Cookwise

Cookwise is an Android recipe-discovery app built with Kotlin and Jetpack Compose. It fetches meal data from TheMealDB and displays recipes dynamically, helping you find a dish, learn a little about its cuisine, and open a video tutorial when you're ready to cook.

The project is also a hands-on learning exercise in building a modern Android UI, consuming a REST API, mapping JSON responses, and managing UI state.

Features

• Discover meals - load a collection of random recipes from TheMealDB.
• Search by name - look up a recipe using the search field.
• Recipe details - tap a recipe to read its cooking instructions.
• Cuisine and category - see a meal's cuisine and category alongside its name.
• Food photography - display recipe thumbnails loaded from their image URLs.
• Video tutorials - open the recipe's YouTube tutorial; when a direct tutorial URL isn't available, Cookwise searches YouTube for the meal.
• Minimal interface - a focused, single-screen browsing experience with clear typography and rounded recipe imagery.
• Light and dark appearance - adapts to the device theme, with dynamic color support on compatible Android versions.
• Loading and empty states - show feedback while meals load and when a search has no results.

Tech Stack

Technology	Purpose
Kotlin	Main programming language
Jetpack Compose	Declarative native UI
Material 3	UI components and theming
Retrofit 2	HTTP requests to TheMealDB
Gson	Convert API JSON responses into Kotlin data classes
Coil	Load meal thumbnails from URLs
ViewModel + Kotlin coroutines	Manage recipe state and run network requests asynchronously
Gradle Kotlin DSL	Build configuration and dependency management

API

Cookwise uses the public TheMealDB API to retrieve its recipe data. The current implementation uses these endpoints:

Purpose	Endpoint
Get a random meal	https://www.themealdb.com/api/json/v1/1/random.php
Search meals by name	https://www.themealdb.com/api/json/v1/1/search.php?s={query}

The API response is mapped into Kotlin data classes. The Recipe model reads fields such as the meal name, cuisine, category, instructions, thumbnail URL, and YouTube tutorial URL from the corresponding JSON properties.

Recipe information and images are provided by TheMealDB.

Project Structure

Cookwise/
├── app/
│   ├── build.gradle.kts
│   └── src/main/
│       ├── AndroidManifest.xml
│       ├── java/com/app/cookwise/
│       │   ├── MainActivity.kt       # Activity and Compose entry point
│       │   ├── App.kt                # Recipe list, search UI, cards, and details dialog
│       │   ├── AppViewModel.kt       # Recipe fetching, search, and UI state
│       │   ├── ApiService.kt         # Retrofit setup and API endpoints
│       │   ├── RecipeResponse.kt     # Recipe and API response data classes
│       │   └── ui/theme/
│       │       ├── Color.kt
│       │       ├── Theme.kt
│       │       └── Type.kt
│       └── res/                      # App resources, fonts, icons, and XML resources
├── gradle/
│   └── libs.versions.toml            # Centralized dependency versions
├── build.gradle.kts
├── settings.gradle.kts
├── gradlew
└── gradlew.bat

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Android Studio
• Android SDK for the project (minimum supported Android version: Android 7.0 / API 24)
• An Android emulator or a physical Android device
• Internet access to retrieve recipes from TheMealDB

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/Shaahmir/Cookwise.git
cd Cookwise

Open and run

1. Open the cloned project in Android Studio.
2. Allow Gradle to sync and download the required dependencies.
3. Start an emulator or connect an Android device.
4. Select the app run configuration and press Run.

Build from the command line

Windows (PowerShell):

.\gradlew.bat assembleDebug

macOS / Linux:

./gradlew assembleDebug

The debug APK is generated at:

app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk

What This Project Practices

Cookwise brings together several foundational Android development concepts:

• Building layouts and interactive components with Jetpack Compose
• Fetching REST API data with Retrofit
• Parsing JSON with Gson annotations
• Performing asynchronous work with Kotlin coroutines
• Exposing UI state through a ViewModel
• Displaying remote images with Coil
• Supporting system themes and Material 3 styling
• Handling search results, loading, and basic request errors

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.