Is there a legal, relatively easy-to-use database program out there? Here’s what I want to do: I want to make a recipe database. The inital inspiration was for homebrew recipes, but I could expand it to food. I’ve worked with a FileMaker Pro and an Access database and it seems like that’s what I want to do–I want to enter info into a number of designated fields and be able to search for files with the specified content (ingredient, type of dish, etc) in a specific field.
So, my questions are–
-what’s out there?
-do I want a dbase program? I thought about trying to rig something up in a spreadsheet, but that’s seems like a messy solution.
General info–I run Win XP, have Office XP (no Access, obviously) and StarOffice on my system, and am rather computer literate (though I haven’t done coding in a while) and am reasonably good at teaching myself how to use software.
I made and wrote a tutorial on making a client-server database-driven recipe program, which could be run locally on a single computer, on a network, or a web server a while back, including user accounts and a search/browse function. Using Apache, PHP, and MySQL, all free and all good software. Mail me and I will send a link to the tutorial. I also will give you some of the source code if you want.
To answer your immediate question:
[ol]
[li]There are freeware database programs available.[/li][li]They offer most of the features of a high-power commercial database[/li][li]Many people use them[/li][li]They still might be hard to use unless you have a guru at hand.[/li][/ol]
I think that you absolutely need a database program if:[ol]
[li]You have lots of data[/li][li]You want to do complex searches on the data[/li][li]You want to allow multiple users to create/read/update/delete(CRUD) the data at the same time[/li][li]You want to make the database available over the Internet[/li][li]You want to make it easy to back up the data[/li][/ol]
The following may be useful solutions:
[ul]
[li]Excel works well for relatively small one-table databases[/li][li]mySQL is a freely available SQL relational database with a PHP web API[/li][li]SmartlistToGo is a darn good DB program for Palm OS[/li][li]HanDBase is another good Palm DB program[/li][/ul]
But there’s no need to get a database package and program it yourself – there are plenty of already-developed & tested database programs for maintaining recipies.
Googling on “recipies database program” bring up about 3/4 million cites. You hould be able to find one of those that meets your needs.
Mastercook is probably the best existing recipe database program. It was once a Sierra product, but apparently it’s been sold to some low-end software company. It has more quirks than it should, but it does work. Runs about $20, but it can probably be found dirt cheap on eBay. The Cooking Light recipe packages include Mastercook, as well.
I looked at MasterCook, but I found one I’m liking a whole lot better. You can also import all MasterCook (as well as any other recipe, even homemade ones) into BigOven
I like the UI alot better for BigOven, it feels alot newer, and cleaner to me, it seems to have all of the functionality of MasterCook, plus an importable archive of over 150,000+ recipes. (Can also import them from Notepad, the web, even scanned cookbooks. It can manage a menu calendar for you, give a shopping list, automatically convert for more/less serving sizes, etc.
It’s 24.95, with a free downloadable 30 day trial. I downloaded it about 4 days ago, and I cannot stop playing with this thing. I am definitely purchasing it after my 30-day trial is up.
I’d suggest giving this one a shot. If it’s what you’re looking for, it’ll cost ya 25 bucks, but if it’s not what you had in mind, you’re not out a dime cause you get a month free trial.