The Shiners little helper

[Brad Gee]

Hi guys
Ive decided to write some software which will give me a helping hand. i noticed on the home page of this website there are alot of calculations people have pitched together to come up with which i thought would be great to have available offline, so as long as i can figure out the formulas as some of them look like rocket science! il code them into this application.

Another observation was the amount of recipes scattered all over the place. so i coded a recipe book, which allows you to add and manage recipes to your book, adding notes to it as you go

Another feature i decided on was a brewers log. so as i make tweaks throughout the process, i can log them down so i remember what i done last time by a date by date basis. later it will report things such as total fermentation time along with time it took to distill etc

As to how far i go with this title i am unsure.... i guess that will depend on how much interest there is in it. what i will say is that it looks terrible in the pictures lol.. i knocked that up over the past couple of evenings. needless to say itl be alot more eye catching when polished


A note to the admins of homestiller. ive no worries in putting the homedistiller logo on the software if its of interest? with a link to the website and forums on the software too plugging it.


Some of you may be wondering is this a money spinning plot?
Well, no. ive written quite a few software titles in the past which are all absolutely free to everyone. Some of which im pleased to say have had thousands upon thousands of downloads with even a computer game vendor sending me a cheque in the post as a thank you. that was a nice bonus! .. blew the majority of it on a powerful PC

This will always be free for everyone to download with no limited feature or time limit crap.

But still, all thoughts are welcome... as are requests for features and the like.

Brad Gee

[fullhouse]

where can we get it?

[Brad Gee]

As it stands you cant

Still coding to do on the calculators page and lots il be wanting to tweak before releasing it to the masses, though gettings everyones feedback on if they think it would be useful to them and ideas on what else they would like in it would be great at this stage.

[guittarmaster]

Some of which im pleased to say have had thousands upon thousands of downloads

does this mean you can do mobile devices like ipone of droid? I'd really enjoying this on my iphone.

Also, a thing I always wanted to do but as i don't distill anywhere my mac mini i haven't yet. I always thought it would be great to have a database set up to where if pot running i could enter alcohol concentration against time to achieve plots of proof vs time of run to compare against other batches when experimenting. Just my nerdish request...

[bentstick]

Cool, I have 5 3 ring binders full of things I have collected over the last 1.5 yrs that I thought where important including the whole main site from Tony, I like hard copies also.

[fullhouse]

yeah id love to have it on my pc and ipod and some how be able to sync the info on them ....lol....ipod would be great alone

[NcHooch]

allright, allright .....where'd ya steal that avatar?

[Braz]

A worthy project indeed.

I would love to see a dilution calculator with a built in temperature correction function.

[moonshine guy]

By all means, bring it on! Like most iPad, iPhone, and android would be great cus we all got em while we all are distilling!

[Bushman]

After many years on a PC, I bought an ipad now the learning curve and using it correctly begins. I should probably opt for the free classes apple offers but dang the nearest apple store is an hour away!

[heartcut]

That sounds great! I have Stillmate on my droid, would love to have something that did more. I'll be eagerly waiting. Thanks.

[Brad Gee]

Well thats a good reponse so far, thanks for commenting.

Iphone app writing is something i have been putting off researching, but i am game on figuring out how its done as theres another project i have hich would benefit from it. I program in C++, and i doubt that language is used with app creating.. though il check out to see if theres a compilor which supports it.. worst case scenario is that il need to study a different language but thats the fun of it i guess lol

So yes, i agree this software in the future should be able to sync to your smartphone and will figure that out

With suggestions regarding calculations, if you happen to know the formulas you are using to work it out manually could you let me know? then il gladly code it in for you. That would save me alot of time trying to work out the math if you already know it.

Il set a deadline for releasing version 1 showing the features above within a weeks time

[Brad Gee]

allright, allright .....where'd ya steal that avatar?

oooo thats awkward? i googled moonshine bottle lol.. first one which came up. if you would like me to change it ive no worries in doing so

[Prairiepiss]

That sounds great! I have Stillmate on my droid, would love to have something that did more. I'll be eagerly waiting. Thanks.

I to use stillmate. I also have Brewzor calculator for Android. It's a AG beer brewing calculator. That has all kinds of AG calculators in it.

[Brad Gee]

So the calculators are coming along nicely, though still need alot of work

Designing an Iphone app etc is going to be time consuming for me as first im going to have to get my head around coding in Java, as im a C++ programmer. if anyone knows how to convert C++ to Java then by all means im all ears. If not, il figure that out as and when ive got time
As a workaround, I am adding the option to export your recipes etc to your iphone which will be stored in your notes.

I will also code it to support Android phones too.

[beowoulfe]

What a GREAT offer!!! Thanks!

[ThrownOlive]

This would be pretty cool. I've been using a google doc spreadsheet for keeping track of my runs, but it would be great to have it all included along with calculators etc.

Also, a graphical pipe layout would be really nice eg. select a pipe size and move the fittings/pipe around to get a feel for a new design etc and even better if it was active with a vapor sim. but now I'm getting ahead of myself...

[BrewVegas]

Great project. There are some pretty robust iPhone apps for the homebrewer which you could probably use for ideas. I use BeerSmith software on my PC and it is excellent.

[eviljesus]

Guys,

Just as an update to this, I have just commenced working on a version for Android.

