Shopping list - not related to recipe

[ezpl]

Hi
I want to use Mealie just as much for shopping lists as for keeping recipes. For this to be efficient, a base selection of groceries should be present, or at least remembered. It seems that unless it is coming from a recipe you can only create "notes" which are not kept for the next time you want to add it to the shopping list.

Is there some smart functionality I am missing or is this just how it is at the present?

Cheers,

Ezpl

[ezpl]

I found something - by clicking the apple-icon it will use a list of foods.
However, when entering something new, it is not saved.
How are you using this functionality to make it efficient?

[michael-genson]

Ah yeah see my reply, just touched on this :)

[michael-genson]

You have to toggle using foods, which enables using foods instead of notes:

You can add foods and labels without sourcing from a recipe through the manage data section:
/group/data/foods

If you want a set of "base" foods, you can seed food data from that page as well.

[ezpl]

...or I could create a super-simplified dashboard component in HomeAssistant using the API.

[michael-genson]

(or please do share the script - then I'll figure out the easiest route - working normally with c#, not Python, but whatever)

You'll probably have an easier time with it yourself then, it's a pretty simple REST API. Head to yourdomain.com/docs to check out the API.

the showstopper here would probably be my wife if we tried using this as our common shopping list when she cannot just add "my-random-never-heard-of-grocery" to the built-in list

Yeah I have mine hooked up to Alexa/AWS so a Lambda function does the lookup with fuzzy matching. For a similar reason :)

[ezpl]

Will have a look at the API 👍
Voice control could be an even better way to go 😎
The lambda for posting to the API for Alexa could be somehow reusable I would assume with a different input method - would you want to share to give me a head start? 😊

[michael-genson]

Specifically with Alexa it's... complicated. If you want to integrate with the Alexa shopping list, you have to create a custom Alexa skill that can be triggered out of session:
https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/custom-skills/get-a-user-specific-access-token.html

I'm working on making a "shopping list integration app" that does the heavy lifting for developers, but it's a WIP.

Another alternative is to bypass the Alexa shopping list entirely and write a custom skill that calls the Mealie API. So, for instance, you can say "Alexa, ask my Alexa skill to add something to the shopping list." It's still quite a pain since you need a custom Alexa skill in AWS.

The easiest solution, which is the one I'm using currently, is to integrate your shopping list through a different list app that supports Alexa integration (I use ToDoist). Unfortunately you lose a lot of the Mealie functionality doing this, hence the app I'm working on.

---

If you're not tied to Alexa, setting up home assistant with voice controls would be much, much easier.

[ezpl]

I will stay away from Alexa 😁

Seems like the /docs section is unavaliable - wonder if it is a bug in the current release? Even on the demo site 😏
https://mealie-demo.hay-kot.dev/docs