hRecipe – Wordpress editor support for recipe microformat
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[Update 8/6/2010: 0.5.3.4 released. Minor fixes in options page, code cleanup.]
[Update 3/30/2010: Dutch translation courtesy of Rene from WP Web Shops.]
[Updated 3/4/2010: Version 0.5.3.1 released. Fixed bug in php include.]
Please donate to help speed up development. Many thanks to these donors:
- Donation from Anne B. (http://anneonline.com/)
- Donation from Branson Sparks (http://bransonsparks.com/)
- Donation from Lizzy R. (http://mpdcooks.com/)
hRecipe plugin for WordPress gives you fast, efficient recipe formatting… with an SEO advantage. Your recipes look good, and search engines will like them better too.
Check this out…
I Cook Free uses hRecipe
I Cook Free, a site specializing in family meals which are gluten, dairy, and egg free provides a very tasty looking recipe for gluten-free chocolate cupcakes.
Please leave a comment of encouragement for I Cook Free!
Invisible technology helps you
The magic happens using “microformats,” semantic web technology invisible to you, but friendly to search engines. Read more about the hrecipe microformat.
The hRecipe plugin for Wordpress shows a popup window with text fields and text areas that allow the author to conveniently enter the various parts of the hRecipe microformat, then inserts a formatted recipe into the page or post. The formatting has the hRecipe class specifications.
There is a growing list of options to control how your recipes are displayed:
- Ingredients lists formatting can be either by number or by bullet point.
- The background color of the formatted recipe can be specified to match or offset the background color of the enclosing web page.
- The display text for many sections of recipes may be specified.
- International support is growing rapidly.
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: All new customers for hRecipe are welcome to purchase support for $50/hr. Please contact for details.
Bug fixes are free as time permits. Leave a comment below for fastest action.
Follow @websiteweekend on twitter for updates, search hashtag #hrecipe for details.
If you have any problems or questions at all, send me an email.
hRecipe at Website In A Weekend
Development work continues. Here’s where to find more information:
- Using hRecipe (upcoming)
- hRecipe Bugs (upcoming)
- hRecipe ChangeLog
- hRecipe Contributors
- hRecipe Feature Requests (upcoming)
- hRecipe Recipes
- hRecipe Roadmap
hRecipe is being moved from hRecipe @ There Is No Box. Most, but not all of the information has been moved, but you can find more information there.
hRecipe is back in active development, and “best of” recipes will be linked.
hRecipe Plugin for WordPress
The hRecipe Plugin for WordPress provides a popup window from the post and page editor with text fields and text areas that allow the author to conveniently enter the various parts of the hRecipe microformat, then inserts the formatted recipe into the page or post. The formatting has the hRecipe class specifications.
Installing and using hRecipe
Installation is simple and works just like all other plugins. There’s two ways to do it, the easy way and the hard way.
The easy way:
- Use the built-in plugin search: “Plugins -> Add New”
Using WordPress built plugin search
-
Search for “hRecipe” and choose only that one:
hRecipe plugin search results
- Install as usual.
The hard way:
- Download the zip file and extract the plugin directory. You can get the zip file from WordPress.org, as shown in the screenshot:
Download hRecipe plugin for WordPress.
- Upload the plugin directory to your WordPress site, typically into /wp-content/plugins
- Use the editor buttons to call a popup window, and fill in the text fields and text areas.
- The text areas (Ingredients, Instructions) should accept HTML formatting.
- NOTE: List building with “*” is supported! Just use a single “*” for delimiter between each ingredient and each instruction, and the plugin will build a numbered list.
{ 66 comments }
← Previous Comments
Hi-
Just installed the newest version and something doesn’t seem to work. When I click on the hRecipe button I get a “Page not found” error. I think instead of going to http://www.layingitontheline.com/blog/hrecipeinput.php? that the plugin is trying to go to just the root (http://www.layingitontheline.com/hrecipeinput.php?). Is there a way to change where the button looks for the plugin?
Thanks.
JJ
John,
I’ve just fixed that.
I’ll commit again momentarily.
It’s really late right now.
