Saturday, July 4, 2009

New project: MealTicket

Preview of MealTicket
I started working on a new personal project today called MealTicket. The goal of the project is to help arrange group meals (at restaurants) by providing a simple voting structure similar to Google Moderator. I am using this as my first real attempt to work with Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and plan on documenting the process.

Today I created an initial design of the user interface in photoshop. I only worked on it for a couple of hours since it's a holiday and I wanted to enjoy some time outside. There are numerous features that I have to create which may, or may not be, evident from the mock up:
  • Support single day and re-occuring events
  • Event invite since events will be private (maybe add public events eventually)
  • Ability to mark a restaurant as visited with the option to not re-appear for X days, months, or ever
  • Integration with Google Calendar
  • Possible Yelp integration
  • Resturant suggestions based on your history (and maybe based on other users)
I am comptemplating a rating system where each member could rate, and potentially comment, on the visit. If a particular user does not rate the restaurant well then it will not show up in suggestions. This could also improve the suggestion for other users but may be a conflict with the Yelp integration.
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5 comments:

  1. LarryJuly 4, 2009 at 8:15 AM

    I can think of no recurring situations in which this might ever prove useful.

    But seriously, this will be tre' nifty. Very good idea.

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  2. CaesarsGhostJuly 4, 2009 at 9:00 AM

    Isn't there an App like that for the iPhone? Uses the GPS and your food desire to locate nearby friends with the App installed and similar desire.

    I think you put in your 3 food type choices and it tries to match you.

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  3. Thomas StrombergJuly 4, 2009 at 12:19 PM

    Cool project! We used to use a java application for this when I worked at IU called Wheel 'O Yum: http://www.wheeloyum.com/AppScreenshots.php -- interesting client/server design, not really practical.

    Here is an interesting site I saw when looking for the above: http://wheelof.com/lunch/

    ReplyDelete
  4. schriercJuly 4, 2009 at 4:20 PM

    @CaesarsGhost

    I really don't know since I don't have an iPhone. It sounds like a neat application though.

    I think the difference is that MealTicket will be a proactive planning tool instead of a spur of the moment "what should we eat." I want users to be able to enter restaurants that may be appealing to their group and as time continues the application will make suggestions based on their ratings and ratings by others.

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  5. dhbarrJuly 5, 2009 at 12:11 AM

    This would be -great- for any group of people who frequently, regularly, or even just occasionally go out to eat. Without a proper voting system, one tends to get stuck in a rut, and it's nearly impossible to get out of due to a few vocal minorities with strong opinions (example, half of your group hates one restaurant each).

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