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Messages - Danny Hall

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361
Support / Re: Review on coffee forum
« on: May 18, 2012, 03:00:19 AM »
Thanks again, Ginny!!!!  :)

362
Support / Re: hello from france
« on: May 16, 2012, 01:07:12 AM »
Sounds like you know your way around code! :) Without optimization, graphics can crawl. Core data is pretty amazing, though, at what it can do, and do quickly.

The way I've got it structured is that each reading curve can be bound to a probe, so in the context of a roast it will automatically display the real-time probe temp in the temp field, and sample based on the curve's own independent frequency setting at that interval. I've had mine set on 15 seconds, and I'm happy with that. I'd imagine most people would prefer a faster sample rate. I'll probably allow down to at least 5, maybe lower with a warning. That's kind of where I'm at at the moment in code, figuring out how to thread everything so its as smooth as possible.

Quote
how can i copy and paste an existing curve to a profile curve though?

You can do it from either the roasting console, or a curve details screen.

In the roasting console, with one curve selected you can copy just that curve, or with no curves selected - copy them all at once. Tap the blue curve button near the gauge to get the menu. Alternately, in the curve details screen, tap the action button in the upper left (the one that jumps when you arrive on the screen) to get the menu.

Then, in a profile or program, tap the action button in the upper left to get the menu to paste.

If you work with curves frequently, note the preference setting in General-->Completed Roasts. You can set it to always open previous roasts with the roasting console, instead of the watered-down basic view if that's helpful, instead of always having to switch them manually.

Cheers
Danny


363
Support / Re: hello from france
« on: May 15, 2012, 02:08:58 AM »
Hi Olaf

Thanks for the kind words - glad you're liking it!

Quote
is there a way to view a roast temperature curve as graph instead of node list?
At the moment, only in the roast console. I originally wanted the list views to have the curves as icons, but quickly realized that would not be good for memory management (that would necessitate loading every node into memory), so for speed and performance I decided against it. I agree - there should be a way to view the curve in the curve details screen, though. I want to address that soon.

Quote
can an existing curve be used as target or background profile
Yes. First, make sure the graph is set to display past curves. Tap the round "i" button near the graph and set "Past Curves" transparency to a value that you like. Roastmaster will attempt to display the few most recent curves overlaid onto each other, in addition to your current curves, to give you an idea of where things should be going in your current roast. (past curves are displayed most recent first)

Now, this data will, by default, be populated based on the selected buttons in the selector strip. If you want to manually target one or more roasts, tap the magnifying glass icon on that strip to turn it over, then the green "+" button to add or remove roasts from the graph.

Once you've got the graph populated with the data you want, you can hone in even further on curve data with the full screen graph. The full screen graph only displays the curve of 1 roast in addition to the current curves. It chooses that based on what is being displayed in the standard graph, opting for the highest rated, then most recent roast, if more than 1 are being shown. (Crack times and duration are averaged)

About data-logging… The core of data-logging has been complete for about a month in the development version. I've had to backtrack a bit, and beef up a few other areas of the app to support that. An auto-logging environment, as you know, generates a lot more data, and iOS devices have certain memory and speed limitations. I've concentrated a lot of effort into making curves "smarter", and eliminated the need to load curves into memory when performing past roast matching for the graph. It's all under-the-hood stuff at this point, but necessary now that the number of nodes can now grow quite large.

I only put the video up for a short while. I worried that non-english speakers would have no way of knowing that it was demonstrating a feature from a future development version, not the current version on the app store, and be misled a bit. I've got a number of tutorial videos in the works that I want to get back to work on once data logging goes live, but I'll probably use vimeo for that - not quite sure yet.

A few notes about curves and profiles, since we're on that topic. I've beefed up programs and profiles a bit for the update. There will now be two sections in profiles and programs that can hold curves. The existing section will hold control curves, and target temp curves, just as it does now. These will be visible in the roast, but still reside with the profile or program. The new section, will be for holding "Curve templates". These will be blank curve templates that will spawn empty curves within every roast that uses that profile or program, for the purpose of recording data. These curves will only reside in the roast, and allow full data entry without having to recreate them every time. The end result is, that no matter how many curves you track, they're all set up and ready to roll with just two taps. It's a lot easier.

