Halo cooking book for Chrome

Save a recipe from any website straight into your cookbook, and shop your Trolley on any supermarket's website with a few keys. It uses your cookbook sign-in in Chrome, so there's nothing else to log in to.

Getting it

1. Add Halo cooking book from the Chrome Web Store. It's free with your cookbook. (It's on its way to the store now.)
2. Pin the cookbook icon from Chrome's jigsaw menu, at the right of the address bar.
3. On your Trolley, click Shop online. Chrome's side panel opens beside the supermarket's site, and the keys work on any site.

Save a recipe from any website

• On a recipe, press Ctrl ⇧ S (⌘ ⇧ S on a Mac), or right-click the page and pick Save to Halo cooking book. Or click the cookbook icon by Chrome's address bar: the side panel opens beside the page, with Save this recipe at the top.
• It goes on your To try list, with a note on the page to open it, or Undo if you didn't mean to.
• Right-click a link to a recipe to save it without opening it.
• It works on sites that turn our server away, because it reads the recipe from the page you have open. On an Instagram, Facebook or X post it reads the caption and photo you can see, as the Save button in the app does.

Shop your Trolley on any supermarket's site

• Pick the week's recipes into your Trolley on My cookbook as usual. Then click Shop online on the Trolley page, or the cookbook icon by Chrome's address bar. The side panel opens and stays beside the supermarket's website as you shop.
• It shows one thing at a time. Ctrl ⇧ ↓ types it into the supermarket's search and searches. Ctrl ⇧ → is Got it: it's ticked off your Trolley and the next one comes up. Ctrl ⇧ ← skips it until the end. On a Mac use ⌘ for Ctrl.
• Each shop starts with What have you got? Tick anything already in the cupboard and it comes off your Trolley, then Start shopping.
• The same thing in two recipes shows once, so you find and tick it once.
• After a search, the three cheapest by price per kg (or per litre) glow on the supermarket's results, numbered 1, 2, 3. It goes by the price per kg the site shows, so if a site doesn't show one, nothing glows.
• Turn on Search the next one straight away, and after Got it the next thing is typed into the search for you.
• Skip the same thing twice and it asks if you want to take it off your Trolley. Undo puts it back.
• Your shops: once you've pressed Got it three times on a supermarket's site, it's listed at the bottom of the panel, so next week's shop is a click away. The ✕ forgets one.
• Undo is on the note and in the side panel. Chrome lets an extension suggest four keys, so Undo has none to start with: set one (we suggest Ctrl ⇧ ↑) on chrome://extensions/shortcuts, where you can change the others too.
• The side panel's Find button copies the name. If you like, let it type into supermarket sites' search bars too: it asks the first time, and Chrome asks you to OK it. The keys never need it. The same OK lets the panel's Save read a recipe page you didn't open the panel on.

Price a recipe before you buy it

• When a recipe's Cost says some ingredients aren't counted (they're not on My prices yet), tap Find their prices. The side panel takes you through them one at a time on your supermarket's website.
• Finding prices is part of a subscription. Without one you get one free price-up a week: one recipe, from its first price to its cost. Saving recipes and shopping the Trolley stay free.
• Ctrl ⇧ ↓ searches for it. The panel lists the prices on the page that name it, cheapest per kg first, and Ctrl ⇧ → (or Use in the panel) keeps the one picked. On a product's own page it uses that product. Ctrl ⇧ ← skips one.
• After the last one, the cost is worked out again with them, and the recipe shows it. Shop prices stay with that recipe and are marked as not bought yet. My prices only holds what you've bought or had in your basket, so once a receipt has the real price, that's used instead.
• Finding prices is part of a subscription, like working out a recipe's cost.
• On a recipe on another website, a small grey line at the bottom of the side panel says roughly what it'd cost, from prices you already have. It's free and saves nothing. Tap it to see each ingredient, and Price the rest at your usual supermarket: it saves the recipe to To try and opens the supermarket in a new tab to price just those.

Privacy

The extension is part of Halo Cooking Book, and our privacy policy covers it. In short: it only acts when you ask it to, it sends nothing anywhere but your own cookbook, and there are no adverts or trackers.

• Saving a recipe: when you save, it reads the recipe parts of that page (its recipe data, title, description and photo link, or a post's caption and photo) and sends them with the page's address to your cookbook, where the recipe is kept as on any save. Nothing else on the page is read.
• On supermarket sites: only when you press a key or Find, it types the item into the site's search bar and shows a small note. After that search it reads the prices per kg or litre shown on the results, on your computer, to light up the cheapest; they aren't sent anywhere or kept.
• Your basket, while you shop: only while you're shopping your Trolley with the side panel (or have just finished), when the supermarket's basket or order page is in front it reads the products' names, pack sizes and prices and the basket total, and saves those prices in My prices, marked as web prices. Undo takes them out again. It never reads card details, your address or anything else on those pages.
• After the shop: if you add your receipt, its photo or PDF goes to your cookbook to be read, as on My prices. Finishing the shop keeps it in your Shop history.
• Pricing a recipe: only while you're pricing one, it reads the product name, pack size and price on the supermarket page beside the panel, to list them. When you use a price, that product, its price, the site's name and the page's address are kept with that recipe in your cookbook.
• What a recipe would cost: with the side panel open beside a recipe page, it sends that recipe's ingredient list and the page's address to your cookbook, which compares them with your own prices and sends back a rough cost. Nothing is saved unless you tap Price.
• Your Trolley: Got it and Undo tick and untick items on your Trolley in your cookbook, as ticking them on the Trolley page does. Take it off removes an item from your Trolley, and Undo puts it back.
• Kept in Chrome: what you've skipped and can undo (until Chrome closes), whether you said Not now to letting Find type for you, and whether Search the next one is on. None of it leaves your computer.
• Your shops: the supermarket sites you've pressed Got it on, with how many times and when, are kept in Chrome and with your cookbook account, so they come back if you add the extension again or use another computer. The ✕ forgets one.
• Your sign-in: it uses the cookbook's own sign-in in Chrome to reach your cookbook. It never sees your password or your sign-in code.
• It doesn't keep your browsing history, and nothing is sold or shared with anyone else.

What Chrome lets it do

• Read and change the page you're on, when you use it (active tab and scripting): to read the recipe you save, and to type into a search bar and show its notes.
• halocookingbook.co.uk: to reach your cookbook with your sign-in, and so the Trolley page's Shop online button can open the side panel.
• Side panel, right-click menu, storage and copying: for the Trolley panel, Save to Halo cooking book, what you skipped, and copying an item's name to paste.
• All sites, only if you OK it: lets the side panel's Find button type into the supermarket's search, its Save button read the recipe page beside it, and the panel list the prices on the page while you price a recipe, without a key press. Turn it off any time on the extension's page in Chrome.

Questions

Email [email protected]. To remove the extension, right-click its icon and choose Remove from Chrome.