[META] Feature Requests

[hay-kot]

To avoid duplicate feature request and cluttering of the issue tracker, please comment any feature requests here and I'll keep a list.

Tag Key

✔️ = Completed pending new release
⭐ = Actively being worked on
🗺️ = On the Road Map
🤚 = Requesting PR or Help
❌ = Unlikely to implemented, open to community support

Authentication

• General User Authentication
• Secure API w/ Long Live Tokens

Database Support

• SQLite Support
• Postgres Support 🗺️ - Target 0.4.1 (Post Authentication Patch)

General

• Expanded Search Support
  • Search Description
• Recipe Categories on Homepage
• Sort/Filter
  • By Date
  • By Category
  • By Tag
  • Alphabetical

Recipe

• Upload Image from URL ✔️
• Add All Schema.org items to Database Entry
• Add Waiting Time to Recipe
• Add Hardware/Tool requirements
• Group Categories on Frontend
  • Side-Bar Groups
• Bulk Category Management
  • View Uncategorized Recipes
  • Assign Categories in Bulk
• Calculate Nutrition Data - Discussion ❌
• Printer Page 🤚
• Markdown Support
• Multiple Ingredients and Instruction Groups 🤚
• Adding Flavor Profile 🗺️
• Private/Public Recipes 🗺️
• Version Control ❌
• Add image support for recipe steps

Editor

• Scrollable Tag / Category Selector
• Add Field for URL when manually adding a recipe
• Insert ingredient anywhere in ingredients list (Ingredients can now be moved in the editor. via drag-and-drop)

Meal Planner

• Generate mealplan Based on Rules
• Auto Set Start/End date in Meal Planner
• Auto Generate Shopping List
• Multiple Recipes per Day 🗺️
• Leftovers / Ordering out Option - Discussion 🗺️

Migration from Other Apps

• Open Eats - Discussion 🗺️

If anyone wants to help implement any of these features, I am available on the discord to help as much as I can.

[lylebrown]

It would be nice to be able to sort/reorder ingredients inside of individual recipes.

[dpieski]

I am not sure sort would really be useful since you would only be able to do a basic A-Z sort, but since each "ingredient" is a string that begins with a quantity, you would essentially just be weirdly sorting on quantity - Don't think the sorting that way would even make sense e.g., these ingredients would be in "alphabetical" order:

1 1/2 carrot
1 apple
1.25 banana

Reordering ingredients might be doable through a change to the UI during an edit though.

[hay-kot]

It would be nice to be able to sort/reorder ingredients inside of individual recipes.

I'm currently playing around with a drag and drop reorder function in the editor.

[ghost]

A tab or section for incomplete recipes or drafts, for someone experimenting with different ingredient proportions? Not sure how useful would really be, so really up to you :)

[rolamento]

Love the concept, Raspberry Pi Version is a must for million of us. Can you do it?

[thedeany]

The ability to edit serving size and auto-calculate ingredient list would be great. For example, if my base recipe is 2 servings and calls for 1 onion and I want to make 4 servings, I should be able to select "4 servings" and the ingredient list would then show "2 onion."

[sniperpirate]

Would it be possible to input some leftover ingredients which are on hand, and then mealie suggests all the recipes which are possible to use with those ingredients? Also, would it be possible to create a separate drinks / smoothie section?

Thank you for considering these suggestions and I hope you are all keeping safe & healthy!

[hay-kot]

Love the concept, Raspberry Pi Version is a must for million of us. Can you do it?

There is an ARM image available. Are you having problems deploying?

[Soldierbane]

I'd love to see a feature where you could manually input how many servings are in a recipe and how many calories are in the recipe so that it can calculate the calories/serving and show it on the meal planner.

[GHSTUDIO1]

I've worked with Mealie for just one day....but I think it's important to get a new user's perspective on suggested improvements..... I did not read any "how to use" documentation......and I'm not sure any exists other than the one video....but most users today don't read documentation, so a UI really needs to be "self explanatory".....ease of use without having to read how to use stuff.

1. search doesn't do what's expected. Currently it only searches recipe titles but it should be able to search on any word in a recipe (eg. ingredient). Maybe a drop down to give you choices: titles only; ingredients only; tags only; etc. eg: I want to see all recipes that use Tofu

2. what are tags used for? the only use I can find is that they are shown when you open a recipe. tied to 1 above, I though at least I could search for a tag.