If the new commit doesn’t come through, add these lines to the top of hrecipe_format.php:
< ?php global $hrecipe_plugin_url; ?>Thanks a lot mate! Adding the line you posted fixed the problem
I’m gonna guess and say your site in Turkish, or something similar. The coffee cup is kind of hint.
I want a translation!
Haha mate you wouldn’t be the only one! It’s Turkish indeed
The translation would be the usual appealing words about ‘Web Design’ ^.^
Your email is bouncing so I’ve been delinking you. Without a face on gravatar or a decent About page, you’re coming across as spam!
Oh damn the autofill. I didn’t see the typo on the email!
Btw don’t worry. I’m not a spammer
I just stumbled upon your post & blog. I needed this kind of plugin for a client with a cooking website running on WP and right now it’s running great. Thanks a lot again 
Haha! Excellent!
Please please do this:
1. Get a gravatar, seriously.
2. Make sure your email address is working.
3. Get an About page with your smiling face on it.
4. Help me with a Turkish translation for hRecipe.
5. Write me a guest post about how useful hRecipe was, and I’ll put it up on the main site with a backlink to your web design company. I have no problem with a Turkish summary on this article as well, if you would prefer to backlink in that way.
1- I postpone that for like weeks… Damn my procrastination
2- I got your e-mail
3- Haha i don’t know if people would want to see my face on our ‘About’ page but the page is there. It’s the ‘Kurumsal’ link on the main nav but it translates as ‘institutional’ which is correct for most occasions, but in this case, it means something like ‘about our company’
4- Me and my employees do have better-than-average english skills. But i don’t know if i could help with the translation. We’re pretty full atm :S
5. I’d love to write a brief guest post in your blog. As a markup language fan, who doesn’t love properly coded semantic information?
Where is the download link on this page?
@Fred – Added link for downloading 0.5.01.
I’m very interested in you hRecipe plugin. I would LOVE to see functionality for *printing* the recipe only from within a post, as well as the recipe appearing with a different background colour etc.
@Rico – That’s a couple of releases out yet… I might be able to push it forward… let’s see if anyone else is interested as well. That would be very motivating.
Do you have a plug in to add the items of the recipe to a printable list?
@Frances – I’m taking your comment as a vote for printing next.
What I am looking for is similar to this site: http://www.southernsavers.com. The ability to select shopping items to print. I know it can be done just a) don’t know how b) can’t find out how. If you hear or know how to do this please let me know I would be so grateful for any help.
Thanks again!
@Frances – yeah, that’s different than what I’m doing. Any good web design shop should be able to help you out.
So far no one can help. Thanks!
@Frances – coding up a useful grocery item web application probably comes at about $15,000 in developer time, from a cold start. Maybe more, depending on what capabilities you want for it. Maybe less if you can find someone with related code who’s interested in the project. I could do it… but nobody wants to show me the money.
A friend of mine is working on some related technology, but he hasn’t released yet. We plan on comarketing once he’s ready to release. You might consider signing up for the newsletter.
Remember: all this technology you are using was volunteered by people giving their time. My estimate is WordPress has about $15,000,000 worth of developer value. Enjoy, but keep in mind the context.
Hi Dr.. Thanks for the plugin. I just recently updated to the latest version. Now, when i add a recipe the font size is too large.. Is there an easy way to modify this?
Thanks Again
Can’t get hrecipe to work on latest version of WP (2.8.6). Activating plug-in generates following error:
Message: Expected ‘;’
Line: 475
Char: 24
Code: 0
URI: http://localhost/wp/wp-admin/plugins.php?activate=true&plugin_status=all&paged=1
More javascript errors reported on new post page – clicking the star does not bring up any windows.
@Carl – I just tested here on Website In A Weekend, everything is working fine for me.
Please send me a zip file of your hRecipe installation. If there is no difference, we’ll start checking conflict with other plugins.
Hello same problem like Carl nothing happens wenn clicking on the star
@Philipp – Thanks for the feedback, I just sent you an email. I’ll get started on this shortly.
Unfortunately, the plugin does work for me, and that makes debugging really hard. I’ll figure it out though.
