Shop'NCook shopping list and recipe management software

Shop'NCook Pro 3.4.2 User's Manual

Getting started
Shopping List
Database Editor
Sublists
Sublist Editor
Recipes
Cookbooks
Recipe Import/Export
Recipe Editor
Nutritional Analysis
Direct Access
Menus & Meal Planner
Costing
Browser
Preferences
Troubleshooting
Search

Preferences

The preference panel is accessed by selecting Preferences... in the Edit menu (on Windows) or in the Shop'NCook menu (on Mac OS X). The preferences pane is formed of the following tabs:

General
Shopping List
Recipes
Scaling
Menu
Appearance
Print
E-Mail
Nutrition
Costing
Network

You display a tab by clicking on the tab name at the top of the preferences window.

The general tab

In the general tab, you can select:

the display character size of the software, except for the style of the formatted text like recipes, shopping list preview and menu that is set in the Appearance tab;
the panel to display at start;
the cookbook displayed at start;
the shopping list to open at start;
if the tip window is displayed at start;
if the calendar drawer should be displayed at start;
the default data folder, which is the folder where shopping lists are saved by default. If you export regularly your shopping list in HTML format to a PDA for example, you can set your exporting folder to it;
the maximum picture size in pixels - larger pictures will have their resolution adjusted to fit the specified pixel number.

The shopping list tab

In the shopping list tab, you can select the following options about adding the recipe ingredients to the shopping list:

if a recipe title is added to the comments when its ingredients are added to the shopping list;
if the ingredient weights are corrected for refuse;
if the cooked ingredient quantities are converted to raw ones;
if the ingredients of a recipes are automatically converted to the preferred US (oz. or fl. oz.) or metric (g. or l.) units when added to the shopping list. You can choose to convert only the weight and volume units (default setting) or all the units to the preferred units.

You can also enable the list of automatically deselected ingredients and of substitutions and edit them.

The recipe tab

In the recipes tab, you can specify:

to display the recipe wizard when you create a recipe;
the information you want to display at the beginning of the recipes (categories, yield, preparation time, etc.);
To format plain text recipes for export with spaces (for fixed sized fonts) or with tabs.

The scaling tab

In the scaling tab, you can select the following options about recipe scaling:

if the ingredients of a recipe are automatically scaled to the specified number of servings.
if the original quantities are displayed in parenthesis after the scaled quantities;
if the quantities appearing in the text of the recipe should also be scaled. Note that this option will considerably slow down the scaling.
if substitutions are used in the scaled recipe. This option will also affect the display of nutritional information;
automatic conversion of volume units into weight units;
to convert the weight units to US or to metric units.

The menu tab

In the menu tab, you can select:

the default number of serving of a new menu;
the default display mode of the menu panel, i.e. single menu, daily, weekly, monthly or a fixed number of days;
the first day of the week for weekly display mode;
to format plain text menus for export with spaces (for fixed sized fonts) or with tabs.

The appearance tab

In the appearance tab, you can select:

the font, character size and character style of the title, subtitles, text, footnotes and cooking view. The title, subtitle and text styles are used for the shopping list, recipes and menus; the footnote style is additionally used to display the nutritional information of the menu; the cooking view style is used when displaying recipes in full-screen mode;
the colors of the characters and of the background shading in the shopping list.

The print tab

In the print tab, you can select:

the size of the print margins;
the length of the item names in the print-out;
if the category header are included in the shopping list print-out;
if the shopping list is printed on one or two columns;
the shopping list comment title and position.

The length of the item names is adjusted automatically when two-column print is selected or deselected. The item and comment fields are set to be about the same size on letter or A4 size paper in the default preferences. If you don't have long comments usually, you can increase the width of the item names' column.

Note: after modifying the print margins, you should select "Page Setup" in each panel before printing.

The e-mail tab

In the e-mail tab, you can:

input the SMTP server address;
input your e-mail address in the From field;
input the default destination e-mail address in the To field. Note that you can still edit it at the time you send an e-mail;
input the default subject of the e-mail. Note that you can still edit it at the time you send the e-mail;
input e-mail authentication information if necessary;
choose the format of the e-mail (HTML or plain text), and input the number of characters per line for the plain text option;
choose the character encoding;
input a list of e-mail addresses for easy access. You should input only one address per line. These addresses can be selected in the pull-down menu of the recipient e-mail address at the time you send an e-mail.

About the SMTP server An SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) server dispatch the e-mail messages across the internet to their destination. Your internet service provider (ISP) provides an SMTP server for you to use with your account. The SMTP server's address starts usually with mail, or smtp (for example mail.something.com or smtp.something.com). If you don't know your SMTP server's address, ask your ISP.
About e-mail format: if you choose plain text e-mails, the e-mails have to be viewed with a fixed size font, like courier, in order to appear correctly. HTML e-mails do not have this restriction, but some e-mail softwares cannot read them.
About the character encoding: The default character encoding is Latin 1. If you are using special characters in your shopping list that are not included in the default character set, you have to set the character encoding to an appropriate value. For example, if you use japanese characters, you must choose a japanese character encoding to transmit the shopping list correctly.

The nutrition tab

In the nutrition tab, you can select the format of the nutritional information in the recipes, and which nutrients are displayed in the nutritional information windows. Additional formats can be added by specifying nutrition scripts.
To select nutrients, select them in the disabled list, and click the left arrow to move them to the enabled list. To remove nutrients from the nutritional information windows, select them in the enabled list, click the right arrow to move them to the disabled list. If you don't want to display nutritional information in the recipes, deselect the corresponding checkbox.

The costing tab

In the costing tab, you can specify the default margin and the labor hourly cost to compute the selling price of the recipes. Note that the predefined default margin of 72% assumes that the labour is not included in the cost calculation. If you input a non-zero labour cost, you should decrease the default margin, otherwise the calculated sale prices will be too high.

The network tab

In the network tab, you can select:

to check automatically for software update at start;
the update schedule of the direct access panel.