3. There is no way to find if you have a recipe that has not been categorized yet. there should be an easy way to show only uncategorized recipes.....so user can categorize the one's they missed.

4. I would like to categorize by country (Chinese, Icelandic,...) and by type of meal (soup, appetizer,...). I find that they are all listed together in the left column alphabetically so they are mixed. would be nice to be able to separate categories into groups.

5. I can create backups and upload them somewhere.....but how do I restore them?

6. Is the URL of the original recipe saved somewhere....I see a field for "original URL", but it's blank.

7. I think a user needs to be able to refer back to the original URL easily just to review other comments that usually accompany a recipe. I though I saw something in the video...but I don't think it's in the installed version.

8. as others have said, there needs to be a way to tell what version a user is running.......about: or in settings....but somewhere.

9. when entering a category there is a drop down box, but if you have more categories defined, there's no way to scroll so you have to remember every category or search based on the first letter, etc. It would be helpful if that drop down box was scrollable.

note: I probably should have posted in separate notes because it's easier to track suggestions that way....guilty of laziness :)

[hay-kot]

I did not read any "how to use" documentation......and I'm not sure any exists other than the one video

In the README for the GitHub repository there is a link to what I think is fairly extensive documentation. Not reviewing documentation for the FOSS project before providing feedback is unfair to contributors and creators. I've spent a lot of time putting that documentation together to help others use something I made initially made for myself.

but most users today don't read documentation, so a UI really needs to be "self explanatory".....ease of use without having to read how to use stuff.

I would like to point out that this is free software that I have spent significant amount of my time creating, making deployable, and providing documentation for. I do not make any money off of this other than the small donations that some community members have made. Given that, I think it's unfair to assume or expect that a user would not need to review any documentation prior to use, especially consider this is still a BETA release.

For the feature requests in your post, I've added them to this issue to track.

I can create backups and upload them somewhere.....but how do I restore them?

That is Covered in the Documentation

Is the URL of the original recipe saved somewhere....I see a field for "original URL", but it's blank.

See This Issue

as others have said, there needs to be a way to tell what version a user is running.......about: or in settings....but somewhere.

This is shown at the foot of the settings page, along with the latest version and a link to documentation. Versions can also be pinned from the image tag.

---

In the future please separate issues/bugs and feature requests so we don't clutter up this thread. I appreciate your insight and hope you'll consider contributing to the project and helping develop some of the features you're requesting. Thanks!

[GHSTUDIO1]

I think it’s a wonderful program…..don’t take my comments wrong. I’ve been involved with future products and testing user interfaces for years professionally, so I looked at your program through those eyes. I know it’s a work in progress….amazingly complete…and potentially lucrative. I clearly missed a few things....due to what have become informal, undocumented internet standards…such as the version number and an “about” section somewhere. As far as users reading instructions, my assumption is that you are aiming at a wider audience than just techies…..and the wider audience is different than you and I….they don’t read instructions, they get confused easily….sometimes the hardest part of a project is getting the interface right. I did not read through every open issue…so the missing original URL was indeed a repeat. I think you had a link to the original URL when someone opens a recipe and that’s a big plus….most recipes these days have some prose around them that’s occasionally helpful. I looked through the documentation and didn’t find anything about tags other than you could add them. I think they’re important if you can search/sort on them….I would have made soup or entree a tag rather than a category. It would be nice to sort Hungarian recipes by tag or list by tag, etc. Likely you have something in mind for future releases. Anxious to get all my recipes easily gathered in one place. There were a few URL’s that didn’t work well…but no way to handle all sites. In one case, there was a print option so I got the URL for the print formatted page, but that didn’t help. I’m more of an ethnic recipe cook and find some off the beaten track sites with recipes. I’ve added mealie to my home server…debian and docker managed by portainer. I’ll be experimenting with Proxmox, but don’t expect any unusual interaction. If you are ok with a little advertising, I’ll do some posts on a few Home Assistant forums…I think there’s a lot of synergy between the two softwares. Doug From: Hayden [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, March 4, 2021 5:48 PM To: hay-kot/mealie Cc: GHSTUDIO1; Comment Subject: Re: [hay-kot/mealie] [META] Feature Requests (#122) I did not read any "how to use" documentation......and I'm not sure any exists other than the one video In the README for the GitHub repository there is a link to what I think is fairly extensive documentation. Not reviewing documentation for the FOSS project before providing feedback is unfair to contributors and creators. I've spent a lot of time putting that documentation together to help others use something I made initially made for myself. but most users today don't read documentation, so a UI really needs to be "self explanatory".....ease of use without having to read how to use stuff. I would like to point out that this is free software that I have spent significant amount of my time creating, making deployable, and providing documentation for. I do not make any money off of this other than the small donations that some community members have made. Given that, I think it's unfair to assume or expect that a user would not need to review any documentation prior to use, especially consider this is still a BETA release. For the feature requests in your post, I've added them to this issue to track. I can create backups and upload them somewhere.....but how do I restore them? That is Covered in the Documentation <https://hay-kot.github.io/mealie/getting-started/backups-and-exports/> Is the URL of the original recipe saved somewhere....I see a field for "original URL", but it's blank. See This Issue <#179> as others have said, there needs to be a way to tell what version a user is running.......about: or in settings....but somewhere. This is shown at the foot of the settings page, along with the latest version and a link to documentation. Versions can also be pinned from the image tag.