Hi DW,
I activated hRecipe on 2.8.6 built over PHP5 and when clicking the edit post link in the dashboard I got the following error:
Catchable fatal error: Object of class hrecipe could not be converted to string in /var/www/…/wp-includes/classes.php on line 273
Regards,
BadgerMe
Probably an erroneous error because I have two recipe plug-ins installed – deactivating ‘Recipe Share’ removed the problem.
@Badger – Thanks for the update. I’ll check into namespacing my classes to prevent this in the future.
@Adam – Just caught your comment… you can change the hrecipe.css file to use any type of styling you want.
When I try to input a recipe into a post, I get the pop up, but it remains as a blank white page and no form is available for me to fill out. I’m on a brand new install of wordpress with minimal other plugins installed, any ideas?
@Maria – That’s a first. Which browser and operating system are you using?
Hello, i really like your hRecipe app and intended on starting to use it. I haven’t used it yet, however i have messed around with it before. Today i went to test it again, and noticed a few issues i’m having (i also updated my wordress to 2.9 today so i don’t know if that had any affect on it).
First, when i select number of servings, it does not appear in the post when i hit insert.
second, when i list ingredients and instructions, they are all implemented into the same line. Am i doing something wrong? In the text box provided, i enter the first ingredient then hit enter to go to the next line, then i enter the next ingredient and hit enter, etc. Same method with the instructions. Yet when i go to insert the recipe it appears all on the same line. Like this…
1. Clean chicken. Cook chicken. Then serve!
Rather than…
1. Clean chicken.
2. Cook chicken.
3. Then serve!
Please help me with this so that i can start using this plugin. I hope the recent wordpress update didn’t affect anything. Thank you!
Ronnie,
The quick answer is do this:
* Clean chicken.
* Cook chicken.
* Then serve!
That is,
* Star at beginning of line, each on a different line.
Getting this right is what’s known as a
“parsing” problem. People parse naturally,
computers, not so much.
By putting a * at the start, and each direction
on a separate line, I can parse that much easier.
Wow, thanks for the quick response. Adding the star makes it work. I guess there’s no way around that to make it do it automatically, right?
Also, what about the number of servings? How come that is not appearing when i hit insert even if i select one of the options?
Thanks again!
I love the idea behind this modification but for some reason am getting a “catchable fatal error” when I try to access it on the front page.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!!!
Hey again. You helped me out earlier with an issue i was having with the plugin, which is working out great now! It’s definitely helped me out implementing cooking recipes on my site.
Since your plugin seems to be one of the few plugins geared toward food blogs, i’d like to make a request. Do you think you are able to create a plugin that can allow subscribers to the site to have their own “recipe box” to allow users to add and save their favorite recipes to their profile. And have it show up as a widget. Let me know what you think, or if you’ve seen another plugin similar to this. THANKS!
Ronnie, just released 0.5.2.
Definitely interested in working with food bloggers.
This is very nice! It’s great to find someone creative and smart enough who is willing to help out the food folks… and not just cater to the IM and SEO crowd. I’m definitely going to add this to my recipe blog, as it looks like it will make things much easier to input.
I can help the food blogger folks a lot!
Stay tuned.
hello,
i just updated to the newest version, and some of the customizations i had done on the last version will not work when i re-implement them. Basically, all I had done was change some of the tab4 options to the recipe input.
When i upload these changes and view the hrecipe editor, they are not appearing. I’ve verified that they are showing up in the plugin editor, although it says inactive when i view the files (except hrecipe.php).
I am up to date on my wordpress install – any suggestions? I’ve tried a host of changes, even as simple as changing the name of a culinary tradition, and the changes are not being reflected.
Thanks
Liz, I sent an email. You can get my attention pretty easy right now. Hope you will follow up.
Hello! I really like this plugin, and it was working great, but whatever update you sent through yesterday broke it to the point that wasn’t able to even see my website or login. The error that I got was “Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent out by (output started at /…/plugins/hrecipe/hrecipe.php:102) in /…/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 868. I would love to use this plugin, but everytime I try to reinstall it I get the error all over again. I am running WP 2.9.2.
Jessica, I fixed at least one problem in 5.3.1 which may have caused this. Also, I sent you an email. Let me know one way or another, it really helps me a lot.
