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food search improvement

Old 02-11-2011, 05:11 PM
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Lightbulb food search improvement

I used Fit Day years ago. About a year ago I tried another web site because it had the iphone app but I have always preferred Fit Day's nutritional data. I'm starting to log again & am trying Fit Day again. I want to let someone know I'm spoiled by that other web site's food searches. Almost anything I eat (or cook from say a Cooking Light magazine) always shows up near the top of the list when I do a search. I'm finding searches on Fit Day produce irrelevant entries near the top of the list. And when I enter custom foods, I can't clarify that a serving is 3/4 cup for example...so unless I have the container nearby, I can't remember what 1 serving is. The way the public forum self polices the food database makes data entry convenient on that other web site. I can check the nutritional data before I enter it into my log & if I verify it, then I indicate that so the next person will know that at least one person verified the nutritional data. I hope someone reads this & moves Fit Day in the direction of that other web site. It would be the perfect software for me!

Last edited by mecompco; 02-11-2011 at 10:52 PM. Reason: Removed competitor's information
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Old 02-11-2011, 10:54 PM
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I've seen searches on other sites that are far less worse than FitDays (which is, if you spend a little time with it, not bad at all).

As far as custom food servings, simply add the serving portion size to the description!

Ex: My Bubble and Squeak recipie 4 oz.

Regards,
Michael
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Old 02-18-2011, 07:02 AM
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Default Really?

Originally Posted by mecompco
I've seen searches on other sites that are far less worse than FitDays (which is, if you spend a little time with it, not bad at all).

As far as custom food servings, simply add the serving portion size to the description!

Ex: My Bubble and Squeak recipie 4 oz.

Regards,
Michael
Really? So you're going to stick your head in the sand and deny that the search feature is horribly hard to use compared to sites that Fitday competes with?

Is your goal to be "much less worse" than some other sites but far much worse than the best sites?

I have no idea if you are an employee of Fitday or not but this isn't a way to address an honest criticism of the search feature.

The fact is we as users want it to be as simple and easy as possible to record our food. If you can't provide a better method you are going to lose users of your site.

Respectfully,

Michael
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Old 02-18-2011, 07:18 AM
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Originally Posted by mgiedrys
Really? So you're going to stick your head in the sand and deny that the search feature is horribly hard to use compared to sites that Fitday competes with?

Is your goal to be "much less worse" than some other sites but far much worse than the best sites?

I have no idea if you are an employee of Fitday or not but this isn't a way to address an honest criticism of the search feature.

The fact is we as users want it to be as simple and easy as possible to record our food. If you can't provide a better method you are going to lose users of your site.

Respectfully,

Michael
Michael,

Thanks for your concern but please let me shed some light. First off, if you would have read http://www.fitday.com/fitness/ForumRules.html you would have noticed:

13. Do not complain about the rules. Any public discussion of specific cases will be removed and you will lose your posting privileges (temporarily or permanently). This is a privately owned forum and we created the rules based on years of experiences with thousands of members. Moderators and administrators are unpaid volunteers who spend a lot of time making sure our forum is safe, clean, and supportive. If we decide that your post is inapporpriate, it will be removed or locked. Please don't argue and please don't keep posting along the same line otherwise you're gone too.We reserve the right to disable posting abilities of anyone that violates any of the terms of membership, without warning or notice.

That would have answered your question about him being an employee. We are regular members that VOLUNTEER our time to try to make the board better. Unfortunately as moderators, there are a lot of things out of our hands. Pretty much all we can do is "police the forums". Everything outside of the forums, such as the food log, database, activities, etc. is out of our hands. We forward these issues to Admin (who are also VOLUNTEERS) to see what they can do to correct this.

So how exactly would you expect Michael to answer your "honest criticism of the search feature"?

Up until a few months ago, there was little to no activity with moderators. WE STEPPED UP TO FILL IN AND HELP. BE GRATEFUL THAT SOMEONE IS TAKING TIME OUT OF THEIR DAY... FOR FREE TO HELP.

This site isn't perfect, but we are making improvements. They may not be coming fast enough for you, hell they aren't coming fast enough for me either. But I still cotinue to TRY to help, instead of making all of my posts rants and complaints, which all 3 of yours have been.

I also find it funny that you end it with "Respectfully" right after accusing him of sticking his head in the sand. How exactly were you being respectful to the man that VOLUNTEERS HIS TIME to do everything that he can to help YOU?

