TRICKS TO UNDERSTAND MEAL MASTER Meal Master (reg. trademark) is the easiest recipe database you will ever find, and yet there are several tricks which will make your adventure in cooking easier. Since I get many questions about MM, I will attempt to explain the most common ones. Please understand, I am not an expert, just an avid user. 1. How do I add a recipe to MM? Simple! Just open Meal Master (by typing mm.exe at the prompt), and you will see the opening screen. Now, hit E for enter. This will take you to a screen which offers you a variety of options. By pressing A for add, you will then be prompted to add a recipe. If you want to continue, just hit E for enter, and proceed. You will now be asked for a name, for the categories you wish it entered in to, the number of servings, and then you will be asked to enter the ingredients and directions. A few hints I have found useful in adding a recipe. a. Don't put it into too many categories - just put it into the ones you think are the most im- portant. b. When entering the directions, try not to extend them past 70 lines, or they may be cut off when you import them into a message in a BBS. c. You might want to create a specialized category to enter them into at all times. I use "Cyber- ealm" as that is the BBS I want to credit for the recipe. I also use "Mom's best" a lot. d. I prefer the single line entry for ingredients. That way I don't have to worry about losing the last few letters of the ingredient, and I don't have a problem importing them directly to MM. If you get stuck entering the ingredients or the directions, just follow the prompts at the bottom of the screen. They are invaluable. 2. How do I search for a recipe? This, too, is easy. If you are at the main menu screen, you will see the second prompt is Search. Just hit S and then enter and you will be at a screen which will allow you to search by number, title, ingredient, or category. Just choose whichever one you want and hit enter. If you search by a number MM will ask you which number (and the ones thereafter), and do you want to start there or jump to that number. If you choose category, you can simply use your arrow key to get to the category you want, or type in the name. If you choose an ingredient, you only have to put part of it in for MM to do its job. For example, if you want to check out all recipes with beef in it, just type in beef, enter, and then S for start search. All recipes with beef as an ingredient will be listed. If you choose a title, you only have to put in part of the title. For example, if I want to search for Orange Poppy Seed Cake, I could just put in Orange in the title section, and everything with the word Orange will be listed. Once you find the recipe, and would like to stop the search, just hit the space bar, and the search will be interrupted. Then you can just hit the enter key, and your recipe will be displayed. 3. How do I view a recipe now that it is listed? Simple! Just hit Enter. When you are done, hit ESCape. 4. How do I print a recipe? Let's assume that Berlin Bread is displayed on your screen. Well, to print it, just hit ESCape, and then select "P" for print, and MM will send it to your printer. 5. How do I export a recipe into a mail packet? Of all the questions I get on Cyberealm BBS, this is the most often asked one. We use OLX, and so my reference will be to that mail packet. This is a fairly simple procedure. First of all you will have to export the recipe. How do you do this? 1. Select the recipe to export. You do this by going to the recipe you want to send to the mail packet, and type "E" for export. Now, MM will say, where shall we send it? I usually send it to my upload directory (in this case it is c:\telix\upload). You must give the recipe a name. I use "cyber1.txt). So, my line looks like this: c:\telix\upload\cyber1.txt Assuming you have no other recipe named cyber1.txt, you then hit enter. MM will ask you Create, Append or Replace. It will more than likely create it, and you then hit Enter. Your recipe is now sent to c:\telix\upload as cyber1.txt. 2. Now, you exit MM. Go to your mail packet. Go to the appropriate conference you wish to import the recipe into your message in. Should it be a new message or a reply, simply follow the normal procedure to write or reply. When you are ready to import the recipe, you simply do this: ALT R you should now get a screen which asks you the file name: you type in.... c:\telix\upload\cyber1.txt Now simply hit Enter... On your screen (if you are using OLX-TD) you should see your recipe. Then save it! When you exit you have a perfectly importable recipe ready to be posted on your BBS! 6. How do I get my recipes to import properly so the next person doesn't have to completely retype them? This too is easy, but in order to be certain everything is ok we must go back to the main screen of MM, and now go to the Maintainance/Setup Menu. So, please at the main menu type M. Now that we are there, we see a screen which gives you several options. One by one they are.... a. Quantities displayed as: If you toggle this by pressing the space bar you will see it in decimals or common fractions. I suggest common fractions. b. Output ingredients in: Toggling you will find: Dual Columns or single columns. Again, I suggest single columns. c. Two-Col List Sequence: If the dual column output is selected above, then this option controls the sequence of ingredients inputted. If you choose single column above, then this will not be affected. d. Serving sizes on lists: You can be prompted to choose "prompt" or "as stored". I suggest "as stored". e. Export format selection: This one is important. Toggle through the