What is iFicionado?

iFicionado is like iTunes, but for cigars! I can't say it in a more elegant way. And if you think about it, that's a pretty powerful statement. iFicionado may just revolutionize the way you keep track of your ever increasing collection of fine cigars. And more! It also puts information and ratings for those cigars right at your fingertips. Oh yeah, and it's FREE!

Click below to download the latest version of iFicionado.

WARNING: iFicionado is currently being offered as a beta. This will allow you to get an advance preview of what will be available in the initial release, but as such, there are some bugs. I work on iFicionado a little every day, fixing bugs, finishing advanced functionality AND ADDING EVEN MORE FEATURES! Check back often, your bug may be fixed. However, don't hesitate to e-mail me with problems, comments and suggestions. That's what the beta is all about.

Please e-mail me and let me know how you like iFicionado! Don't worry, I'm not going to come after you for any money, or ask you for any information about yourself. Need help? Have a suggestion? Use the Feedback command from within iFicionado or e-mail me at jjellel@teamhfa.com.

iFicionado was inspired by a great application for PalmOS called HerferBuddy. I must thank and give credit to Mark A. Peters for some of the underlying concepts that make both HerferBuddy and iFicionado so logical and easy to use. If you have a "Palm" you should definitely check out HerferBuddy, and I hope to one day work with Mark to bring the interaction of iFicionado and HerferBuddy together so you can have your "humidor" with you whether at home, at work or on the go.

Create a New Humidor

Select New Humidor from the Humidor menu. (Fig. 1) A new, empty humidor window will open for you to begin cataloging you stock of cigars. (Fig. 2a)

Getting to Know the Humidor

The humidor is a tabbed window with a row of buttons along the bottom, much like iTunes. Each tab presents the various information stored in your humidor in an intuitive manner.

The Humidor

The Humidor tab shows representations of your cigars as if they were in a virtual humidor. You can get quick information about each cigar by pausing the mouse over it.

The Ledger

The Ledger tab shows all the information about your cigars in a sortable list view. You can show or hide any of the columns. The color of each row indicates the country of origin of the cigar so you can quickly identify where your cigars are from. You can use the Ledger View Options on the View menu to control how the ledger appears.

The Journal

The Journal tab shows the list of events related to each cigar such as purchases, tastings, smokings, gifts given and received, etc., as well as a journal of events relating to the humidor itself such as when it was created, each time the RH and temperature were checked, general comments, etc.

The Ratings

The Ratings tab organizes everything you want to know about you cigars in a format similar to your favorite cigar publication for fun and easy browsing. A great way to remember the prizes in your collection and decide which will be the next to burn.

The History

The History tab organizes every interaction with your cigars in an easy to follow timeline. It also displays a graph of the RH and temperature inside your humidor over time so you can see just how well you've cared for your fine cigars. Using the buttons near the bottom of the tab you can easily toggle on and off each type of event allowing you, for instance, to easily zero in on purchases, etc.

Working With Cigars

The Cigar Menu

The Cigar menu is where it all happens. Anything you might want to keep track of concerning your cigars can be initiated here.

New Cigar

Use New Cigar to add a new cigar to your humidor. Selecting this item will open the New Cigar sheet where you can enter preliminary information for the new cigar.

iFicionado makes it as easy as possible for you to catalog every cigar in your collection. Enter a minimum of information and let iFicionado do the leg work. By entering just a name or brand and checking the Get Cigar Info or Get Rating check boxes, iFicionado will lookup a list of cigars for you to choose from.

Check the Get Cigar Band box and iFicionado will search for a match to further customize the look of your cigar.

You may even want to add a new cigar BEFORE you buy one so you can easily download ratings and see if it's one that's worth your while.

Hold down the option key when pressing the OK button to automatically launch the Buy Cigar sheet after adding your cigar!

Buy Cigar

This might be your first step after creating a new cigar. It will also be the first place you want to go when you get home from the tobacconist or get that parcel in the mail.

All cigar sheets share some common elements, so we'll cover them here. The cigar popup lets you select which cigar this event will be for. The quantity field is self explanatory.

In the Buy Cigars sheet the quantity also includes a popup and field allowing you to specify "single" or boxed quantites. There is also a field to note the price paid for the entire quantity and the tobacconist from which the purchase was made.

Other controls common to all event sheets are the Date and Comments. Today's date is automatically entered for the date. Comments can be entered for any event, so make use of them so you don't have to rely on your memory. And both are collapsible should you find that you do not need to change the date or enter a comment every time.

Smoke Cigar

You may never see this sheet, unless you select Smoke Cigar without having first selected a cigar to smoke.

It's really that simple. Each time you select it, a Smoke event for 1 cigar is entered into the journal of the selected cigar. Hold down Shift if you want to enter a quantity of more than 1, want to choose a different date other than the current date, or wish to enter a comment.

Taste Cigar

Give Cigar

Receive Cigar

Custom Event

The Cigar Info Drawer

The Cigar Info Drawer is where you can enter and change information about each cigar such as name, brand, manufacturer, size, types of tobacco used, etc. You can also use the Find... button to obtain the image of the band to customize it's appearance in the Humidor view. Or, drop in one of your own images. Any band on a crisp white background will do nicely.

Select Show Cigar Info to open the drawer if it is closed. As with any drawer, you can pull it out to view as much or as little of the info as you want. To close the drawer after editing a cigar, simply drag it shut or select Hide Cigar Info from the Cigar menu.

Everything Else

The Edit Menu

Besides the standard editing commands, the Edit menu allows you to customize many of the defaults in iFicionado such as shapes and sizes and colors of cigars, the list of countries and the colors that represent them and a list of tobacconists that you frequent.

These lists along with other information you have already entered in your humidor populate many of the popup menus throughout iFicionado, like in the Cigar Info Drawer.

The View Menu

The View menu offers you control over the appearance of some of the tabs such as the Humidor tab and the Ledger tab.

Ledger View Options

The Ledger View Options sheet allows you to select which columns you would like to see displayed in the Ledger tab view. You can also select whether or not to color each row with the country of origin of that cigar (colored by default).

Preferences

General Preferences

General Preferences includes two settings dealing with the calculation of the ratings displayed in iFicionado.

The Method popup (left) allows you to choose from three methods of calculation when dealing with more than one rating for any given cigar: Most Recent, Highest or Average.

The Preferred Source popup (right) allows you to select the primary source of ratings used to calculate the scores. You can use your own ratings, those of Cigar Aficionado, Top25Cigar.com, or all three.

Online Preferences

Recommendations Preferences

HotSync Preferences

Functionality for using iFicionado with HerferBuddy or at a minimum exporting a wish list or notes to Palm's Memo app is planned, but not currently under development.

©2003 Josh Jellel. All rights reserved.