LociOiling Lv 1
Some issues related to populating the cookbook were highlighted by the recent server outage April 20-22 2024.
Even during normal server conditions, the cookbook is sometimes opens up empty. In most cases, using the "refresh" button populates the cookbook, at least when the server is actually online.
It appears this happens due to a timeout when the server is responding slowly.
There is no indication of why the cookbook is empty. Perhaps an "error getting recipes from the server" message could appear in the cookbook, similar to the messages that appear from time to timeu in Open/Share Solutions or the Compound Library. The refresh button doesn't have any text, so perhaps the message could point it out to users.
Also, recipes are cached under the "recipes" folder, in ir_macro format. It looks like the client could construct a cookbook of some type using the cached information. This would allow play to continue during an extended server outage. It looks like deleted recipes are not removed from the cache, so they might reappear. Recipes might not be at the most recent version, depending on when the cache was created. Also, there is just one cache, so if multiple users share the same Foldit directory, a reconstructed cookbook would have everyone's recipes.
The empty cookbook problem limits use of offline mode. The cookbook is always empty in offline mode, even if the server is running normally. A cookbook built from the cache would also be useful in offline mode.
The cookbook refresh button appears in offline mode, but of course it has no effect.