Because of the surprising amount of feedback I’ve gotten on my wine organizer program Vino, I decided to spend some hours and fix some of the more glaring issues with the original version of the program. Here’s the result.
Here are some of the bigger changes in v1.3:
I’ve chosen not to release the source code for v1.3. The source for v1.2 is still available. The reasons for this is mainly that some of the code, such as the Sparkle framework support, contain encryption keys. The program is still freeware though, and I have no intentions of changing that fact.
A big thank you to everyone who has contributed with comments, suggestions and linkbacks. Any feedback on this version is appreciated as well.
hey, this app is super cool! i think it'd be cool to make a similar version for tea snobs too. i downloaded the source code to see if i could do it myself but i don't know anything about programming so i doubt i could lol… maybe i'll learn just so i can organize my tea snobbery.
oh, also i think it'd be cool to implement a star rating system similar to itunes. :) then again, i see how percentile can be much more precise.
Great program. I love the ease of use and being able to include the label image is brilliant.
One question though. Is there a way to print the list of wines?
It's a long way from my second floor apartment to the basement and it would be great to keep a list in my modest cellar rather than having to check on the computer what I might want to grab.
I can't find this item: R.E.W. – Resveratrol Enhanced Wine from Australia in the program?
The reason I ask: http://www.dinside.no/803419/spis-med-hjertet
Quote:
"Kjøpes fra Vinmonopolet og nytes helst i beherskede mengder. Resveratrol Enhanced Wine (R.E.W.) er vin med 100 ganger mer antioksidanter enn vanlig – og er utviklet i Australia. Legen som har utviklet vinen, kaller den for vaskulære piperensere."
:)
Why not add easy support other things like whisky?
@evenv
Yepp… I was in the "vinmonopol" today… they spent 45 minutes trying to find it… they didn't… lol … ;D
hey – real nice app and thanks. playing with it and without the benefit of knowning your motivation and objectives, I thought I'd throw a few things out there that might be worth considering.
First, I'd like to think of this as a wine cellar "management" app – but that's a big word and I divert…
1) enter an inventory of your wines – seems easy to do that now
2) when you enter tasting notes, perhaps the number of bottles is reduced. in that you might have tasting notes for the 5 bottles of that wine and then be able to not only see that you have one less bottle each time you enter notes, but that you can see a history of how that wine evolved.
3) you have a recommended "drink by date" field, but why not make this an actual date field so that the program could offer options of alerting when that drink by date approaches, or print a list of wines that should be consumed in a given date range
4) cellar location? if you've got a couple hundred or thousand wines you might have them in a rack or in numbered boxes. Why not be able to enter the location. with those wines you have multiple bottles, there should be a way to enter a location of each bottle in the event they are acquired and/or stored on different dates in different locations
5) many people like to track 3rd person scores such as Parker, WS, Tanzer etc. might be nice to have fields and able to enter these scores, including your own score (perhaps from the last bottle tasted) and eventually search that
6) haven't explored the printing but it would be good to have sorting capabilities by vintage, varietal, country or origin, score or even cellar location.
okay. i didn't mean to throw a wrench into the operation… i know these things are a tall order, but that's what I was thinking after playing with Vino for awhile…
thanks for the great app!
Thanks for the feedback. I have to say I had no idea people were rating their tea. I usually have whatever's left in the jar in the morning :) Anyway, knock yourself out – I made this program in order to learn Cocoa so you could too. Check out cocoadevcentral for some good tutorials. The 50-100 system is pretty standardized in wine tasting, and like you said, it is more precise. So I think I'll stick with it for now.
Printing is a good idea, and shouldn't be too hard to add either. I'll keep it in mind for the next version. Thanks for the feedback.
It's not in the program because – as far as I can find – it's not on vinmonopolet.no. You might want to correct Dinside. Seems like an interesting project though – if a little bit scary… :) Sidenote: You can easily add wines not on the list to your collection by using the New Wine button, and then adding whatever information you want to the new entry.