So, as you're getting used to the app, if you're using profiles or programs, store control curves and target reading curves only there. Then, create your reading curves for recording live data in the roast itself. When the update comes out, this workflow can be easily adjusted to allow for a lot more automation.

Let me know any questions you have - I can always help - and thanks for posting!

Kind regards
Danny Hall

364
Roasting / Re: Short hello from Denmark.
« on: April 26, 2012, 10:45:38 PM »
Hi Thomas

Thanks so much for taking the time to write this! It's really great to hear this and that you're enjoying it!!

I got tired of using index cards a fews years ago, too. I took great care to record the details of my roasts, then found I was always too lazy to flip back through and actually read them when roasting. :) I wanted something that would do the clerical work for me, and make it easier to see what roasts worked and what didn't.

Data logging is coming along very nicely. I've had that up and running for a number of weeks now in the development version. It's great fun to monitor roasts from the couch, or my office, instead of always having to be in hearing distance of the roaster.

The bad news is that I cannot make it "talk" directly to roasters, like the hottop - it has to be via hardware that is iOS compatible and supports networking. I have, though, seen forum posts where folks mod their hottops to accept a thermocouple for bean mass temp readings, so I know it's possible. I roast mainly on a Quest and Behmor. The Quest has 2 predrilled holes for bean and drum temps readings, which makes it easy. I'd love to see roaster manufacturers start adding networking to these electronic roasters. It would open up a whole world of possibilities!

If you ever have ideas or things that you'd like to see implemented, please let me know. I try to work on the things that most folks are asking for, and am always on the lookout for ways to improve the app.

Thanks again for the kind words!

Danny

365
Support / Re: Importing temperature curves
« on: March 18, 2012, 04:05:03 PM »
It was a line ending issue coupled with an older string encoding. I should have know that when I saw the crazy symbol where a copywrite symbol should be.

This version uses the older encoding that Roast Logger uses, and tries both line endings to account for files that may have been opened on OS X (and converted in the process) and then saved.

Give this a whirl. Let me know how it works out for you. Thanks for working through this with me!!

Danny

366
Support / Re: Importing temperature curves
« on: March 16, 2012, 01:03:47 PM »
No - I doubt it's you doing anything wrong. As long as you're dragging the file to text field, and getting a CSE output, you're doing it right.

I believe the problem lies in the line endings. Can you ZIP the CSV file first, then send it to me. That will keep any mime decoders from changing the raw format so I can see the raw text that Roast Logger is spitting out. Also, check the output in the app - it will tell you how many nodes it encountered.

You could optionally download one of the CVE files you uploaded to the forum and try that. It would probably be the same format I'm seeing on my end.

We'll get it working! Thanks for the help - this is exactly what needs to happen to weed out the unknowns for the live version.

Danny

367
Support / Re: Importing temperature curves
« on: March 16, 2012, 02:25:34 AM »
Both of them worked for me, so Roast Logger must be writing out windows style carriage returns that are getting converted to mac/unix style when I download the file.

Try this version with "Windows" selected for line feeds. The code is really simple, so I think this will fix it.

It's easy to do the import, but you still have to copy and paste to the roast. I plan on wiring it right into the import screen, where you'll be able to import it directly into a roast.

Let me know how this works out.

368
Support / Re: Importing temperature curves
« on: March 15, 2012, 01:37:32 AM »
So you got the CVE output file?

I based it on the sample you sent, so if the format varies, it might fail. At the moment it's not very smart.

The text file needs to be comma-separated. (Tab delimited won't work). My code just loops through each line looking for "Elapsed". Once it finds that, it tries to build a node from every following line. It separates each line based on the commas, and uses the first value as the time in the format 00:00, then uses the second value as the temp (assuming Celsius).

I'm assuming the output format might be variable, and a little different from the one you sent. If so, let me know what can be expected to change and I can adjust to compensate for that.


369
Support / Re: Importing temperature curves
« on: March 12, 2012, 02:36:31 AM »
Hey Nick

Glad to hear!

Actually, yes - have a look. Just posted it tonight.
http://youtu.be/gAcgcidw-9k

There is still not much in the way of manufacturer support for iOS, but I've learned a lot and there may be loopholes for existing devices. I'll disclose more on the blog soon.

