Share Meal (Not Recipe)

joshproehl

Hi!
I have a gold subscription so that I can create recipes and share them with my wife's account so that we can both use Cronometer.

Unfortunately this means my account is littered with a bunch of one-off recipes that I created simply to avoid having to scan/enter everything twice on two different devices. (Especially when I'm preparing a meal before she gets home!)

What I'd really like to do is highlight foods from my diary and "send to..." them to hers.

Bonus feature: Allow me to send a percentage of what I entered in mine. For example, if I make a large salad, scan everything into my account, and then highlight all the items and "Send to... 50%" to her her account, it deducts 50% of what I entered off of my account, and adds that 50% to her account.

scottkg

I agree this would be a great feature. There has to be many multi-user households? At a high level, anything that streamlines entering a group meal, and parsing it out to the other users.

Vickie

I agree, but would implement it differently. I think we need a "Family" account type that sits somewhere between the current "Gold" and "Pro", with better sharing and managing features. The ability to manage linked family members under the one app login would be ideal!

I can dream.

scottkg

The ability to manage multiple "family" account users from one login would be good- but not done right, the implementation could still make the simple task of entering a shared meal no less cumbersome. A single login on the same device for multiple accounts, but not being able to see/manage multiple AT THE SAME TIME, doesn't really solve the problem of meal sharing.

I think the technically easier solution is what the OP alluded to, which would be to share/send a meal. In the scenario where one user is responsible for entering a meal into multiple diaries, that's still a lot of extra clicks (vs a single meal entry into a single diary).

A grand solution would be more along the lines of a family diary, with users in columns. Ability to enter a total, then distribute. Ability to manually enter in individual columns (for example a food row with zero's for everyone except one person).

Hilary

Hey @joshproehl and @scottkg , I think we have what you are looking for already implemented! You can add "Friends" via your profile tab as gold subscribers (As joshproehl suggested). Only the user who sends the friend request must have gold. The other users do not need a gold subscription. Then, the friend you have added can search for the recipe name that you have added.

You can also create recipes easily straight from your diary by selecting multiple foods and then right clicking to select "Create recipe from selected items". The "friend" can add the recipe to their diary and choose "Explode recipe" to easily edit the serving directly in their diary. Once you are done with a recipe you can choose to retire it by selecting the recipe or food in the foods tab and using the settings button to choose "delete/retire". Retiring the food removes it from your list but retains any diary entries of the food.

A family option is a great idea, though; thanks for putting in the time to suss out potential nideas and pitfalls! We love user feedback!

joshproehl

@Hilary
Actually in my original post you'll see that I'm asking for this feature specifically because the "add recipe"/"share with friend"/"retire recipe" workflow is too many steps. It's fine for "Josh's Magical Lunch Salad" which gets used regularly, but when I put together a dinner out of whatever's handy it's just too many steps across multiple devices.

I think the best method would be for friends to be able to select "Allow this friend to add food to my diary" on their friends list. Simple and effective, covers a bunch of use cases. Let me highlight the things in my diary and send them to my wife's, or multiple users for an entire family. Pop up a window and let me edit the serving amounts before sending and presto, easy for everyone!

Hilary

Ah, I see! Thanks for the clarification @joshproehl ! I could definitely see how what you described could be useful! We will look into this; thanks for the feedback/ suggestions!

scottkg

Yes, I totally agree with what Josh said. I'm also very familiar with using shared recipes. It is very inefficient and cumbersome for sharing meals (even if the meal included a recipe- which majority of mine don't). I think if you simply model some common use cases where a regular group (parent(s)/children, couples) are regularly eating together, you can see there is an immense opportunity for streamlining entry.

In fact, I'd bet some market research would find that lone users in a couple/family unit would often be reluctant to add a family member, particularly a child, knowing the extra admin effort would be a bit much. The only reason I do it, is that I have a teenager with special dietary requirements, so need to closely monitor her nutritional intake. If it was easy to share/add meals though, I'd for sure add my other kids and spouse as well.

Hilary

Thanks Scottkg! There are definitely some great ideas in there! We will keep these in mind for future updates!
Have you guys ( @scottkg & @joshproehl ) explored the internal profile option using the Pro subscription? It's a bit pricier, however could be useful if you are tracking for another person!
I am also wondering: do you create your recipes by multiselecting on your diary page or by creating a recipe in the foods tab separately. Not a solution, I know, but if you haven't tried creating a recipe by multi-selecting from the diary, I personally find it a lot easier than using the recipe creator if you aren't looking to create a long-term recipe.

scottkg

Hilary-
I almost always do recipes starting in the diary. I only do it in the recipe section as part of meal planning where I might actually be following a recipe. In the situations where its the meal-share workaround, I use the diary approach you mention.

My understanding of the pro edition, is that it doesn't have anything that would make meal sharing easier. Let me know if I'm wrong.

Hilary

I 100% agree with you all; a family plan with easier meal planning/ food sharing options would be great! Unfortunately we do not have one available at this time. We really appreciate all your suggestions, as user feedback like this is what will make future implementation of this more user friendly and tuned to your needs!
For now, we do have the internal profile available on the pro account. The reason I suggest this as a possible option, is that it would allow you to have multiple profiles under one account, and you can easily flip back and forth between people. Although this does not solve your problems completely, it does allow you to move more smoothly between profiles.

scottkg

I'll look into pro a bit more. We are a gadget-rich household, so I simply have different devices logged in simultaneously to avoid the log in/out problem.

Patricium

Just wanted to add my vote to this as a feature add as well. My partner and I do food tracking snapshots together, and it would be nice to be able to send him the list of dinner items which often includes something like a pre-entered and shared custom recipe, plus a specific weight of a cooked vegetable, or a dinner roll. My current solution is to text him the stuff he should add, and that's a little time consuming. ;-)

ScottP

Hello, Has there been any progress on this feature. My wife and I basically eat the same thing with just slightly different amounts. It would be extremely helpful to just “copy” from her diary or have her send me the meal ingredients to add to my diary. Thanks!

LaralynEllsworth

I would love this feature as well. I create recipes of what I cook every day and tell my husband what they are called so that he can add them. I want to be able to "send" him a meal/selection of diary entries and have him "accept" them into his diary.