selections and choose Special: MMMMM format. This makes importing the easiest on all databases and BBS'. f. Printer setup: MM supports many different printers. You will most likely have yours set to the following: Current driver: Default.mmp Description: Default printer It can, however, print 3 x 5 recipe cards for you. g. File Path: Sometimes you might want to store your recipes in a place other than your data base. This allows you to do this; in other words, you can store your recipes onto floppy disks. To change a files path simply type in f, and then enter the new drive and file path. h. Rebuild recipe files: If you have flagged recipes for dele- tion, and you want to get rid of them, now is the time to rebuild. This will permanently delete them. It will also renumber all remaining recipes. It will then tell you how much you have saved in space, and rebuild every- thing for you. i. Category Maintainance: Displaying C will let you add, change, or delete the category values in MM. You will be allowed to add categories, rename existing ones, and delete them. 7. How do I import recipes to my database? The process is long, but easy once you do it a few times. Let me explain it best by giving you an example. I have a separate directory set up to extract recipes for import. It is called g:\recipes. When I get a file which I want to import, I simply unpack the file into g:\recipes. So, let's call it candies.zip. I extract it into g:\recipes, and find there are two files in the original one... candies.mmf (or it might just be called candies or candies.txt) and readme.txt. Well, I look at both and find the actual recipes are in candies.mmf. To import them, I now go to MM. Once in the main screen, I go to Util- ities (U) and once there, I see a variety of selections. At this point, I want I for Import recipe. Now, MM will ask me, ok - where do you want to import it from? I type in g:\recipes. If I don't remember the name, I can now press F1 and it will tell me. Or if I remember, I can type in g:\recipes\candies.mmf and then hit Enter. Once I have that selected, another screen will come up. I will see a variety of selections once again. It should say something like: File: G:\recipes\candies.mmf M Mode............:Manual E Error Handling...... N/A D Duplicate Handling.. N/A R Reformat instructions...: Yes S Start Importing.........: Yes X Exit Selection ( ) Let me explain what each of these mean..... M Mode: Your choices are manual and automatic. If you choose manual, you will need to make a decision whether or not you wish each recipe in the file. If you choose automatic, each one will be imported. I choose automat- ic. It's easier. E Error Handling: This option is only available if you use automatic. This is a pretty good feature, as you can decide what to do with the rec- ipes which will not import for some reason of an error. Toggle between the options. If you choose Manual, each time there is an error, MM will stop and say "ok, what do I do now??" Log to a Import.Log will allow you to skip over the errored recipe and it will save it to an import log and tell you what is wrong. (I like this one). Copy to Import.ER1 will completely copy the recipe to a log for you to fix it later. This is ok if you don't have a problem with space.This is also a good feature if you don't want to save the recipe file to edit later. D Duplicate Handling: This option is only available if the import log is set to automatic. Again, I like this feature. Pressing "D" will toggle among the five settings that tell you whether or not you should proceed if there is a duplicate recipe. Believe me, this one is important or else you will have 5 recipes for fudge and they might be all the same! "Skip and copy to import.log" tells you that your duplicate will be saved in case it is not the same and you want to just change the name. "Copy to import.dup" will tell MM to check the duplicate files and if it finds one with the same name, not to import it. "Overwrite existing" is a scary, but good, feature in that should you have your favor- ite fudge recipe, and a new one comes along, the new one will overwrite your mom's old one. BE CAREFUL using this one! "Always import" will always import every- thing! I used this when I first started with MM and had to delete a lot of recipes which were exactly the same! "Skip" does just that... it skips the dupli- cate and gives you no log, no copy, or anything! So, now you have it set up the way you want. Just hit S for Start Importing, and you're off!!!! I hope these tips help you. I highly urge you to register this program. There are a lot more utilities which are available to you in the registered program, including my favorite == Chgcat. Changing cate- gories allows you to search your database for unique recipes which are not anywhere in your categorys which you have set up, and you can then move them into your own categories. If you don't have this fea- ture, you may have a lot of recipes sitting out in limbo, and you can't find them. They are in the database, you just can't access them. It also allows you to change colors of your screens (my other favorite) calculate statistics on how many recipes you can put into MM, allows you to convert recipes from other formats in MM, and lots of other goodies. To register, send $35, along with the registration form in MM, to Epi- soft Systems, Suite 143, 10121 Evergreen Way, Everett, Washington 98204. Believe me, it is worth it!! (PS, I don't have any ownership in Episoft, nor am I related to Scott Welliver [the author]. I just think if you use it, you should register it!) Linda Fields, Sysop and MM fan Cyberealm BBS Watertown, New York 13601 315-785-8098 315-786-1120