I asked your platform so I could do a little proof of concept test for you and me both. See attached ZIP file.

I did it a couple days after we last spoke, but didn't post it for a few reasons. It's more of a novelty at the moment, certainly not a permanent solution. I plan to get real CSV import code worked into Roastmaster soon.

Here are the drawbacks...
1. You'll need to create a dummy profile to import into as a go-between (you can't import directly to a roast in Roastmaster at the moment). From there, just copy and paste into a roast.
2. I'm going to beef up the swipe selection algorithms for the upcoming probe support. Now folks will have a lot more nodes to deal with, and swipe selecting across that many nodes is slowwwww in the roasting graph.
3. Finally, the app is not yet optimized for that many nodes. I'm working on basing out nodes values for curves, so that thousands of nodes aren't loaded into memory when working in the app.

It won't hurt anything to use it, at worst node-heavy curves might slow it down somewhat, but feel free to experiment. Any problems let me know.

Cheers
Danny

370
Support / Re: Getting start questions
« on: March 12, 2012, 02:16:17 AM »
You can copy either the selected curve if one is selected, or copy all curves if none are selected. Tap the blue curve button by the LED readout underneath the gauge. Those can be pasted into a new Profile or Program, (or another roast for that matter). Ironically, hand in hand with automated probe readings, I'm beefing up Profiles and Programs a bit before adding a "Save to Profile" feature. I'll post more about that in the blog soon - for now it just involves a way to set up "template" curves in a profile or program - curves that are created in a roast as blanks. These would exist in tandem with the "main" curves of a profile. Templates would function as blanks - and be populated automatically to a roast when that profile is tagged in it. Should do away with some of the repetitive data entry for those that like to track curves (like me).

Snapshots are ways to experiment with a profile (or program), without altering the original profile. Say you wanted to veer a bit from a standard profile. Once you start editing a curve from a profile in the roasting console, a snapshot would be created for you. It remains "attached" to its parent, but is its own entity - letting you change its values without altering the original. It's a great way to be able to look at variations of a profile, and rate them to see which changes were good and which were bad.

The blank curve is not actually a curve - it's just a state where no curve is currently selected. It clears away the background color of any selected curve, letting you see the past roast data better.

Sorry - I don't understand your question about the 1C and 2C having the same time. The screen shot looks correct. For each of the crack displays by the gauge, the lower, larger white number is the actual time the crack occurred, while the smaller gray number above shows either A: the time elapsed since crack start if you don't track end times of cracks, or B: the duration of the crack if you DO track end times. (Press a crack button once to record the start time, and again to record an end time).

Ohhhh - sorry, I get it now. You mean on the gauge itself. It always display the current roast time. The 1 and 2 (crack) buttons on the gauge itself control what the calibration of the gauge is at the moment. In the case of the screenshot you posted, the gauge is currently calibrated to first crack. You don't yet have and past roasts with crack data being matched in the graph, but if you did it would look something like the screenshot below, with the graph displaying the data. The pic shows the gauge calibrated to the average second crack time from the graph (note I roasted longer than the average crack time). You can choose among 3 modes of the gauge: crack time (1st or 2nd), target roast degree, or standard 30min timer.

Don't sweat the questions. It gives others a place to look for help, and helps me to know what I need to explain in videos and documentation better.

P.S. Have a look....
http://youtu.be/gAcgcidw-9k

371
Support / Re: Novice user
« on: March 11, 2012, 12:39:27 AM »
Agreed. Just finished the first video. It's not a tutorial (those are still in progress) - it's about wireless temp readings (still in development). I wanted to get that one out of the way, and give users a chance to give feedback once they see it so development doesn't stall for the next version. Then onward and upward with the other tutorials.

Thanks for the feedback - it's good to know what concepts folks have questions about when first starting. It's hard to know that from my perspective. Any questions in the mean time, just let me know.

I appreciate the input!

372
Support / Re: Getting start questions
« on: March 11, 2012, 12:31:19 AM »
Got the database - thanks!

About the bean... you're missing the identifiers (name) in the bean details.  The "identifiers" are what Roastmaster considers to be the name of the bean. Since the country is also empty, the whole thing is showing up blank for you in the roast console.