Michael also said:
Originally Posted by mecompco
(which is, if you spend a little time with it, not bad at all).
Seeing that you couldn't even spend a little time to read the forum rules tells me that maybe you should have taken his advice. Just a thought.

Last edited by 01gt4.6; 02-18-2011 at 08:06 AM.
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Old 10-21-2011, 12:41 AM
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I guess I might as well stick my neck out as well. I agree with the first poster completely. As you know I have been complaining about the same type problems. The food search is terrible.
Since the poster first cited the problem(Feb of this year) and I have come on in Oct. nothing seems to have changed.
Even as a moderator you have no call to demean someone like the poster who is being honest about a real problem. So few people express their dislike of processes and procedures simply because of an attitude such as yours.
BTW: We are NOT complaining about the RULES. We have a legitimate concern about having to spend too much time just posting our daily foods consumption. Putting the serving size in the title of our custom food(suggested by the previous moderator) does not work, as the values posted will be what you have set for that specific food. How much of this problem is getting through to the "owners" of this privately run site?
Here is my COMPLAINT, again. I have yet to have an understandable explanation of why this is happening.

I'm new to the Fitday site and I'm having a problem with the custom foods. I follow the customize method and on the day I enter the food everything is okay. However, when I got to use that same food the next day it is all screwed up. Especially the milk I enter - none of the values I put in are there no matter how many times I customize it.
Since I use basically the same amount of certain things on a regular basis, I customize them with the amount I use but, when I go back the values have all changed to, for ex, 1 cup of the item.
I also have a problem with food searches as there don't appear to have any brands listed at all. There are national and local brands many people use and it would improve things for everyone if some of them were included. There really isn't any standard milk, or eggs or canned foods. But that seems to be the thought in the listing of foods in the food search. Also, the list is NOT up to date as it does not include any LC foods or even some of the newer types of foods now available... such as frozen fruits.
There is more but I think this should be enough to "chew" on for now.
Lee
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Old 10-21-2011, 01:40 AM
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I actually agree that the food search on this site could be better. What the other sites have is the ability to search everyone's custom foods, and chances are that someone else has eaten that exact same food and plugged it in already. This is especially true with commercially prepared foods and name brand items. Now I understand that nutritional information on food products changes from time to time, but so long as a date is assigned to the entry, to give a frame of reference then it shouldn't be a problem to update over time. I'm not sure why fitday doesn't have this feature, it would certainly make using the site a little easier. It could be set up as an option when you create a custom food, just check (or not) a little box that says "Share custom food with public domain?" And if the system cannot handle that completely then maybe a select few individuals from each region could be invited to do so. Just a thought.

Last edited by almeeker; 10-21-2011 at 01:42 AM.
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Old 10-21-2011, 02:41 AM
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Now I'll chime in. First off, I'm sort of a perfectionist and I love this site, food database included. And I agree with Michael, the database is not bad at all, in fact the more one uses it the more understands HOW to use it!

About the nomenclature: As Michael pointed out, easy solution. Here's how a description could look so that one never forgets what "1 serving" is:

Broccoli Florets, Frozen, Bird's Eye (1 cup is 87 g. = 30 cal) [^ Potassium]

Yes, you can even state that broccoli is high in potassium, so when you do a search in your browser, while all your custom foods are showing, you can easily pick out the high potassium foods if that is what you're looking for. Tip.

About the food database on "other websites". Been there, done that. I don't trust them. On one popular site which has the nify calculator for recipes, every time I do a search for someone else's custom food, the information is ALWAYS wrong. So much so that I've given up, and when I need to use a recipe calculator I always create my OWN custom foods and then generate the recipe. So sharing custom foods is not always all that it's cracked up to be. Why? I know for a fact that middle school students are using those sites for their life skills classes and they are the ones who are sloppy entering data. How about that?

Sure, the database can be set up to share custom foods, and then members verify, and this is something that has been suggested numerous times. Are they working on it? I can't say but I'd be surprised if they were not. It is not easy to set up a verification process like this, be patient.

As far as custom foods "changing" I'm not sure what's going on, but perhaps these threads may help:

http://www.fitday.com/fitness/forums...t-measure.html

http://www.fitday.com/fitness/forums...ting-food.html

Finally, one thing I never forget is that FitDay on line is free. That is not to say that it should not be critiqued, however it can be done in a nicer way.
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