Thanks for the precise and constructive feedback. I'll try to answer your questions as best as I can. First, my main motivation for writing this app was basically that I didn't think the existing solutions fit my own needs. I wanted something simple and easily accessible to help me remember wines I'd tasted. The cellar management functions of Vino are less than stellar because I don't have a wine cellar, so I didn't focus on that aspect of wine when writing Vino. My foray into wine tasting is pretty recent, so many of Vino's faults can be traced back to my own limited experience. Still, I realize from the feedback I've gotten that cellar management is something that would be appreciated, and something that I see myself wanting sometime in the future as well (when my days as a poor, hungry student are over perhaps). All of your suggestions are features that could be implemented without too much of a problem. My only caveat is that too many input fields could clutter up the interface, but I already have some thoughts on interface redesigns that would take care of that. My original thought for "Drink by" was that from what I've seen, drinking windows are pretty vague, and so it didn't seem appropriate to use a specific date for this. But you're right – the sorting functions could be very helpful and is reason enough for choosing such an approach. The possibility of multiple reviews is something I've considered several times already, but I'm unsure of how to best implement it. As soon as I find a decent way to present the various reviews I'll add it. Printing will be implemented in the next version, and I'll try to make it as customizable as possible. Cellar location is also coming. Any other cellar related features you would like to see? Thanks again for the feedback!
I've just bought a new mac, and wondered how to bring my library of wines over to the new computer. I tried searching and looking for any application support-folders named vino or something similar, but couldn't find anything but the program folder itselv (in applications). Tried copying this file over to the new mac, which made me able to use vino, but all my wines were still gone! Any suggestions on how to bring my old library would be appreciated!
Trond: You will find your wine library in ~/Library/Application Support/Vino/main.vinodb The file you need here is obviously "main.vinodb"
Hi Trond, From your Home folder, go to Library –> Application Support and look for a folder named Vino. Inside there should be a file named wines.vinodb. Just copy this file to the same location on your new Mac. You will probably already have a wines.vinodb file there, just make sure Vino isn't running, and overwrite it. Also be sure that you haven't registered any wines on the new Mac when you do this – if so they will be lost.
Hi, Jørgen. That is correct for the previous version of Vino, for 1.3 the file is named wines.vinodb. Anyway: Thanks for helping out answering questions!
Is it possible to use the Vino programme on Iphone? I would love to have the opportunity to syncronize my mac with the Iphone and have all my wines at hand anytime.
Sorry, there is no iPhone version of Vino. I absolutely agree that this would be a great addition, but I have no experience in iPhone development and no time :) There are a few good wine apps for iPhone, though none that sync with a Mac application as far as I know.
How can I get the info OUT of the application? It will not copy/paste or print.
Hey Andrew, At the time, there is no way of copying entire wine listings out of the program. This is entirely because I didn't think to add the possibility, but now that you mention it I completely agree that it's something that should be possible. I'll release a new version of Vino some time this summer, and I'll make sure copying wine information is possible there. How would you ideally want the wine information copied? Some form of formatted text? Also note that the data is stored openly in a sqlite database named wines.vinodb. If you have some experience with databases it's pretty easy to extract the information that way.
Sounds good… I'd like two options: 1. A simple highlight and copy into the clipboard of one or more lines/records. 2. The option to save the entire (or a highlighted section) database to a flat csv file (comma delimited) as it is a pretty standard file type that many other programs can import.
Hi Even, great news.I am looking forward to your next release of Vino. Thanks for a great program.
Hello, thank you for your software. I am using it a lot. Do you know if i can acces from my cell phone or PDA? Thank you so much!
Is your software open? It would be nice to allow other developers access to update the software and give back to the Vino community.
Two more things: 1. A problem…I have noticed that if I enter an exact price eg. 35.80 the detail view shows the right price but the list view shows 35.79. 2. I'd love to be able to 'hide' wines I have consumed, yet still have the historical data for viewing.
I'll reply to myself, as I need to be a bit more specific… I had it wrong, I put in a price of 35.80, for example, save it and then in BOTH views I then see 35.79.
Any chance to allow a different units in the Volume?