What does this website do? How did WeGottaEat get started? Why is this website free? Importing Recipes How do I backup my recipes? How do I contact you if I'm having a problem? What can I do to help? What do you have planned for the future? How do I enter symbols into my recipes? How do I enter friends? Can I use my recipes on other websites? Is there anything here for potential partners? What should I do if I have a great idea for the website? Is there anything for developers? Q: What does this website do? A: The main purpose of this website is to catalog your own recipes. Enter your recipes into WeGottaEat and get rid of all those scraps of papers or index cards. There are several benefits to this. You'll only have to look at one place for your recipes. Since it's on a website, you can get to your recipes from anywhere. You can give your friends access to your always up-to-date recipes from their own kitchen. You can search your recipes. You can link to your recipes from an email or a webpage thru the Discover area. Speaking of the Discover area, that's a place where you can explore other members recipes. You can add members as friends or just mark one of their recipes as a favorite so it shows up with your own recipes. As an added benefit, we've provided a shopping list. It's currently not hooked up to your recipes, but it is a useful tool. Q: How did WeGottaEat get started? A: WeGottaEat started as 2 simple computer programs that the founder built for his wife to make her life easier. One of the programs was a recipe manager and the other was a shopping list organizer. Before these programs, her recipes sat in a cabinet in the kitchen held together with an old rubber band. And the shopping list was a quick scribble on a notepad before running to the store. These programs ended that and brought organization and harmony. The wife was happy. At the time, neither programs were websites, so access to her recipes was limited to her home. Both were converted to a single website and multi-user functionality was added so her friends could see her recipes too. More people meant more needs and the simple project grew. That was back in early 2006. Michelle still uses WeGottaEat, but now she is joined by several thousand others members. We hope this website brings the same organization and harmony to your kitchen;) Q: Why is this website free? A: Our goal is to provide members with useful tools to make kitchen life easier. That's how it started and that's how we intend to keep it. This website is a side-project that got out of hand. Currently progress is made between job time and family time. We like that. While this might make changes and advancement slow, we feel it gives us the freedom and time to make the right decisions. It may make some people uneasy putting there recipes and time into a side project. We understand that and are commited to preserving those recipes and time. Actually, we have a responsibility to our own "board of directors". The last thing we want to hear when we get home from work is "Honey, I couldn't get to my recipes this morning..." ;) That doesn't mean at some point we won't try to make some money from our labors. It means it's not a priority. When and if we do start charging for the service it will be for premium features. So the functionality you're getting now for free will still be free in the future. Q: Importing Recipes A: There's no automated import for your recipes, sorry. But just think, once you get your recipes entered in here they'll all be properly formatted and can be exported to a couple different formats so you'll never have to do it again. There are some things you can do to make the transition from another digital format easier. There is a post on our blog that shows you how to copy and paste recipes in (hopefully just as a placeholder until you can format them correctly). There is another topic in this forum about the same. Hope it works out for you. Q: How do I backup my recipes? A: We try to make it easy for you to keep your own copy of the recipes you've spent a lot of time adding to this website. In the Settings area you'll find two links for downloading your recipes. One link downloads your recipes as one big word processor file (.rtf) that you can open in your favorite word processor program do with what you want. We recommend downloading and saving a copy of your recipes often. The other link downloads your recipes in a computer-readable format (.xml) that is intended to be used by other programs or websites. It should give you ultimate freedom if you ever decide to move to another recipe organizer. The idea is to never have to type in your recipes again. Q: How do I contact you if I'm having a problem? A: If you are experiencing problems with using this service, please send an email to support@wegottaeat.com with an explanation of your problems (and your username). For all other communications, we would like you to use our forums. This keeps the communication open and allows others to benefit from your feedback, complaints, suggestions, etc. Q: What can I do to help? A: tbd Q: What do you have planned for the future? A: tbd Q: How do I enter symbols into my recipes? A: You can insert special characters into your recipes. Characters like º(degrees) and ½ can be used. We will make it easier to insert these characters at some point, but for now you have to use the ALT button on your keyboard. For example, to enter the ½ character, press and hold the ALT key on your keyboard. Then, while you're holding the ALT key, type 171 on your number pad and release the ALT key. There are many special characters you can enter in this way. See a complete list at this website. Q: How do I enter friends? A: There are two ways to add friends. If you already know a friend that is using WeGottaEat, then just have them tell you their username and click to your Settings page and add their username to your list of friends. If you don't have a specific friend in mind, you can click on the Discover Food link and browse the recipes and people there. Beside each recipe or member there is a star. If you click the star next to a recipe, the recipe will be added to your Favorite Recipes list. If you click the star next to a member it will add that member as a friend in your Friends Recipes list. To remove friends or favorites, just ckick on the star again. Q: Can I use my recipes on other websites? A: tbd Q: Is there anything here for potential partners? A: Yes, please send your inquiries to partners@wegottaeat.com. Q: What should I do if I have a great idea for the website? A: Send any comments, suggestions or feedback to feedback@wegottaeat.com. Q: Is there anything for developers? A: Yes, the entire website was built with developers in mind. All the functionality for managing your recipes, managing your shopping list and discovering food can be programmed from your own application or website. We haven't gotten around to publishing the APIs yet, but if you're a developer and are interested in doing something we'd be happy to work with you. Just shoot us an email at feedback@wegottaeat.com and we'll follow up with you.