KONSTANTIN BENDER  Sorry, your email must be somehow lost. The app saves all data when you quit Calories or close the main window or if you press COMMAND + S (Menu File -> Save).

I'm going to add a periodic save right now, will be in the next release.

-- Konstantin  
(Version 1.2)

KONSTANTIN BENDER  === International Versions

The problem with international versions is the food database. The US database is the only free one I found. A couple of days ago, a Canadian user pointed me to their database, which seems also to be free and has english and french food names. I'm currently in contact with Health Canada to incorporate their data.

Now to Germany: there is a German food database, but the license fees are very high and I am forced to buy a 'high volume pack' in advance. In addition, there are a lot of other 'inconvinient' liciense terms.

So, what is the solution?

My idea is to take the US or the Canadian database and - for now - do an automatic translation into all major european languages (French, German, Spanish, Italian). If it won't work out very well, I'll have to take a look at the national food databases.

I am currently working on an iPhone / iPod Touch version, which will be a complete redesign with lots of new features (tracking of body weight, fat, exercises, support for diabetics, etc.) and will make it very easy to replace and/or add other databases. I'll open up all this, so everyone can create a database and make it available for others to download. Of course, all this will go into the desktop version too.

=== Weight Watchers

Yes, it is simply a matter of one column, but again, the food database is the main problem. Where to get the data from? In additon, I don't want to bloat Calories with all the possible diets out there. Anyway, Weight Watchers is very popular - at least here in Germany - and I'll contact them as soon as I have something exciting to show and possibly make a deal with them to include thier food data. Again, this should be very easy to do with the new food database design.

=== Personal Note

When I started to develop Calories, the main idea for 1.0 was to just get a minimal version out. Because the US database was the only free one, I decided to concentrate on the US market. Calories is my first application at all and I am still a student. I don't have the time and the (financial) resources to develop a full fledged product with all the bells and whistles right from the start. Instead, I'm taking the 'agile' incremental way: Start with the minimal feature set and let it grow while listening to customer needs. Now here we are. I have set up a simple Google Group for this purpose and I'm going to further 'open' the development in the near future (with main ideas borrowed from the 'Scrum' methodology). The most important thing here is, there will be free beta versions right from the start. You'll be able to download it, try it out and give feedback. German and English are the development languages. Other languages will follow after the 1.0 release. So please, if you really like the product, participate and help me to get the product as *you* like it to be.

-- Konstantin  
(Version 1.1.2)

KONSTANTIN BENDER  Clarification for Problem Below

Calories requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, this error happens if you have an earlier version Mac OS X.

-- Konstantin

http://www.nsobjects.com  
(Version 1.1)

KONSTANTIN BENDER  Hi gabrielagarrido6,

What version of Mac OS X do you have? Calories requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

-- Konstantin

http://www.nsobjects.com  
(Version 1.01)

KONSTANTIN BENDER  Hello PJOT,

thank you for your review.

Calories uses a US food database. Unfortunately, there is no international dabase I could incorporate. Therefore, I decided to go with the US first.

Metric system will be there soon, have a look at the road map:

http://groups.google.com/group/calories/web/calories-roadmap

I must admit, the search algorithm is not really suitable, this will be adressed in the near future. For now, try to type a little more about the food you are looking for, for example:

raw apple

You have to find it only once. Add this food and it will be listet at the very top with the next search. Try it out!

Best Regards,

Konstantin Bender

http://www.nsobjects.com  
(Version 1.0)

KONSTANTIN BENDER  I forgot to mention the most important:

Calories 1.1 will allow to manually add foods!  
(Version 1.0)

KONSTANTIN BENDER  Editorial,

I am the developer of Calories. Thank you for your detailed and fair review. I want to use this opportunity to share my plans for future development of Calories with all users and readers.

*** Goals

Calories 1.1 will allow setting goals for every nutrient, not just calories.

*** Reports

I must admit, this is the weakest point of Calories. Reporting wasn't even supposed to be in the 1.0 release. This will be totally reworked, I am already racking my brain on this. The question is how to keep the interface simple and yet powerful. The idea I came up with is to allow custom reports as iTunes or Finder does with its intelligent playlists/folders. There would be some standard reports, just as in iTunes, and more advanced users will be able to create very specialized reports. This will surely take a great deal of development time, I want to get it right this time.

*** Tagging

If you select a tag/category (Breakfast, Lunch, ...) and *then* add a food, this food will be automatically in that category. With drag & drop and copy & pase you can move/copy foods over to other categories.

*** Features already panned/in development

* Daily goals for every nutrient

* Improved search

* Custom categories/tags

* Printing

*** Bottom Line

Calories 1.0 is just a starting point and includes only the minimal set of features. I would be delighted to hear suggestions from users. Contact me any time!  
(Version 1.0)