Table of Contents

• Introduction

• • Recipes and Categories

The application VeggieTABLE comprises a collection of recipes, which will be gradually built up over time. Recipes fall into one (or more) of the categories:

• Starter

• Main

• Accompaniment (such as potato, rice, pasta)

• Vegetable

• Pudding

• • Menus

Recipes are assembled into menus. A menu is what you eat for a meal.

• A menu must comprise one main (and only one.)

• A menu may also contain one or more of any of the other categories.

• For this tutorial, the name of a menu is the same as the name of the Main recipe.

When you open the VeggieTABLE, the default view of menus is displayed. I refer to this as the menu window.

• • Structure of the menu window

The menu window is divided into 2 panes divided by the slider bar.

The pane on the left is the summary pane.

The pane on the right is the detail pane.

You can increase or decrease the size of the summary pane by moving the slider bar.

The detail pane is divided into 9 sections:

• Form Ribbon   

• Title    (the grey section at the top)

• GENERAL   (general menu information)

• MAIN    (details of main recipe)

• SIDE    (details of side or accompanying recipe[s])

• VEGETABLE   (details of vegetable recipe[s])

• STARTER   (details of starter recipe[s])

• PUDDING   (details of pudding recipes[s])

• SEARCH   (to search for a particular recipe)

• FILTERS   (to filter menus on a particular category)

• Existing Menus

I have already added a few recipes for you to try. To see these

• Click the <untried> button in the FILTERS section:

In the summary pane, a main recipe is now displayed:

• In the Title section, the filter “Untried Recipes” is displayed:

TIP: you can drag the dividing bar to the right to increase the size of the summary pane.

In the General Section, You will notice that the date is blank. 

This is because the recipe has not yet been added to a menu. Or to put it another way, you have not yet prepared the recipe.

• • Main Recipe Sub-categories

You also see that the main recipe has a sub category. The sub categories I have predefined are:

• vegetarian

• Cheese

• egg

• soup

• fish

• restaurant

        You can also add your own categories, such as ‘dinner party’, or dare I say ‘chicken’ - See section 14.1. 

• • Other Recipe Sub-categories

For the other recipe categories, I have predefined the following sub-categories:

Side

• potato

• rice

• bread

• pasta

• couscous

• other

• noodles

Vegetable

• recipe

• salad

• plain

Starter

• cold

• hot

Again, you can also add your own categories to these.

You will notice that some supplementary information is provided in the MAIN section:

Such as rating, county, whose recipe, time and cost. 

These can also be customized – see section 6.1.

• Creating a Menu

You start by adding a main recipe. In my example I am going to add chilli bean burritos. I would definitely encourage you to try this for yourself sometime!

• Click the< untried> button.

• Then click the <Copy Main> button in the ACTIONS section of the Menu Ribbon:

• • General Section

• • • Menu Date

Today’s date is added to the Summary Pane, and the GENERAL section of the Detail Pane:

To Change the date:

• Click in the date field (either in the Summary Pane, or the GENERAL section)

A small calendar symbol appears to the right of the field.

• Click this symbol:

• Select the date you plan to cook the recipe. The new date is filled in:

Note: if you select a date in the future, the background colour is changed automatically to red

• • • Cook

In the GENERAL section, you can customize other information such as the cook.

• Click on the arrow next to cook

You will notice the list is empty. You need to add your name to the list of cooks (or the name of the person who will cook the recipe.)

To do add your name:

• double click in the rectangle next to cook, a ‘dialog box’ opens:

• Fill in the  name, and click OK.

• Click on the arrow next to cook:

You should see that the name now appears.

• Select, and the name is added as Cook

Tip: fields that are coloured light green will open a ‘dialog box’ when double-clicked.

The other information such as rating, time and cost you would fill in after you have prepared the recipe -See section 11.2 & 11.3.

• Viewing the Recipe

To see the recipe:

• double click the recipe (ratatouille pie) in the MAIN section:

The recipe is opened in a separate window: