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BCWINTERS After years and years using MasterCook, I finally got tired of being stuck in Classic every time I wanted to cook. I tried out every OS X recipe program I could get my hands on and have finally decided that MacGourmet's the one to go with. Some pros: Clean, easy to understand cocoa-y interface with iTunes-style smart lists. Uses WebKit for recipe display, "chef's view" (with huge fonts so you can keep your computer far away from your kitchen mess), and printing styles--this means you can edit these to your heart's content in your favorite HTML editor. Has great keyword & notes support. Imports and exports like a champ, including a nice plain-text email export and a wonderful integration with Services that lets you send recipes to the program from your web browser for easy integration. Some cons: I *have* found a few bugs including one that erases the quantity field in your ingredients and one that causes an application crash (I notified the developer of these bugs and he wrote back very quickly--I have no doubt they will be fixed in the next update). Lacks features that were in MasterCook a decade ago, including built-in quantity & ingredient lists (once you enter a quantity or ingredient, it does have MasterCook-like autofill, though). Uses a single-cookbook metaphor rather than a multiple-document one (personally, I like this and I think it fits in with the iTunes-like style, but for some people it just isn't the right thing). Printer stylesheets are kind of lackluster (but since I can edit them myself this is not a deal breaker--plus if users make nice ones I bet the developer will roll them into future versions). I've been putting MacGourmet through the paces for the last month and despite my minor complaints it has performed like a champ. This is a great little application that I believe will improve with time--I'd almost go so far as to say it's the NetNewsWire of recipe programs. I'm trusting it with my data from this point on. (Version 1.1.4) |