Meal Loop Help
Home
The Home page allows Meal Loop users to view their meal plan. A calendar is located on the left side of the page and allows users to select and view meals corresponding to the calendar selection. To the right of the calendar near the top of the page is the Choose Meal selection box, where users can select and display the different meals of the day. Based on the calendar and meal selections, the corresponding meal will be displayed under the a Daily Meal section. At the bottom of the section are Edit and Delete buttons that enable users to edit and/or delete the displayed meal. If nothing is displayed in the Daily Meal section, this means that the user has either not added any meals corresponding to the meal type selected, or that the preferences designated by the user do not match any of the stored meals.
Add Meal
Users can use the Add Meal page to store meals and recipes with Meal Loop. A user's meal plan is generated from the meals that they add through the Add Meal page, and until a user adds a sufficient number of meals, an adequate meal plan cannot be generated.
Meal Type is the first field of the Add Meal page. This field classifies the meal as a Breakfast, Lunch, or Dinner meal type, or some combination of three. This ensures that only meals classified with a specific meal type are available when generating a meal plan for that type.
The next three fields on the Add Meal page are: Title, URL, and Tag(s). The Title field is self explanatory and is the only required field that must be populated in order to save a meal. The URL field is provided to allow users to enter the url or website address of a meal they may have stored elsewhere, and do not want to enter into Meal Loop, but still want to use in Meal Loop. Users should be aware that if they utilize the url field and forego entering the ingredients for a meal, Meal Loop will not be able to use that Meal's ingredients when generating the shopping list. The Tag(s) field enables users to categorize or tag a meal into one or more tags, with each tag separated by a comma. Tagging meals is very useful to create extremely customized meal plans. For instance, a user could tag all meals with beef ingredients with a "beef" tag, meals that take 20 minutes or less to cook with a "quick" tag, and lowfat meals with a "lowfat" tag. That way, when setting meal generation preferences, the user can specify that they want "lowfat" meals Monday through Friday, "beef" meals on Saturday, and "quick" (and "lowfat") meals on Tuesday and Thursday.
The next section on the Add Meal page is Ingredients. Here, a user can enter the quantities/amounts and ingredients for the meal. The information here is used when generating a shopping list for all ingredients needed for the meals of the week. Also note that the ingredient fields are autocomplete fields so when entering values, Meal Loop will display a list previously entered ingredients that match the value being entered. The Instructions field is multi-line textbox, which can be used to describe how to make the meal.
Meals
Meals that have been saved on the Add Meal can be view on the Meals page. One the left side of the Meals page is the Meal Tags tree that displays tag values for every meal that has been added. Each tag value listed also displays a number in parenthesis that corresponds to the number of meals containing that tag. If you expand the tag in the tree, the titles of all corresponding meals will be displayed beneath. Clicking on a meal in the tree will then display the meal in the Meal section to the right of the tree. At the bottom of the section are Edit and Delete buttons that enable users to edit and/or delete the displayed meal.
Shopping List
All ingredients required for the meals of a given week can be viewed on the Shopping List page. A calendar is displayed on the left side of the page that is defaulted to the current week. To the right of the calendar is the Shopping List section that displayed all ingredients required for the meals of the week selected in the calendar. By making selections on the Calendar, users can view the shopping list corresponding to the week selected.
Options
All meal generation options are made on the Options page. Generation options are made on a per meal type basis. The Meal select field controls the meal type for which the remaining option will be applied. Selecting a different meal type will display the options associated with the selected meal type. Meal generation options are split into two major sections: Auto Generate Meals and Custom Meal Selection. Checkboxes next to each section designates if the user wishes to have their meal plan auto generated, or if they wish to choose meals manually.
Auto Generate Meals section contains additional options that the user may choose to customize how meals are generated. Choosing the Choose Meals Automatically checkbox field, will cause Meal Loop to make meal selection by complete random. If users wish to have more control on how meals are generated, they can choose the Additional Meal Options section. This section contains text fields for each day of the week, in which meal tag values may be specified. Entering tag values will limit the meals that may be generated for the corresponding day to only meals that match the tags specified. For instance, if a user entered "chicken" in the Monday field, only meals tagged with "chicken" will be selected for Monday meals. Furthermore, users can choose the Shuffle Meal Order checkbox to shuffle the order of meals corresponding to the tag values entered in the days of the week text fields. So, instead of having meals tagged with "chicken" always on Mondays, choosing shuffle will randomly select the day in which the chicken meal is selected each week.
The Manual Meal Selection section is available for users who wish to manually choose each meal of the day, each day of the week. A calendar allows user to select any given week of of the month, to the right of the calendar are text fields for each day of the week corresponding to week selected on the calendar. Users can make meal selections by entering the meal title in the day of week text fields. The text fields are autocomplete fields; as the user enters values into the field, meal titles matching the value entered will be displayed below the field.