…

_____ In the future please separate issues/bugs and feature requests so we don't clutter up this thread. I appreciate your insight and hope you'll consider contributing to the project and helping develop some of the features you're requesting. Thanks! — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#122 (comment)> , or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ALT3EX4IGRFSUEAT6QFTCWLTCAE25ANCNFSM4WQ2HNHQ> . <https://github.com/notifications/beacon/ALT3EXZZ2K5DJ73HCVNNHCLTCAE25A5CNFSM4WQ2HNH2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOF4S3XKQ.gif>

[Tooa]

Feature Request 1

I would like to create non-interactive backups e.g. via docker exec [...]. The command should create a zip file with the exported data in a folder. I can then use a docker host mount for that folder to access the backup file on my host. The latter allows me to save the archive somewhere else.

Feature Request 2

When uploading an image I would like to select which part of the picture should be displayed (similar to Facebooks profile pictures).

PS: +1 for Add image support for recipe steps as I often just create pictures while cooking instead of writing down comprehensive steps.

[waschinski]

Feature Request 1

I would like to create non-interactive backups e.g. via docker exec [...]. The command should create a zip file with the exported data in a folder. I can then use a docker host mount for that folder to access the backup file on my host. The latter allows me to save the archive somewhere else.

Have you taken a look inside the data volume? There's a backup folder already and I can see an auto created zip file inside there for my installation.

[Tooa]

Have you taken a look inside the data volume? There's a backup folder already and I can see an auto created zip file inside there for my installation.

You are right! The backup page of the application states Automated backups are done each day at 3:00 AM. I just looked into the documentation here where the automatic backup isn't mentioned. Then I suggest to add this information to the documentation.

However a few question arise with the current approach: Does the automatic backup create a new unique one every day? What about a retention policy to control the number of backups from growing? Is changing the backup schedule possible?

I like the docker exec approach instead, because a user can schedule the time and the number of backups for example with Cron. Further via a command line argument one could override the default zip file name.

Overall, the application does not need to care at all about scheduling and just provide the mechanism. Cron is much more powerful as scheduler and I wouldn't recommend reinventing the wheel by implementing such logic in the application stack. I find this a much better approach that is also known from a lot of other selfhosted applications.

[waschinski]

I only have one automatic backup file in the backup folder so I am pretty sure it's getting replaced each night.

If you would like to keep each backup separately or want it to be more flexible, you could also just build a simple container which also mounts the mealie data folder and grab it from inside there. Similar to what Bruceforce/bitwarden_rs-backup does, I think.

[hay-kot]

Does the automatic backup create a new unique one every day?

Only 1 Automatic backup can exists. This is done by pattern matching the backup name. So simply changing the name will allow you to retain additional backups

What about a retention policy to control the number of backups from growing? Is changing the backup schedule possible?

This was something I looked into. It's a lot of configuration to handle and I'm tasked with some many other features that I think are more core to the application that are taking priority. I'm open to anyone willing to support additional options for backups though.

I like the docker exec approach instead, because a user can schedule the time and the number of backups for example with Cron. Further via a command line argument one could override the default zip file name.

I'm unlikely to implement anything via the docker exec approach. All of this can already be accomplished via the API. Check out the docs at https://your-mealie-instance.com/docs. Under Backups the /api/backups/export/database end point can be used to generate a backup. via POST with a payload like the one below. You can even use wget to retrieve the file remotely.

