Has to be asked...Promash Recipe Conversion

Originally Posted by Cuisinart on 22 Aug in our old forum...
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I really have three questions:

1. If recipe info and session are stored together, is each session stored serially in one file? That's somewhat nice so long as I could print out just the session I'm interested in.

2. What is the data format for storing files? XML? Internal database? Flat files?

3. Can I export to promash format? Can I import a Promash recipe?

Thank you for the help with my answers

This reply originally posted on our old messsage board on 22 August 2003 by BeerSmith
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Hi,

1. All of the recipes are stored in one file, but you can export any set of selections by selecting them and then using the "Save selected items" or "Mail selected items" on the "Actions menu.  You can also export the whole current table using the "Export As" command on the "File" menu.

2. The data format is a binary format stored in flat files (though you can also export as HTML using the "Save item as web page" on the "Actions" menu) I am working on a version to import and export XML files, but it is not complete yet.

3. No, I do not have a way to import/export Promash files - unfortunately it is a proprietary format as well, though I would certainly consider it if the publisher would release the file formats.

Personally I think XML is the way to go...if we can all agree on the names for the XML tags!

Thanks!

Brad
www.beersmith.com

Originally posted to our old message board on 22 Aug 2003
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Brad, thanks for the snappy reply!

Jeff Donovan has mentioned that he hopes to switch to XML for the data format also. If you both do so, then the brewing communinity as a whole will benefit.

Thanks again!

My suggestion on development of the standard for XML is that you guys should not wait until you're ready to do the XML database to start discussing tags.

I mean start right now!  That way you all won't be developing in parallel, and tied to the tags you have chosen, without possibility for an agreement in the future.

I suspect however that there are already going to be problems because you'll probably want tags to match your current data shema, and the databases are bound to be somewhat different.

But clearly there is a least common denominator that can be agreed to, with additional tags being 'optional'.

Lou,
 I will try to contact some of the other authors who might be interested to see what can be done.

 If we create a "standard" of some kind - it would certainly be my preference that it be an open "public" standard, but I'm sure it will be a challenge due to differences in the programs.

Brad

Ha! 2003? I was searching for "promash file format" and found this with my suggestion from 12 years ago.

Did beerxml come about because of this discussion?

Anyway, I'm looking for a way to take my sessions and record them in XML, hopefully with native support from some software. I was hoping beersmith would support this, and was thinking would support beerxml. But I see from the beerxml forum that sessions are not supported, per se.

Does the beersmith xml format support sessions? Is the beersmith xml format defined somewhere?

If I get ambitious I might try to reverse engineer the promash binary format and make a converter. I was hoping http://outofkey.com/promash-file-converter/ would do the trick, but it seems to have some significant gaps and bugs.