dla-docs

Menu planning

1. Purpose

Menu planning (weekly meal planning) lets you place saved dishes from Recipes into Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner for each day (Monday–Sunday), mark no-cooking days, view a weekly summary (protein, repeated dishes), and copy from an existing week to save time.

2. When to use it

• You want a full week of meals before shopping.
• You want to agree “what’s for dinner” with your household.
• You already have at least one recipe in Recipes (required to create a new weekly plan).

3. Related screens

• Functions → Menu planning — list of weekly meal plans (status: upcoming / current / past)
• Create weekly meal plan — pick week start date (7 days Mon–Sun), optional copy from another week
• Meal plan detail — grid by day and meal; add dishes, outside meals, no-cooking days; weekly summary; previous week

4. Main usage

4.1 Create a new weekly plan

1. Go to Functions → Menu planning.
2. Tap Create weekly meal plan (or the empty-state button).
3. Choose Week start date (the week spans 7 consecutive days Mon–Sun as defined in the app).
4. (Optional) Enable Copy from an existing plan and pick a source week — meals are copied (you can edit after).
5. If the new week overlaps dates with an existing plan, the app shows an error — pick another range or delete/edit the old plan.
6. Confirm — opens meal plan detail.

Note: If you have no recipes yet, the app blocks creating a plan and asks you to add recipes first.

4.2 Add dishes to each meal

1. In meal plan detail, tap Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner for a day.
2. Pick a recipe opens — search Recipes and tap to select.
3. (Optional) Add outside meal (free text, e.g. pho, burgers) when not cooking at home.
4. Repeat for other slots.

4.3 No-cooking day

1. Use No cooking this day for that date.
2. (Optional) Reason — the app warns that all dishes on that day will be removed from the plan.
3. You can Turn cooking back on to clear the day-off state.

4.4 Weekly summary and previous week

1. Weekly summary — statistics such as protein types, dishes cooked often vs once (per on-screen labels).
2. Previous week — opens summary or reference for the adjacent week (per app flow).

4.5 Delete a meal plan

1. From the plan list, delete (icon/menu) for one week.
2. Confirm — that week is removed.

Limit: With 12 meal plans stored, creating another may show a limit dialog (the oldest week may be removed — see the in-app message).

5. Examples & UI sketches

5.1 MEAL-01: Create a week and add lunch

Goal: Plan the current week with at least Tuesday lunch filled.

Steps:

1. Menu planning → Create weekly meal plan → pick a valid start date
2. Lunch on Tuesday → Add dish → pick “Tom yum soup”
3. Save / back per app flow

UI sketch:

[ Weekly plan: 01/03 – 01/09 ]     [🟢 Current]

        Mon     Tue     Wed   ...
Breakfast [+]     [+]     [+]
Lunch     [+]   [Tom yum] [+]
Dinner    [+]     [+]     [+]

5.2 MEAL-02: Eating out

Goal: Saturday — no home cooking; record as day off or outside meal.

Steps: On Saturday → No cooking this day (reason: “Party”) or add Outside meal to a slot.

6. Logic & rules

• One week = 7 days with start/end dates; status upcoming / current / past is based on today’s date.
• No overlapping date ranges with another saved plan.
• In-app dishes always come from Recipes; outside meals are free text with an “outside” style label.
• 12-plan limit — at the cap, the app may offer to remove the oldest week to create a new one (see dialog).

7. Important notes

• Premium: Menu planning is under Kitchen & culinary; a Premium badge may appear on Functions.
• You need recipes in Recipes before creating a new weekly plan.
• If something is unclear on your app build, rely on on-screen buttons and messages.