the hngry blog

Here are a few hngry features I’m working on rolling out:

Yahoo API integration (they have a huge database of just about every restaurant in the U.S., and allow others to connect to it and use it). Basically, what this means for you: Restaurant Search and much, much easier addition of a new restaurant to your list.

Tagging. I realize that the options for each restaurant are a bit limited now as far as food type goes… so you’ll be able to put in whatever words you want that describe your restaurants and pull them up by that too. I’m waiting for a stable Rails 1.1 release before I tackle that though. hngry is running on version 1.0 (which is the latest stable version) and 1.0 doesn’t have the tagging capabilities/support that 1.1 has. Rails 1.1 release candidate just came out, so it shouldn’t be long.
I’m also working on the social aspects of it (being able to search for restaurants that other hngry users like and have added to their list).

This should be fun!

In response to Jim’s comment today about wanting a field for his favorite meal at a restaurant, and a rating system, I’ve implemented both today site-wide. Everyone now has both a field on the restaurant edit page where they can enter in what their favorite meal is, and you can also select a rating from 1 -5 for each of your restaurants using a radio button.

Hngry will work just fine if you don’t use either one, but if you rate your restaurant and it is suggested to you by hngry, you will now get something that looks like this:

Of course, the number of stars depends on the rating that you gave the restaurant.

These fields are also in preparation for a sitewide search that will let you find restaurants in your area based on ZIP code or city. I’m working on that now.

Thanks for the suggestions, Jim. Enjoy!

Hngry officially launched today. What do you think about hngry so far?  What would you like to see later on in terms of features?

Fairly soon, you’ll be able to add restaurants to hngry using a bookmarklet (it’s a special bookmark that you can click on no matter what website you’re on, and it will open up a popup that will let you enter your restaurant info directly into hngry.)  This means that if you’re at a restaurant website and you’re at a page that has their contact info on it, you can click the bookmarklet and then just copy and paste the info into the popup window.  There you have it, a new restaurant instantly added to your list! (well, almost… I’ll be working on the instant part later on )

Well, here it is, the first hngry blog post. The beauty of the fact that hngry is an online application is that hngry can and will constantly be improved to better suit the needs of its users. This blog is one part of my attempt to keep the lines of communication open and to let everyone know what’s going on at once, so I can spend less time answering emails and more time working on hngry. Hngry was built to solve a problem that I and my girlfriend have… not being able to figure out where to eat, especially when we’re already hungry. I figured that a lot of other people had the same problem, so here hngry is. I’m a user of hngry too, so hopefully if there are any problems I’ll see them at the same time as you do and get them fixed as soon as I can. This will also help me see the need for new features and add them more efficiently.

Thanks for your interest in hngry. It’s time to eat!