Futsch1
Add additional field for custom identifier / allow differentiation between medication short name and full name
My list of meds contains some similar sounding ones as well as different variations of the same base medication.
Since there is only one field available to store info, I currently have to cram full names and variant identifiers (numbers, letters, combos of both to identify/differentiate meds by strength, size, dosage form, half-life etc.) into this field to be able to tell them apart, which isn't ideal.
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. A custom short name for a med is sufficient or actually easier to deal with for me in everyday life, like for reminder notifications or when picking meds from a list.
Long names take longer so scan (to identify/pick out meds). When using the privacy option to hide names, medications with similar names (e.g. same base name, different strength/size/...) cannot be differentiated.
In some contexts, though, a med's full info is needed, e.g. when talking with medical professionals, when sharing info with others, for research purposes etc.
Ex. When talking to a doctor or a pharmacist, the full name of a certain Ibuprofen med may need to be given, but on a day-to-day basis, the shorthand "Ibuprofen" or even just "Ibu" may be more than enough.
Ex. I've kept the nicknames I gave to certain meds (variants) for privacy reasons (before the privacy option existed) because it continues to be easier to find them in the list and tell them apart. But I can't do the same for new meds I'm less familiar with because I need to have their full product names on hand.
Describe the solution you'd like I'd like there to be two fields for identifying information for each med.
One of them would have the role of label/custom identifier, the other would allow storing a med's full/official name, incl. variation information or whatever else is needed (e.g. dosage form in cases where there are several available under the same name, or, idk, pharmaceutical company etc.)
Only the "label" field would show up in notifications if both fields contain values, and in the list of meds, the "label" would appear like a heading or title and the "full name" field like a subheading or subtitle.
Since the "name" field already exists and some people may not care about using a separate new "label" field, maybe there could be a checkbox to enable/disable this new field. If it's disabled, everything remains the same – the "name" field is the only one shown in all interfaces, including notifications. But when the "label" field is turned on, it's treated as the "primary" field carrying information (notifications, heading in med list) and the "name" field as secondary (subheading).
This is similar to but different from #626. I very much like the idea of a field for notes as well, but such a field would serve a different purpose. I'm also imagining a notes field used more for longer, free-form text and would also want it to support clickable web links (for reference).
I understand the request and the use case. I will implement #626 first, since I consider this notes field a workaround for this one, which will be more effort to implement (changes in several places of the app), whereas the notes field will be only shown in the medicine view.
