School Lunch Menu Calendar Generator

A multi-platform desktop application that generates allergen-aware, printable lunch calendars for any school in the LINQ Connect system. Available for both Windows (WPF/.NET) and macOS (SwiftUI), it fetches menu data from the LINQ Connect API, analyzes each entree for allergen safety, and produces a color-coded HTML calendar designed for easy scanning and printing. Defaults are pre-configured for Lakeville Area Schools.

Features

• Live API and offline HAR file support -- fetch menus directly from the LINQ Connect API, or load a previously captured HAR file for offline use.
• 17 allergen filters -- select any combination of allergens; entrees containing them are flagged with strikethrough text.
• ADHD-friendly color-coded calendar -- per-plan color-coded badges, "From Home" badges, gray no-school days, favorite highlighting. High-contrast colors chosen for quick visual scanning.
• 21 visual themes -- seasonal, fun, and basic themes with auto-suggestion by month. Themes can be hidden via settings.
• Three calendar layout modes -- List (classic stacked badges), Icons Left, or Icons Right. Grid modes show per-plan icon buttons alongside food items in a CSS Grid layout with tinted row backgrounds. Per-plan emoji icons, short labels (click-to-edit), and display order are user-customizable. Optionally show grayed-out buttons for unsafe plan lines with a customizable message.
• Customizable holiday icons -- configure emoji and optional messages for no-school days by keyword. Defaults pre-populated from common US holidays.
• Cross out past days -- optional faded overlay with a subtle X on past days, like crossing off a wall calendar. Days are marked past only after 3 PM (end of school day).
• Rotating day labels -- configurable corner triangles for alternating schedules (Red/White Day, Day A/B). Labels cycle across school days, skipping no-school days. Corner position is customizable.
• Share link on calendar -- optional footer with two QR codes: one linking to the school's LINQ Connect menu page and one to the project GitHub page, both embedded as self-contained base64 PNGs.
• Source link -- "View Source" button in the status bar opens the LINQ Connect public menu page for your school in the default browser.
• Preview zoom -- adjustable +/- zoom in the status bar (5% increments, default 75%). Zoom applies only to the in-app preview; the saved HTML file and browser view are unaffected.
• Printable landscape HTML -- self-contained HTML with @page landscape, print-color-adjust: exact, and no external dependencies. Print directly from the browser.
• Forced home days -- per-session configurable weekdays that always show a "From Home" badge, regardless of safe options.
• Persisted settings -- selected allergens, forced home days, not-preferred/favorite foods, theme, layout mode, plan icons/order, and holiday overrides are saved to a JSON file and restored on next launch.
• Dynamic school support -- enter any LINQ Connect identifier code to look up a district and its buildings. All menu plans are discovered dynamically.
• About dialog -- Help > About (Windows) or App > About (macOS) shows version, git commit/branch, credits for data sources, and project links.

Screenshots

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Windows:

• .NET 10 SDK (LTS, supported through November 2028)
• Windows 10 or later

macOS:

• macOS 13 (Ventura) or later
• Xcode 15+ with Swift 5.9+

Building the Windows Version

# Build
dotnet build school-lunch-menu.Windows/SchoolLunchMenu.csproj

# Run
dotnet run --project school-lunch-menu.Windows/SchoolLunchMenu.csproj

# Publish self-contained executable
dotnet publish school-lunch-menu.Windows/SchoolLunchMenu.csproj --configuration Release --self-contained -r win-x64 -p:PublishSingleFile=true

Building the macOS Version

# Build from command line
cd school-lunch-menu.Mac
xcodebuild -project SchoolLunchMenu.xcodeproj -scheme SchoolLunchMenu -configuration Release build

# Or open in Xcode
open school-lunch-menu.Mac/SchoolLunchMenu.xcodeproj

Then build and run using Xcode (Cmd+R).

Usage

1. Enter an identifier code and click Look Up to find your school district.
2. Select a building from the dropdown.
3. Select a month and year from the dropdowns.
4. Click Fetch from API to download menu data from LINQ Connect, or click Load from HAR to load a previously saved .har file.
5. Check the allergens you want to filter (Milk is selected by default).
6. Optionally mark foods as not preferred or favorites.
7. Configure forced home days (default: Thursday) per serving session.
8. Optionally change Day Layout to "Icons Left" or "Icons Right" to see per-line icon buttons. Set custom emoji icons, click to edit short labels, and reorder plans.
9. Optionally customize holiday icons in the Holiday Icons section.
10. Optionally check Cross out past days to fade and X-out past dates.
11. Optionally check Share link on calendar to add a QR code footer linking to the project page.
12. Optionally expand Day Labels to set up rotating labels (e.g., Red Day / White Day). Add labels with colors, choose a corner position, and optionally set a start date.
13. Click Generate Calendar to produce the HTML calendar. It's displayed in the preview pane (use +/- to zoom) and saved to a temporary directory.
14. Click Open in Browser to launch in your default browser, or View Source in the status bar to see the LINQ Connect public menu page.
15. Print the page in landscape orientation from the browser.