For beans, you can break it down by Market, Grade, Estate and Variety if you want, or lump it all together into one of these. Roastmaster considers the sum total of these four strings to be the "name" of the bean. This combined string is what it displays in different areas of the app. Put "Greenline" into one of these in and you'll be set. The country will still be blank, but that is to be expected for a pre blended "bean". If you blended it yourself, or knew the components of the blend, you could optionally record it as a blend, then roast that blend instead of a bean.

Now, the time anomaly. I've done some testing myself today, and cannot duplicate it. The only thing that I can think of that would produce that is the iPad's clock changing time during a roast. Would your iPad's time have changed for any reason? Not that I think you'd carry your HotTop with you on a train  :D, but if you went eastward on a train into the next time zone, and the iPad's time went back 1 hour during a roast, I could see something like this happening.

Otherwise, I'm at a loss. I can tell you that no one's reported this before, and I've never seen this happen for me, so hopefully we can chalk it up to the iPad becoming temporarily confused about what time it was. If you think of any other time-related even that would have occurred during the time of the roast, let me know. I hate not knowing the cause of issues when folks encounter them - I'd much rather know exactly why something happened, so I can make sure it's not a bug in Roastmaster's code and know a definitive answer. But, sometimes that not possible.

Definitely let me know if you ever see this happen again. Make sure to note anything else you were doing on the iPad during the roast. Beyond a minor graphical bug or two, there aren't any significant bugs that I'm aware of at the moment, and I'd squash it quick if it proved to be a Roastmaster bug.

Danny

373
Support / Re: Getting start questions
« on: March 10, 2012, 06:25:03 PM »
Hi

So sorry you're having problems. I've never encountered or heard of this before - I can't imagine how the timer would go askew. The mechanics of that part of the roasting process are simple - Roastmaster records a start time, then displays the elapsed time from that date/time in the timer screen - updating it every second.

If you quit Roastmaster (including quitting it from the background tasks by double tapping the home button and clicking the red X next to the Roastmaster icon in the background processes) then relaunch the app can you duplicate the error?

If so, can you send me your database? From the home screen, open the drum door and tap "Actions", then tap "Export current database". Email that to support@rainfroginc.com and I will see if I can duplicate the problem.

Also, what iOS are you using?

Danny

374
Wish List / Re: A Question/Idea
« on: March 06, 2012, 01:46:11 AM »
Hi Dave

Glad you're liking it!

I agree - the only reason I didn't try to make that part automatic, is that there are users in most every country using roastmaster with languages that range from Portuguese to Mandarin Chinese, and people can name their profiles and programs anything. For instance, mine are named "P1", "P2", etc, but that doesn't guarantee that everyone does. In short, I have no reliable way of matching which profile is "P2" when it may be called "Profile 2" or "Perfil 2" etc. And since Behmor curves also rely on the weight setting, it gets even more complex, so I left that part manual for now, planning to revisit it.

During development, though, that was on my mind, and I left the code open to allow for the possibly doing that at a later time. It would be a preference setting - an "opt in once" for automatic Behmor curves, because a lot of folks don't care to track that much detail. If you opt in, and your roaster, profile and weight settings are named something Roastmaster can decipher, Roastmaster could pop a curve in once all three of these are set, or swap one out if you change your mind, without you having to do it manually. I agree - it would be a much better user experience. That same thing grates on me as well. (I roast with a Behmor and a Quest) so I'm pretty sure I'll make that happen at some point.

Thanks for the feedback!!

Cheers
Danny

375
Support / Re: Novice user
« on: February 22, 2012, 12:39:49 AM »
Hey Dennis

You read my mind - those are long overdue. I think I've done a good job of documenting the raw mechanics in the help files, but they're of little use for helping people understand the concepts of how things work best in the app. I need to give folks a way to get up to speed without trial and error.

I'm partway through the first one - and really digging Final Cut Pro :). I plan to do just as you suggest - simple YouTube videos streamed through the website. The two main topics I'm trying to tackle first are getting started, and how to best use profiles (or programs) and curves. After that I'd probably want to spotlight how to share data with other users, and working with Behmor curves.

Thanks for the input!
Danny

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