The infuriating thing for me is that, it works for me! Not seeing any problems at all in my testing.
Thanks for your feedback.
Where can I find the download link? There is no download link on this page and the version on Wordpress.org is outdated.
Hi,
I am new to WordPress. I have added hrecipe and the star appears in the editor, when i click on it i get a blank popup box Title Add an hRecipe.
I would appreciate any support.
thanks
Hi–
This plug in is great. One question, related, I suppose to the others regarding printing.
Is there a way to convert the recipe to a pdf for printing, or for a user to print without sidebar clutter showing up? When I print a short recipe from a blog post now, I get three pages of output. Thanks!
This is really cool!! thanks a lot for sharing this step by step guide in wordpress recipe microformat.. It saves a lot of my time.
The plugin works, but it fails to validate with Google. I keep getting: “Insufficient data to generate the preview.”
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http://criticalmas.com/2010/07/primal-tuna-melt/&view=cse
Disregard. It started working once I added PREP and COOKING time.
Thanks tons for figuring this out, really appreciate it!
Great plugin! My wife will love using this once she starts her cooking blog.
Aaron, thanks, I really like working on this piece of code.
Thnaks for a great plugin. I’m a fan of microformats but this also makes sure I get all the elements I need into my recipes.
http://www.raeallen.net/2010/07/21/beef-and-mushroom-hotpot-with-parmesan-dumplings/
Rae, microformats rock! Looking forward to doing more development on this plugin.
Hey I just downloaded the plugin for my site using Wordpress 3.0. Are there any known issues with compatibility? My problem is that when I click the star when writing a post nothing happens, I tried deactivating all my other plugins that I’m using to see if there’s a problem running with them but I’m getting the same result. The only other thing I could see as an issue would be that I’m running the Thesis, however when I tested by switching over to the Twenty10 theme I’m still getting nothing when pushing the star. Any help would be appreciated.
Phil, it seems to be working now. Try upgrading to the latest version of the plugin.
I have been using your plugin for months now (Love it, BTW!!) but I have never been able to get the stars to work. If I select stars it only shows little squares as if I dont have the font installed.
This sounds like an older version of the plugin, where the ratings were displayed with images. Now I use HTML characters which should be available to all browsers.
Like most others, I just updated to the latest versions, wordpress 3.0.1 and hrecipe 0.5.4, now when I click on the star all I get is darker screen with nothing to show.
Any thoughts ????
Robert, yours is the second report, which means it’s happening to about 10% of people. (Most people never report anything.)
I’m going to take a quick look right now to check something, and if that doesn’t pan out, I’ll see about spending some time tomorrow or Thursday.
Thanks Dave,
I noticed you’ve been using hRecipe since September 2009.
That’s very cool.
I’m sending you another email.
Oh yes, I installed the plugin for my wife, the site is actually hers. Now she wont put a recipe without it.
Got your email, No rush!
in the mean time I am going to start deactivating all my plugins one by one to pin point the guilty party.
Thank you so much for your help, I never got this kind of support before!!!! from other plugin programmers.
@Robert, I can’t support all users all the time, but several things work in your favor here:
1. She has a great site and been using hRecipe for a year (at least),
2. I happen to have some flexible time at the moment.
3. I’m working on a new back end for hRecipe right now anyway.
Free software is not a “spectator sport,” it’s very much a community effort. And support is by far the most difficult and least appreciated tasks.
If you find a conflicting plugin, let me know and I’ll install it and test it on my site. I may be able to figure out exactly what’s wrong, whence either work around the problem in hRecipe, or email the other plugin author (or both).
Dave,
I found the culprit plugin, it is (headspace2) but on the bright side they have a new update. When I get home tonight I will install the update and post my results. Can’t live without headspace2!!! Hope the new version will fix this. Thank you
Robert, that’s excellent, really appreciate your effort.
I put a note up on the blog: http://hrecipe.com/245/possible-conflict-with-headspace-2/
Just upgrad headspace 2, to the latest version 3.6.33. Problem solved.
Thank you Dave,
The wife’s site is back in business.
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