Configuration

Settings are persisted to a JSON file and restored on next launch:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\SchoolLunchMenu\settings.json
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/SchoolLunchMenu/settings.json

Settings Structure

{
  "identifierCode": "string",
  "selectedBuildingId": "string",
  "selectedAllergens": ["Milk", "Eggs", "Peanuts"],
  "notPreferredFoods": ["food1", "food2"],
  "favoriteFoods": ["food3"],
  "selectedTheme": "Default",
  "layoutMode": "List",
  "forcedHomeDays": {
    "Lunch": ["Thursday"]
  },
  "planSettings": {
    "PlanName": {
      "icon": "emoji",
      "shortLabel": "Label",
      "displayOrder": 0
    }
  },
  "holidayIcons": {
    "Christmas": { "icon": "tree-emoji", "message": "Happy Holidays!" }
  },
  "crossOutPastDays": false,
  "showShareLink": false,
  "dayLabels": [],
  "dayLabelCorner": "TopLeft"
}

Development

Repository Structure

school-lunch-menu/
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       ├── dotnet.yml           # Windows CI/CD pipeline
│       └── swift.yml            # macOS CI/CD pipeline
├── school-lunch-menu.Windows/   # Windows WPF application (.NET 10)
│   ├── App.xaml.cs              # DI container setup, Serilog configuration
│   ├── MainWindow.xaml          # WPF layout with sidebar and WebBrowser preview
│   ├── ViewModels/              # MainViewModel (MVVM with CommunityToolkit)
│   ├── Models/                  # ProcessedDay, ProcessedMonth, RecipeItem, AppSettings
│   ├── Models/Api/              # LINQ Connect API response DTOs
│   ├── Services/                # API client, HAR parser, menu analyzer, HTML generator
│   └── Converters/              # WPF value converters
├── school-lunch-menu.Mac/       # macOS SwiftUI application
│   ├── SchoolLunchMenu.xcodeproj
│   └── SchoolLunchMenu/
│       ├── App/                 # SwiftUI app entry point
│       ├── Views/               # SwiftUI views (MainView, SidebarView, PreviewView)
│       ├── ViewModels/          # MainViewModel with @Observable
│       ├── Models/              # Swift model types matching Windows DTOs
│       ├── Models/Api/          # LINQ Connect API response Codable types
│       ├── Services/            # API client, HAR parser, menu analyzer, HTML generator
│       └── Resources/           # Asset catalogs
├── docs/                        # Project documentation
├── SchoolLunchMenu.slnx         # Visual Studio solution file
└── README.md

Architecture Overview

Both platforms follow the MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) pattern:

• Models define data structures for API responses, processed menu data, and application settings
• ViewModels contain business logic, state management, and commands
• Views handle UI rendering and user interaction
• Services encapsulate external concerns (API calls, file I/O, HTML generation)

The Windows version uses:

• WPF with XAML for UI
• CommunityToolkit.Mvvm for MVVM infrastructure
• Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection for DI
• Serilog for logging

The macOS version uses:

• SwiftUI with the Observation framework
• Native Swift Codable for JSON serialization
• URLSession for networking
• WebKit for HTML preview

Testing

The Windows project includes a comprehensive xUnit test suite:

dotnet test tests/SchoolLunchMenu.Tests/SchoolLunchMenu.Tests.csproj

Tests cover:

• MenuAnalyzer -- allergen safety, not-preferred, favorites, no-school days, multi-plan analysis
• CalendarHtmlGenerator -- HTML output, themes, grid mode, past days, day labels, share footer
• SettingsService -- default settings, round-trip persistence
• DayLabelFetchService -- CMS HTML parsing regex patterns
• ProcessedDay -- computed properties (IsNoSchool, AnyLineSafe, HasMenu)
• CalendarThemes -- 21 themes, categories, auto-suggestion coverage

License

MIT

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request