Rainfrog Inc.

Tag: Profiles

  • Roasting curves progress

    Roasting curves progress

    Figured I’d take a break from coding tonight to post an update on roasting curves. They are basically completed, and in the beta-testing stage. Though it’s not ready to release yet, it getting close. I took a slightly different path than the one I originally started out on, but the result is something that I feel is even better than I had anticipated.

    Based on the feedback I’ve received, people like the roasting interface.  I struggled to add what, in actuality, is a very complex concept, in a way that is unobtrusive to those that don’t need it. The premise of any good iPhone app is simplicity. Roastmaster is certainly not a simple app, but I’ve tried very hard to keep it looking and feeling as simple as possible. I’ve tried to carry that over into the implementation of roasting curves. Take a look at the progress so far.

    Default roasting console showing 1 selected curve
    Default roasting consol showing 1 selected curve
    Roasting screen with the gauge in curve entry mode, and graph in benchmark mode
    Roasting screen with the gauge in curve entry mode, and graph in benchmark mode
    Roasting screen with the gauge in curve entry mode and 1 node selected
    Roasting screen with the gauge in curve entry mode and 1 node selected
    Curve details view

    The concepts behind curves are simple…

    • Any roast, profile or program can contain as many curves as you like
    • Each curves can contain as many nodes as you like
    • Nodes can be entered in one of three ways… by dragging the silver ring around the gauge (when in curve mode), tapping and entering text into the digital temp readout (will be timestamped at the moment of editing), or by accessing a dedicated table view like other Roastmaster variables.
    • Tapping the new gauge mode button will toggle between the standard gauge mode, and curve mode (the gauge shrinks to half-size, encompassed by a draggable temperature ring, and three curve editing buttons). Tapping the mode button again will return it to the standard mode.
    • Each curve has a customizable maximum value variable (500 is default). This will allow you to track either degrees or arbitrary values (such as tick marks on a gas grill, or stove, etc.)
    • Whole curves and individual nodes can be selected and modified from either the roasting console, or via a dedicated Curve view like other variables.
    • Curves can be copied and pasted between roasts, profiles and programs

    Hand in hand with the new curves, I’ve beefed up the graph view to support the addition of curves. It’s finally become more what I envisioned when originally designing it. I shared many of your thoughts on the shortcomings of the graph view and set out to fix them on this release.

    • The graph view now displays all of your curve data. The selected curve is filled with a transparent version of its unique color, and stroked thicker than any other unselected curves, with visible nodes. Unselected curves are visible, but with a thinner stroke, and no fill color or nodes.
    • Tapping the graph view toggles the selected curve – stepping through all of the curves with successive taps.
    • The graph view now displays duration data of the roasts it is previewing, in addition to 1st and 2nd crack data
    • It now also displays past curve data as well, at a user-definable transparency setting
    • The graph can now function in “Benchmark” mode. Tapping the blue magnifying glass icon in the selector strip above the graph will put the graph into benchmark mode. You can manually select as few or as many roasts as you like to be displayed in the graph. This gives you ultimate control over exactly what data and what roast you are trying to match. This is a very powerful and much-needed feature.

    I’m still a few weeks away from finishing up testing, and final tweaking on roasting curves and benchmark matching. This is my number 1 priority until it’s finished. I need to tie all of this into Roastmaster’s automatic past roast matching algorithms, but I don’t anticipate that being terrible difficult. To those of you waiting… thanks for your patience – I believe it will be soon!!

    Also – I want to thank everyone who’s contacted me with kind words, requests and suggestions. I take all of your suggestions to heart. Roasting curves is by far the biggest feature request, so naturally, the one I tackled first. Having access to the database is a close second. I am trying to get that taken care of in the next release as well.

    If you use Roastmaster, and like it – please spread the word!

  • Planning Roasting Curves

    Planning Roasting Curves

    Now that version 1.1.0 is up and running on iOS4, it’s time to shift efforts to what I knew would be the number 1 feature request for Roastmaster – editable roasting curves.

    Believe me, I’ve given this a lot of thought – even back to the initial steps in development. While working on Roastmaster, I laid all of the groundwork necessary to make sure this first big new feature could be implemented as easily and quickly as possible. It’s no small undertaking, given that all of the home roasters have different ways of dealing with heat curves. Some, like my beloved Behmor, have profiles and programs hard coded that are not editable. Some, like the Hottop allow you to save your own custom profiles, with roasting curves preserved from roast to roast. Others, like the Genie Cafe, or even tricked-out BBQ grills, are completely manual – allowing you free control, but no programmability. (This is from research only – I only own an Alpenrost and Behmor, so please correct me if I’m wrong)

    This brings up a lot of questions about how profiles are saved for individual roasters. For instance, when I roast 400g of Ethiopian Yrgacheffe in my Behmor on profile 2, I can rest assured that that profile is the same exact profile I roasted with when I first purchased the roaster – it can’t change. A hottop owner, though, may have changed  that profile many times over the life of the machine, so the profile and any associated curves in Roastmaster must be unique to each roast, instead of shared between them like profiles and programs are at the moment. I have plans on how this will be handled in the completed version, but I do have some questions for users who are anxious to see roasting curves.

    Let me start by explaining the track I am on at the moment. The roasting console view shows a small graph with a timer wiper. I’m thinking that, when viewing the roast console, if the device is rotated to landscape orientation, the graph will zoom full screen, with condensed versions of the start/stop button, 1st and 2nd crack buttons, and the timer. With the graph occupying the full screen, there is room to comfortably add a control strip for roasting curves. Curves plural? I think so. Most home roasters will only have need for 1 heat curve, but BBQ grill roasters might have 2 or 3 different burners to contend with – and possibly benefit from curves for each. The larger screen real estate should make it quite comfortable to scroll, zoom, add and delete curves, and adjust points on those curves by dragging them. The graph might optionally display very light representations of past roasting curves, superimposed on the background, to give you an idea of what curves you used for past roasts. This is how I had envisioned the graph to function, so I’m excited to finally be working on it!

    Once a roast is complete, the action button at the top left of the standard roast console (once you rotated the device back to portrait) would give you the option to export that setting (time and curves) to a Roastmaster roaster as a stored profile if you planned on doing the same on your roaster appliance.

    I’m asking for input because, well, first of all – users are the majority vote in this app, not me, even though I use it every time I roast. More importantly, though, I don’t own any of the roasters that would benefit from roasting curves, so I want to see if my thinking is in line with how you think they would best be implemented. Please give me any comments, thoughts or suggestions you have – and especially any corrections if my research on the roasters mentioned is not accurate.

    I’m all ears…