Skip to main content

Configuring Grocy

Once Grocy was installed there were two pieces of housekeeping to do to it before it could help with the housekeeping. The first was to localise it and the second to drop out unwanted features of the program to create a more streamlined interface.

All of the information on how to complete this is on the Documentation tab (red circle) and the alterations are made on the Configuration tab (green circle).

The instructions in the Configuration section of the Documentation tab look a little daunting at first. But there is no need to tackle all of them in the first instance and, from my reading, there didn't seem to be any reason why the settings can't be altered at a later date if need be.

To localise Grocy only the culture and currency options on the Configuration page need to be altered. The program defaults are for USD and US English (en).

To get proper money and the King's English it was just a matter of typing in the 3-letter currency code GBP and choosing en_GB from the culture drop down (this must be a bit galling for the Irish but obviously anything else would be too taxing for our American cousins). Don't forget to click Save and then Restart at the bottom of the Options list.

Now we have pounds sterling but for some reason still chores (a US term for housework). But close enough.

The next step was to drop out the features of Grocy that I won't use, at least in the foreseeable future. I could explain why at this point, but as I'm not going to use them what is the point? The no-thanks list for me is batteries, calendar, chores, equipment and tasks, or more than half the features. Of the remaining three, recipes may also be deleted at a later date if I decide it's not needed.

Hopefully, reducing the number of menu options from 16 to 9 will markedly reduce the time it takes for other users to get to grips with program (and everyone's stress levels).

Now I can get started with the program.

P.S. About half way through my first attempt to use Grocy I stumbled across another level of configuration. Under [username] > User settings.

For some reason Language is set as Default despite being the whole program being configured for GB English. Setting this to English (Great Britain) and clicking OK gave an unexpected result.

But the change did stick on rebooting Grocy and now Stores was Shops. ✅

Chores is still there though.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Getting moving with Grocy

Now we have Grocy working , even if in skeletal form, the next hurdle is to cut the tie to the PC and go mobile. The advantages of being able to update stock levels on the hoof are obvious. All consume and purchase operations can be done at the point of use without the need to make notes and mark these up later. Inventorying can be performed at the storage location rather than dragging everything to the computer or more note making. What is needed, therefore, is mobile access to Grocy via a smartphone or tablet. There are multiple ways to achieve this. Web Browser The first and simplest method is to use the web browser on your device. Although, at least with Android devices, the browser is slightly finnicky about which address it will accept for the Home Assistant (HA) server. Using the standard homeassistant.local:8123 address results in an error message ' This site can't be reached DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN. ' There appear to be known problems with Android phones ...

Grocy and its Home Assistant Add-on

The next layer of the Virtual Bean Counter software stack is the meat in the sandwich, Grocy (see Grocy system install ). As with the Home Assistant (HA) Operating System that was reviewed previously the aim of this article is to consider the support and backup options for the Grocy system as installed onto our HA virtual machine . But first a little history. Whither Grocy ? It sprang from the desire of a software developer, Bernd Bestel , to progress beyond using Excel (as we know a great spreadsheet and data analysis tool but with a limited UI) to something more fully featured by exploiting his experience with commercial inventory management. The first version of Grocy was released in 2017 and after seven years is now on its fourth full point release . However, unlike HA, it is essentially a one-man band with a single developer responsible for pretty much the entirety of the content all without stable funding (currently). That said the package is quite mature and " does wha...

Further adventures in household paper products

As the toilet rolls are up and running I couldn't resist adding the rest of the loft stocks into the mix. The next two items are kitchen roll and facial tissues . Following the same process described for toilet rolls; kitchen roll comes in a multipack, but this time a case has four packs of three rolls and we already have the storage location, shop and quantity units set up. Again, I think we'll have to set up a generic item (Parent product) as well as a specific one for the Kirkland brand rolls (Child product). So I gave it a name, Kitchen roll and a description; default storage location and shop, Loft / Costco ; a min stock amount, 3 rolls ; all the quantity units are Roll . Job done. Now for the specific product, as previously, pulling images and descriptions off the Costco website, setting up case and pack barcodes and quantity conversions between them, buying in Cases and using in Packs . But hang on, do we really want to track in packs of three? We only need a sin...