

Ask HN: Check out my side project - pkulak
http://mealfire.com

======
jackowayed
You really need a real home page. Having a guest account they can play with is
awesome ... but it's not a good way to start it off.

When I come to the site for the first time, the first thing I see is an
unexplained empty calendar. That's very confusing. You need a "this is what
mealfire is and why it's cool" page.

UX is nice. I really like the way you do bulk-adding of ingredients and
directions.

Nice idea. I can definitely see using it once I'm responsible for my meals.

Bottom-line, everything is good but the very-first impression, which is what's
most important.

~~~
pkulak
Yeah, it's always been my intention to have a real home page, but I've never
been able to figure out what it would be. I've got an about page with a bunch
of text, but who wants a wall of text or a sales pitch when they hit a site?
It may be a good idea to put a brief description of the site in the guest bar
at the top.

~~~
codeodor
>but who wants a wall of text or a sales pitch when they hit a site?

It may be a fine line, but I've noticed myself hitting a lot of new sites
thinking "why don't they just tell me what it is/does and show me some screen
shots before I have to sign up?"

I think it's a big deal. I almost always pass without it.

~~~
zackattack
The best approach may be to cookie return visitors and then redirect them to
the example, with a way for them to get back to the original LP if possible
(landing page).

------
pkulak
I've been working on this for a couple months in my spare time, and I think
it's turned out pretty well. It's a meal planning site. It's really simple,
but it really helps when you want to eat at home more instead of going out.
Check it out and let me know what you think. If you want to register, use this
link (to avoid the 5 bucks):

<http://mealfire.com?promo=hackernews>

There's still a million things I want to add/improve, but it's at a point now
where it's been working great for me and my wife (especially since we just had
our first kid), so hopefully it can be helpful to some other people too.

~~~
pkulak
Crap! I'm sorry, this is the register link:

<http://mealfire.com/register?promo=hackernews>

(I wish I could edit that comment)

~~~
spydez
That still redirected me to Amazon Payments and asked for 5 bucks...

~~~
pkulak
That's really weird, because I can see that it's working for other people. And
it works for me. I think I'll just end up turning off the payments until I can
get it worked out.

------
kbrower
Awesome! I always get excited when I see other food related apps on hn.

A bug: All of the blue buttons in the content area(ie Create Shopping List) do
not work for me because the ul with id header links is covering them.

I signed up and then wanted to get the bookmarklet, and I had to log out to
find it. When I did find it I ended up bookmarking the page with the
bookmarklet on it rather than the actual bookmark.

I run a recipe search engine(recipepuppy.com), so we do a lot of the same
things. If you need any tips streamlining the parsing of recipe sites or
anything else let me know. kris@recipepuppy.com

------
Jacoblk
First of all, this seems like a great app; it has a very nice usability in its
current form. That said, it seems like there are just a few ideas that could
really improve the app:

1\. A real homepage. For example, notice how the homepage on
www.freshbooks.com shows a decently sized screen shot, followed by a list of
the major features, and an invitation to either take a tour or jump right in
to "try FreshBooks for free"

2\. A tour, FAQ, contextual help, or some method of introducing users to
features they may not have noticed otherwise. For an example of where this
would be useful: I added a recipe right away and was impressed with the
interface, but only after I added all the ingredients did I discover that I
could, in fact, group elements together (under "more options").

3\. Insert the "add ingredients" and "add directions" buttons directly into
their respective boxes.

4\. Make the list of ingredients drag-and-drop? I can't say for sure whether
this would be useful or just get in the way, but it seems like a good idea to
me.

------
panic
This is a really good idea, and a nice implementation. Like jackowayed said, a
better presentation would help with first impressions. Some kind of recipe
sharing would be cool, too.

------
steadicat
I think it's a bad idea to punish people who register by locking them out
unless they pay $5. At least warn them of what's going to happen...

I liked the idea so I thought I would register right away. Now I'm prevented
from trying it out. Why would I shell out $5 now?

~~~
pkulak
This link should get you in for free, though people have been having trouble.
I haven't really figured out why yet.

<http://mealfire.com/register?promo=hackernews>

I went ahead and set up your account and added a warning if I'm going to
charge. You're right, it's a bit of an ambush!

------
Lammy
I've been working on something almost exactly like this in my spare time.
That's an odd feeling.

~~~
rokhayakebe
"Great minds think alike". Do you feel better?

------
slig
One thing that I noticed:

\- Maybe move the "add X" to inside the box, on the bottom right corner.

I really liked the "create shopping list" feature. The way you do the items
aggregation is very useful.

~~~
pkulak
What do you mean by "add X"?

~~~
slig
"Add ingredients" and "Edit directions". I thought both were "Add...", that's
why I used "x".

------
thaumaturgy
Allow users to purchase recipes from the site for a small fee (99 cents?).

Allow other users to sell recipes on the site.

Take a cut between the two.

