the hngry blog

Okay, I admit I should have done this from the start, but I wanted to implement the automatic restaurant lookup as quickly as possible so that you could all start using it.   Now, when you search for a restaurant, hngry will pull up a list of restaurants that fit the criteria, you can pick the exact one you’re looking for, and it will add the restaurant info for you.  You can also search by food type.. for example, burgers, or italian and hngry will do its best to return some relevant results for you to pick from.  Nice!

Today hngry has icons, and you’ll see them on your home page when you log in, and around the site in different places. Hopefully this will help you more easily identify where you are in the site, and hey, it doesn’t hurt that hngry’s looking better in the process. You can’t miss them!

To enable notifications for coupons from the restaurants on your list before they expire, log into your hngry account and go to your Edit User Info page, or just click here.

You’ll see a new blank there named “Days to be notified before coupons expire”. Enter a number there. Hngry will use that value to decide when to start letting you know that your coupons are about to expire.

To add a coupon expiration date, go to your View Restaurants page (paginated or full list view). On the side of each restaurant in your list there is a clock icon. Find the restaurant that has the coupon you want to set the notification for, then click on the clock.

Pick an expiration date on the next page and click Save, and you’re done.

When your coupons are about to expire, you’ll see a green box at the top of the first page you see after you login that tells you the names of the restaurants and the days that the coupons will expire. When those dates have passed, hngry will automatically disable the notification for you.

are nearly here! I wrote the base functionality last night, and I’ll be working on the details this week. Soon you’ll be able to log into hngry and immediately see which of your restaurant coupons will be expiring soon, so you can actually use those coupons you’ve got lying around. Rock!

For the most part, anyway.  First, the design has been reworked a bit, so if things look a little weird, refresh your browser and you should be set.

Hngry now has coupon search.  You can login, find and print restaurant coupons for your location before you go out to eat.  Soon, you should be able to set up notifications so that you’re reminded before your coupons expire (so that you can actually use some of those coupon books you’ve got lying around the house).

You can now set a default location (city, state, or even ZIP code if you’d like) code in your user options that will be utilized when you use both the coupon and automatic restaurant searches.  When you use the automatic restaurant search, you only have to type in the restaurant name now!  (this has actually worked since last weekend, but I never actually announced it.)

In your user options, you can now pick a default restaurant list view that will be used sitewide. For instance, if you set your default to the List All page: when you’re on the List All page and you click on a restaurant to edit, make your changes and then save them, you’ll be brought back to your List All page, not the paginated list page (which is what used to happen).

There have been some more little changes here and there, but those are the big ones. It’s about time for bed!

This weekend I’ve been programming up a hngry storm.

Expect to see the following new things on hngry in the next few days:
Coupon search based on your default location
the ability to pick a default list view for your restaurants (list all your restaurants by default on one page or paginated sitewide, with the ability to switch on-the-fly)
an updated design all around

And very soon, a new feature… which, if it takes off should make it super super simple to add restaurants you see offline (in magazines, newspapers, ads, etc) to your hngry account. I’m so excited about this, it’s ridiculous.