• andrew November 2010

  You'll notice when reviewing (or editing) a recipe now that there's a space for private notes. This is a place you can put anything you want - personal notes that wouldn't be meaningful for other people (ie: "Use the white casserole dish for this. John loves it, but Becky doesn't like the onions"). Also, as someone asked on another discussion, you could even put recipes you have copies of in here. I've made it take up to 5000 characters, which should be enough for most recipes. As usual, let me know if there are any bugs I've missed.
• aj12754 November 2010

  I really like the private notes feature. My reviews often include info about serving or using the leftovers or menu ideas that I know are primarily of interest to me -- but this site is so easy to use (much more searchable and amenable to editing than the notebooks or filing system I used to use before cookbooker came along!) I just couldn't resist the ability to keep it all in one place.
  
  Now I can do that in a way that keeps the public reviews more focused while allowing me the opportunity to muse privately about options and changes I'd make. I can also "name names" in the private space to remind me of who was present when I served something -- a godsend when you have a bad memory.
  
  I really like how you seem always to be thinking of ways to make this site as useful as possible to its members.
• andrew November 2010

  Thanks @aj12754! I have a long list of things I'd love to do with the site, and I'm implementing them one by one, including user feedback as much as possible. Next, as requested, I'm going to add bookshelf tags so you can create alternate bookshelves. Hopefully it will be done in a week or so (maybe sooner if it turns out to be simple to program; it's not always easy to tell in advance).
• southerncooker November 2010

  Andrew, I'm having problems since you added the private notes section. If I don't type anything in the private section then what I type in the regular section doesn't show up until I edit and do it a second time. If I add a private note then it works ok.
• southerncooker November 2010

  Andrew, I just noticed there are some blank reviews even in the challenge reviews. Wonder if they are having the same problem as I am and didn't realize that their review didn't show up when they didn't add a private comment. I just tried putting the word none or a number in the private section and my review came up without editing that way.
• aj12754 November 2010

  I had the same problem as southerncooker the first time I used the private notes feature to write a new review (and I think I have only written the one since the feature was added).
  
  No problem at all when I opened existing reviews to move some text from public to private however.
• andrew November 2010

  @aj12754 and @southerncooker - thanks for alerting me to this bug. My logic was incorrect, it turned out (like a wonky Mr. Spock) and the page was accidentally discarding the review if you left the personal notes empty. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. I'll email members I suspect got caught by this so they can re-enter missing reviews. Luckily it looks like it only hit a handful of reviews.
• Leeka November 2010

  Andrew, are we able to add private notes if we are just indexing a recipe? I think it would be useful. I like to use the index to keep track of what I'm planning to make and I like to make notes about special ingredients that may be needed when meal planning. Does that make sense?
• andrew November 2010

  @Leeka - that does make sense, but at the moment it's not possible. When you index a recipe, it just adds the recipe title and page number into the database. The private note is directly attached to the review itself, which is a separate item. I'll have a think and see if there's a way to do it as you describe.

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