{
  "tag": "July 23rd 2021",
  "options": {
    "recipes": true,
    "settings": true,
    "themes": true
  },
  "template": [
    "recipes.md"
  ]
}

The interactive documentation will also generate a curl command that can help you in creating a CRON job. Anything being done from the frontend can be done via the API. Better documentation for the API and site is coming, but there's still a lot to do on the backend.

[1v0dev]

Great app. Feature request: add integration with external API to automatically calculate recipe calories. There are a few free ones that should be easy to integrate. For example, https://developer.edamam.com/edamam-nutrition-api-demo. You can put a setting for the API key so each installation can use a separate API account.

[carlyman]

Feature Request: Custom Pages based on Tags rather than just Categories. (as other requests have called out, I'd like to leverage tags more via search, click-to-filter, etc).

P.S. Can't overstate that v0.4 is awesome, really is a great MVP for my family's daily usage.

[hay-kot]

Feature Request: Custom Pages based on Tags rather than just Categories. (as other requests have called out, I'd like to leverage tags more via search, click-to-filter, etc).

Thanks for the kind words!

I don't have a good idea on what to do with tags overall. They exists...but that's pretty much it. If you or anyone else has ideas, checkout the tags discussion. I need help structuring how this is going to work. In the beginning it seemed obvious what they were, but the more I talk to my wife the less I feel like I understand, lol.

[Antoine2tt]

Thank you for that amazing 0.4 !

Feature Request : Permissions for "Visitors", being able to choose if visitors can "View (All/some) Receipe" "Add Receipe" "Edit/Delete Receipe"

[dietrichmd]

It would be nice to display the original URL somewhere on the recipe page. It exists in the edit function, but not on a live recipe.

[carlyman]

It would be nice to display the original URL somewhere on the recipe page. It exists in the edit function, but not on a live recipe.

There's a button on the bottom right of the live recipe ("Original URL") -- I like that its available, but also subtle.

[sephrat]

Feature idea: a "Cook now!" button on a recipe page to go into "cook mode" and have a nice step-by-step interface.
Maybe this could overall be improvements to the current page, but I feel like you need to read the recipe in a different view when you plan it from when you actually cook it.

• Ingredients list is always visible (today I need to scroll up to remember how many grams of flour I need in step 10)
• Better navigation between steps ( https://vuetifyjs.com/en/components/steppers/ could look great)
• A fancy timer you can set, manually or based on the cook time (https://vuetifyjs.com/en/components/progress-circular/#rotate ?).
• After completing the last step, some congratulation page (did I just make up a Kids Acceptance Factor?) where we say "Bon appétit !" and ask the user to rate the recipe.
• Remember when you last cooked this meal, and display it in some places: on the recipe page and in the meal planner for example?

I know, it's a big one. It's been growing on me lately, I thought I would lay it on the table somewhere. Maybe I could POC this when I get the time.

[dietrichmd]

Better print layout? Currently, recipes get lopped off or split up due to the way the data is laid out. What could easily be displayed on one page often comes out on 2+ pages. And printing the image would be nice too. I'm sure all this is in the pipeline somewhere, but I wanted to bring it up jic :)

[jayenicks]

Feature Request: Ability to edit/delete tags and categories. I misspelled a tag and can't seem to find a way to remove it from the list of recommendations.

[ovizii]

Feature suggestion: Unit conversion

it would be great if that is possible. i.e. if I scrape a recipe from a website I sometimes end up with measurement units which are different than what I am used to here in Europe.

If not possible, I have to manually edit and convert each added recipe's measurements.

[ovizii]

###edit###
I moved my question to the discussion where it belongs: #309

[ovizii]

###edit###
I moved my question to the discussion where it belongs: #308

[ovizii]

Please stay on topic so that feature requests don't get lost in the flow. We have a Discord and Github discussions page for this.
Thanks

I apologize and will move my questions there. I wasn't aware of those options, sorry again.

[veonru]

First of all, thank you for this amazing project. Just what I was looking for.

Now, on to my Feature Request:
I'd be great to have the ability to set the dark theme as default, for example via environment variable. Or maybe tie the setting to the user account instead of the browser. Hope you'll consider it and thanks!

[dietrichmd]

It would be great if we had multi-item ingredients and instructions. For instance, a recipe has a fried rice component and a protein component. Currently, no easy way to separate the two.

[hay-kot]

I'm going to close this thread and move it to a discussion, It's getting difficult to track and respond to new requests. I've gone through and added all the requests to the new thread.

If I missed your request you can go yell at me over there. Cheers!