On your old device

Open My CookBook and click on the “File Import / Export” button

Click on the dropdown list in the action bar and select “dropbox”

 
Click on the export button and select “Export recipes” if you want to backup your recipes. Click on “Export shopping lists” if you want to backup your shopping lists

 
Select the recipes you want to backup (or check all)

And click on the “Export to” button.

 
Choose the .mcb format (it will contain your images).

You can change the name of your backup file if you want.

And Click on “Export”

 
The file is uploading on your dropbox account

On your new device

 
Now you can open My CookBook on your new device and import your recipes

My CookBook uses different algorithms to import a recipe. One of them is to use a site definition that describes a recipe page.

MyCookBook is now open to get user generated site definitions.

The site definition is a json file that contains xpath and regular expressions that are used by My Cookbook to extract the different information of a recipe in the HTML code.

We will present here some tutorial and link to get started.

1. Get Firefox
2. Get Java JRE
3. Get the RecipeFox add on, and install it in firefox. You can download it here : download page
4. Check if RecipeFox already supports your site.
   Click on the “Show the Sites” button. Look in the sites list if you can find the website you would like to add. If yes, select it and export it
5. If you can’t find it in the list, you can write a new RecipeFox site def
   On the recipe fox Website you can read a nice tutorial.
   Here are the recipefox fields that are used in My Cookbook:
   • Recipe URL pattern (mandatory)
   • Title (mandatory)
   • Ingredients
   • Directions
   • Image URL
   • Yield
   • Prep. time
   • Cook time
   • Categories

   Then export your RecipeFox site def

6. Convert it to My CookBook site def :
   Open the .json file you have generated with RecipeFox. You will have something like that :
   
   At the end of the file, just before the characters ‘}]’, add the language of the website:
   ,"siteLang":"xxx". Replace xxx by adapted values.
   siteLang is the iso code of the language of the website
   For our example, you will have :
   [...]
,"yieldunitRegexp":"","siteLang":"en"}]
7. Copy your .json file on your SD card in the directory sdcard/MyCookBook/sitedef/
8. Delete the file sdcard/MyCookBook/sitedef/siteDef.list
9. Try to import a recipe into MyCookBook
10. Optional : You can send us your file to publish it to all My CookBook users

Dropbox is a file hosting service that allows to synchronize folders between several devices.

Linking MyCookBook to your Dropbox allows you to backup your recipes, to synchronize recipes between different devices, and to access your last 100 backup !

You only need to create a free Dropbox account to use the feature.

In the action bar, select dropbox in the dropdown list.

You access the dropbox website and you can login to an existing account.

Or you need to create a free account.

Grant My CookBook to access the MyCookBook folder of your Dropbox

Once My CookBook is linked to your Dropbox account you can see your files on your dropbox account.
The export button in the action bar will save all your recipes into your Dropbox.
Import buttons in the list will allow your to import one of your file.

Here is a sample of xml recipes :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<cookbook version="46">
<recipe>
<title>My recipe</title>
<preptime>15 min</preptime>
<cooktime>20 min</cooktime>
<ingredient>
<li>Ingredient 1</li>
<li>Ingredient 2</li>
</ingredient>
<recipetext>
<li>Step 1</li>
<li>Step 2</li>
</recipetext>
<url>http://www.recipeurl</url>
<quantity>4</quantity>
<imagepath>/mnt/sdcard/MyCookBook/images/recipe_img.png</imagepath>
<imageurl>http://www.recipeurl/original_image</imageurl>
<comments>Your comments</comments>
</recipe>
<recipe>
<title>Crepes</title>
<preptime>10 min</preptime>
<cooktime>20 min</cooktime>
<ingredient>
<li>1 1/2 c. flour</li>
<li>2 c. milk</li>
<li>2 eggs</li>
<li>1 1/2 tbsp. oil</li>
<li>1 tbsp. sugar</li>
<li>Little salt melted</li>
</ingredient>
<recipetext>
<li>Pour the milk into the flour. Stir.</li>
<li>Add the oil, the beaten eggs and the sugar. Stir again.</li>
<li>Let the batter rest for 2 hours. The batter must be fluid. If not, add a little more milk. </li>
<li></li>
<li>Take a frying pan, oil it and pour a small amount of batter and spread it on the bottom. Cook it on one side, then the other.</li>
<li>The "French Crepes" must be very thin. </li>
<li>You can put butter or sugar or jelly or melted chocolate on them.</li>
</recipetext>
<url></url>
<quantity></quantity>
<imagepath>/mnt/sdcard/MyCookBook/images/crepes.png</imagepath>
<imageurl></imageurl>
<comments></comments>
</recipe>
</cookbook>

Description of our XML schema

Our XSD file is available here : mycookbook.xsd

• cookbook: Root of all recipes
• recipe : Defines your recipe. You can have one or more recipes in your XML file
• title : Title of your recipe
• preptime : Preparation time
• cooktime : Cook Time
• ingredient : Ingredients of the recipe. If you have several ingredients and you want to have line breaks, use the <li> … </li> tags
• recipetext : Directions. If you want to have line breaks, use the <li> … </li> tags
• url : Source URL of the recipe
• quantity : Yield
• imagepath : Path on your phone of the picture of the recipe
• imageurl : Url of the original picture of the recipe
• comments : Any comments you want to add

There are two ways :

• Using Astro or another file browser, click the compatible file to launch it with My CookBook
• Copy your file on your SD card in /sdcard/MyCookBook directory and use the import menu (File Import/Export)

Compatible formats

MyCookBook mcb format, xml format, Master Meal (.mmf, .mm, .txt), MasterCook (.mxp and .mx2 only MC4), LivingCookBook (.fdx), RezKonv (.rk, .txt) and CookML(.cml)
Meal Master recipe format is one of the most common recipe format, you should find many compatible software on your PC :
Windows : NYC, RezKonv, LivingCookBook, …
Linux : Krecipe

What are mcb and xml format ?

.mcb files are complete backup of one or more recipes with pictures, perfect for sharing or transfering recipes.
.xml files are for a local backup of one or more recipes, it does’nt not include pictures. You can find a description of our xml schema here : My CookBook XML Schema

How to generate a mcb file on my desktop ?

You can use the Recipe Writer that produce MyCookBook compatible files from any desktop computer.
Many thanks to Tjen !!

How to import recipes from a file ?

You should save your compatible recipe file (.xml, .mmf, .mm, .txt, .rk) on your phone SD card in the “MyCookBook” directory.
Then choose the import mode and use import button on the line of your file.

Import Mode

Import Button

How to export recipes to a file ?

In the action bar, select the destination where you want to send your file (SD Card or DropBox), and use the export button.

Select recipes that you want to export and click export button.
Choose the file format and the file name.

Your file will be saved on your phone SD card in the “MyCookBook” directory, or on your dropbox account.

Where to find recipe files ?

Some sites below, but searching with google will give you many results :

• http://www.ffts.com/recipes.htm
• http://thehoseys.com/recipes.html
• http://www.livingcookbook.com/resources/downloadablerecipes.aspx

Known issues

• Krecipe only support UTF8 encoding, mmf and rv files are exported in iso-8859-1. To avoid trouble with special characters switch to UTF-8 mode in the preferences.
• Others file format than MyCookBook are not well fitted to MyCookBook, you will loose some informations like your comments, recipe URL or cooking time.
• Sometimes there is trouble with recipe ingredients (located in directions, some word missing… ) we are working on that.
• Only MasterCook 4 mx2 files are compatible.