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I backpack as a hobby. My packing list is a spreadsheet broken down into sections such as "worn clothing", "packed clothing", "shelter system", etc. Each line gets a function (shelter), a description (tent, tarp, bivy sack, etc), and a quantity (1x tent, 2x pairs of socks, etc). I think it would be neat to let the spreadsheet estimate a pack weight as well so I added another column for weight calculations. It also a little pie chart so I can see what sections of my pack are adding the most weight (food, clothing, whatever).
I have a second spreadsheet with the weights of various items I use but it's a little tedious to copy/paste the weight every time I want to generate a new packing list, especially since I like to swap out different pieces of kit to dial my pack in for various environments and seasons. I'm not much of a programmer so I'm wondering what the easiest way around this is. My first thought was to figure out how to create a drop-down menu for each cell with the item choices pre-loaded and have the spreadsheet call the appropriate weight. For example, for my "shelter" cell, I would create a drop-down that had my winter tent, my hammock, my bivy, etc and then the "weight" cell would auto-populated based on my selection. This seems like an inelegant solution that's going to require a lot of upkeep so I'm wondering if a simple data-base in something like OpenOffice Base or MS Access might be be more appropriate. From my amateur viewpoint it seems like the database might be more work upfront but would be less maintenance in terms of upkeep every time I add/remove a piece of kit from my stockpile. (I'm a bit of a gear-do, I'll admit). Or is it six of one, half-dozen of the other?
I think LighterPack has most of the functionality you mentioned. I'm not sure how stable it is, since it's been in beta for at least several years.
It used to be very popular for sharing load-outs in the ultra light and thru-hiking communities.Looks like the community around it is possibly not as active as a couple of years ago.
You can try it without registering, and it's open source if you really want to roll your own solution. Disclaimer, I have no affiliation with the people who run the site, and for all I know they could be stealing all your data. I've never gotten any spam from them though.
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