All comments and the wishlist has been noted and I will be working on v0.9 alpha, which I expect to have completed by the 17th August.

I will post back with some screenshots in a few days of what we're looking at here. I hope to have everyone's hopes and dreams wrapped up into one tidy little package.

Cheers guys,
Evil.

[heartcut]

Very cool- eagerly waiting. Thanks.

[RevSpaminator]

Designing an Iphone app etc is going to be time consuming for me as first im going to have to get my head around coding in Java, as im a C++ programmer. if anyone knows how to convert C++ to Java then by all means im all ears. If not, il figure that out as and when ive got time

Java will get your app ported to Android. To get it working on iOS you'll need to convert to Objective C and get Apple's blessing.

[eviljesus]

Wash screen of of the app so far....

Looks very ugly atm, but all will be cleaned up when I go back through and polish. I'm going for function at the moment.

I do need one thing though, that is, how to calculate the specific gravity from the total wash volume and the amount of sugar used. I have looked at the source of the calculators on the main page but there is a few arbirtrary numbers in there that I'm not sure where the come from.

x = sugar amount (KG)
y = wash volume (L)
Math.round(((258.6+(87.96*x/y))+Math.sqrt(66874+(7736.96*x*x/(y*y))+(57947*x/y)))/517.2 *1000)/1000

Can someone please explain this to me. I'd just like to know where the arbitrary numbers come from?
I've got this part working but reverse engineering rad's calculators from the parent site! Cheers rad!

Cheers,
Evil.

[eviljesus]

Guys!

Alpha has arrived - it is one ugly son of a bitch, but it is working! It is missing alot of sanitary checks (checking numbers are filled in etc), and the layout is an absolute atrocity, but math-wise, it is working. I am only going to offer it in metric for the foreseeable future, until everything is up and running then I will add an imperial version. To get it this far in this amount of time has taken considerable effort, but now I've got my head around most of it, it shouldnt be too much problem to add imperial to it.

Fermenting is calculations that you might want to do while preparing a wash.
Distilled is calculations that you might want to do after stilling a batch
Other will have functions such as temp converters, etc. that fall under neither category

Please note the following:
- nothing on the 'Other' page as of yet.
- if you input nothing into the a listbox and click the calculate button, the app will fail. No stupid-proofing has been done yet.
- it looks shithouse. I figure program functionality is more important than looks at this stage, so all that will be jazzed up post completion.

To be done:
- Temp Converter
- Alcohol Temp Correction (http://homedistiller.org/calcs/husker_temp_convert.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow)
- Add to the Google Play marketplace to facilitate easy updates and new installations for non-techy users. This is relatively easy once I get a version that I am happy with going 'live' so to speak.

To install, download the apk file in the attached .zip (extract this) and copy to your phone via USB. Install the app by running the .apk on your phone (google a guide if your not sure what to do). It will ask for permission to your Storage (modify storage contents), used for variables etc. Network (internet access to check for updates (which is currently disabled)) and phone calls <- no idea why this is there, but I am working on getting rid of it so please do not be alarmed.

Please post your wishlist and comments, I greatly appreciate any/all feedback.

Cheers,
Evil.

[8-ball]

looks really helpful thanks heaps
wasnt hard to install at all followed the instuctions and worked first go
installed on a samsung gs3

[Samohon]

Designing an Iphone app etc is going to be time consuming for me as first im going to have to get my head around coding in Java, as im a C++ programmer. if anyone knows how to convert C++ to Java then by all means im all ears. If not, il figure that out as and when ive got time

If you already know K&R C or C++, Objective C will not be that hard to implement. Use xCode if you are on a mac, its way easier. Porting C++ to Objective C for the iphone IMO is not a path I would go down as the 2 languages are very similar and OOP technology is implemented in both, especially the latter.
Flash and Java are programmed to the iOS using a converter app, and the code you get from the conversion will always be dodgy IMO, also, rejections from Apple are likely using this method. The only reliable and best way to program for iOS is using Objective C, with the comprehensive XCode (free) developer suite (IDE) mentioned above. Unfortunately, you need a Mac to do this, as XCode is only available for OSX.

Any code being run on an iOS device is tested stringently against its current API (application programmers interface) and an OOP (object oriented programming) framework is used throughout. Apple restricts developers to writing iPhone applications in Objective C, C, C++ or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine. Apps must be originally written in one of these languages and may only use Documented APIs in a manner prescribed by Apple. Only code written in Objective C, C, or C++ may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs that are free. Everything you need to build an iPhone App is contained in the massive iPhone App SDK.

One last thing: if you are a procedural programmer then the jump to iOS device programming may be a big one as the object is absent from the structure on the get go. For small developers of small applications, procedural C is fine, albeit outdated. Knowing the benefits of inheritance, polymorphism and encapsulation will be of great benefit to the iOS programmer and will aid in making the development of large apps for these devices plain sailing. The latter technology was available way back in the 1990's and has only grown in strength since then. Procedural programming is now used as a starting point when teaching new students to code. Programming in other disciplines for other devices (android, ect) - like the one in this thread – is certainly a great starting place, but for iPhone App development you really do not have a choice.

Hope it helps...

ps: My desk is full atm or I would certainly contribute some of my time to help bring this app to fruition for all platforms... Keep it up guy's...