I'm not sure the shopping list truly represents what needs to be purchased. For example, suppose I have a recipe consisting of 10lbs of pale malt and I have 2lbs in my inventory. This would mean that I must purchase 8 additional pounds to brew this recipe. When I add this recipe to the shopping list, it shows "amount" 10, "inventory" 2, and "needed" 8. I can tell that when I go shopping I need to buy the "needed" amount of 8. I think there are better ways to represent that, but I can handle it. The problem though is that when I click "Add to Inventory", it adds 10 (the "amount") to my inventory rather than the 8lbs I needed. That doesn't seem very intuitive to me. If I adjust the "amount" to 8 (the original "needed"), the "needed" then changes to 6 which is even more confusing.
I'm really not clear how the shopping cart and inventory are supposed to be used. Beersmith aside, if I were to buy groceries as an example, I am only concerned with items and quantities I need. At the time I am making the purchase, I just need to know I need 2 more items and when I get home, I will then have 2 more than I did before. There really is no distinction between what I need and what I will buy. I buy what I need. The Beersmith concept of buying an amount other than what I need (separate fields for "amount" and "needed") doesn't make sense to me.
In addition to the confusions above, creating a shopping list for a recipe where I already have some ingredients will add ingredients I have to the shopping list. If I have 10lbs and need 10lbs, why would I want to go buy 10 more pounds?
Overall, I've found BeerSmith to be a powerful tool, but I'm quite disappointed with how this inventory is handled as the inventory feature was a key differentiator for me compared to the other free tools for recipe formulation. If I had realized this behavior earlier today, I'm not certain I would have purchased Beersmith.
Does anyone have any insight? Am I misunderstanding something?
I'm really not clear how the shopping cart and inventory are supposed to be used. Beersmith aside, if I were to buy groceries as an example, I am only concerned with items and quantities I need. At the time I am making the purchase, I just need to know I need 2 more items and when I get home, I will then have 2 more than I did before. There really is no distinction between what I need and what I will buy. I buy what I need. The Beersmith concept of buying an amount other than what I need (separate fields for "amount" and "needed") doesn't make sense to me.
In addition to the confusions above, creating a shopping list for a recipe where I already have some ingredients will add ingredients I have to the shopping list. If I have 10lbs and need 10lbs, why would I want to go buy 10 more pounds?
Overall, I've found BeerSmith to be a powerful tool, but I'm quite disappointed with how this inventory is handled as the inventory feature was a key differentiator for me compared to the other free tools for recipe formulation. If I had realized this behavior earlier today, I'm not certain I would have purchased Beersmith.
Does anyone have any insight? Am I misunderstanding something?