (directions) are always on the right. There’s afull-screen mode, but the default configuration misses the point (itdoesn’t increase the font size at all)—you need to go into theFormat|Manage Layouts and change the “step-by-step” layout to“Step-by-Step” to be meaningful.Software Software. Download software for your Canon product. Manuals Manuals. Download a user manual for your Canon product. Canon EOS 5D Mark III. A new model available, find out more. Select your support content. Find the latest drivers for your product. There are no Recommended Downloads available. Service Notice: The EF200 f/2L IS USM and EF800mm f/5.6L IS USM Lenses with the Canon EOS 5D Mark III Digital SLR Camera. Service Notice Jun 23, 2014 Regarding the security advisory for Canon digital cameras related to PTP (Picture Transfer Protocol) communication functions and firmware update. The cable connects to your camera and to the USB port on your PC or MAC Computer. Comes standard with the EOS 1Ds Mark III, 1D Mark IV, 1D Mark III, 1Ds Mark II, 1D Mark II N, 1D Mark II, 5D Mark II, 7D, 5D, 50D, 40D, 30D, 20D, 10D, Digital Rebel XTi, Digital Rebel XT and Digital Rebel. Please see Compatibility tab for compatible models.Canon 5d mark iii free download - Canon 5D Mark III from QuickPro HD, Canon 5D Mark III Beyond the Basics from QuickPro HD, Canon EOS 5D Firmware Update, and many more programs.
- Printing: A- Layouts can be edited (it’s not completely clear howthey work) and multiple recipes can be printed on a single page if theyfit. Layout is completely customizable (but I have never done so).
- Searching: B+ It works well enough, but there’s no keyboardshortcut.
- Adding/Editing: B+ Fairly good adding and editing. It’s beenimproved from 2.7 (which allowed the method to be formatted rich text).Automatically converts fractions to their proper display form. Has a“paste ingredients” for quick addition from a copied list. Scaling is donein here and not elsewhere.BitLord started out as a fairly simple P2P Mac client but has grown in a big way. Today, we have an all-new version which comes as a highly optimized application. You get a built-in torrent search with type suggestions, bandwidth controls, RSS subscriptions, automatic port configuration, and plenty more. Folx is a top torrent app for Mac and offers a convenient way of downloading torrent files: set the priority, regulate download and upload speed, tag downloads for quick search through the content. With Folx you can download torrents from trackers, as well as via magnet links. Coming Out on Top is a choose-your-own-fate game which places you in the role of college senior, Mark Matthews. You’re about to come out of the closet and are ready to make up for lost time. With the help of your loyal roommates, play through six hilarious routes and ten unforgettable dates. 18 hot guys are waiting for you to win them over. Coming out on top features a recent update which includes mark access to nine additional bonus dates which are started through the brofinder app in the main menu. These dates are much shorter than the dates in the game and can only unlock two or three images. Coming Out On Top Free Download: Point and Click Elements. Additional Bonus Dates. Coming out on top mac torrent movies.
- Import: Imports from Yum, MasterCook, and XML only. Doesn’t have asingle recipe import mode (although “paste ingredients” helps with that).
- Extras: Now comes with a shopping list mode.
This is a fair update to a good recipe manager. I’m not sure that it’s worththe shareware cost, when others that offer more features are just a fewdollars more. However, I am excited to see that Yum has been acquired and isunder active development again; I would not be surprised to see Yum become aviable competitor to YummySoup!, MacGourmet, and SousChef moving forward.
YummySoup!
I’ve tried YummySoup! a few times and never been quite convinced by it. Ireviewed version 1.6.9.5.
- Browsing: A Like MacGourmet, this is somewhat reminiscent of Mail orNetNewsWire; there’s a source list on the left and recipes on the right.There’s both the “My Library” and the “Online Library” view for viewingand sharing recipes online. The default recipe index (top right panel) isthe image browser. This isn’t quite Recipe CoverFlow, but it’s prettydamned close. This view alone argues in favour of taking pictures of yourmasterpieces. There’s also a standard tabular view which is clear andreadable. There are both groups (folders) and smart groups (live searchfolders); groups are associative (recipes can exist in more than one groupat a time). Recipes can be removed from a group or from the library.
- Reading: B+ Functional and pleasant, but it still puts metadata atthe top and too prominent. The first thing I care about when looking at arecipe is the ingredients. I don’t care about the source, difficulty,ethnicity or anything else. The full screen view is well done, but not asnice as SousChef (and, to be honest, I don’t care about the recipe picturein full screen mode).
- Printing: C+ Only one recipe can be printed at a time. Standardprint format.
- Searching: B No keyboard shortcut. It works well from the searchbox, and the smart groups really are smart.
- Adding/Editing: A- A modal sheet for editing, but everything is onone pane (no tabs!). Easily make new ingredient groups; good auto-fillvalues. Bullet (●), ℃ and ℉ buttons. It gets nearly everything right(modal?).
- Import: B+ Doesn’t support importing from Yum; I could importConnoisseur or MacGourmet recipes if I wanted to. Importing from a website could not be easier (and works very similarly to SousChef; YummySoup!had it first, though).
- Extras: An easy to use grocery list; a liquor cabinet tracker. Onlinepublishing (via email to HungrySeacow) and downloading.
I’m still undecided about what to think about YummySoup!. I like what it has,but it has some weaknesses that I’m not fond of. I don’t think that it’s asgood as MacGourmet or SousChef.
The Verdict
Tonight, the verdict is to change nothing—I’m not convinced that thealternatives are worth the price today (including the new Yum 3), and thestronger contenders (MacGourmet, SousChef, YummySoup!, Yum 3) have seriousflaws with how I need to use a recipe management program. If I were forced tomake a choice, I think that MacGourmet Deluxe would be the winner, but I’m notsure that the expense is worth the time and effort it would take me to switch.I really want to like SousChef, but it’s not quite there yet for me.
- Measuring Cup no longer appears to be available. I could not find an acceptable download version. ↩
- This program no longer appears to be available. You can download the most recently avialable version from MacUpdate. ↩
- A preference allows this to be changed to “edit.” ↩
- This is controlled by the display template and style, which suggests that user styles are possible. ↩
- Yum is no longer available and I could not find an appropriate download. ↩
- 2015-06-14: I didn’t mention it when I reinstated this, but I currently use Paprika oniPhone, iPad, Mac, and Android. It’s pretty good for browsing, and the searchis really good. Reading is damned fine on portable devices. Because I have adevice handy most of the time, printing is completely unnecessary. Importinghad a small hiccup, but their support helped work it out just fine a couple ofyears ago when I switched. Adding is slightly annoying unless you are on one ofthe dozens of sites that Paprika knows how to parse recipes from. In thatcase, you select and push buttons. It also has an easy way to send people yourentire Paprika recipe book and they have their own service to synchronize data.This last is perhaps the most worrisome bit—if they decide to shut down,synchronization between installations becomes impossible—but they do have anice export format that uses the hrecipe microformat.[ back ]
- 2014-09-29: Six years on, some of these programs are no longer available. Notes have been added to that effect.[ back ]
- 2008-11-30: I sent links of this review to the publishers involved (except for SousChef, because Ben Lachman the developer found this post on his own and reminded me that I hadn’t done this even though I meant to). I received a note from the developer of MacGourmet and have added some additional notes.[ back ]
Newer//Mac Recipe Management Programs, Planning a Revisit