Warning: this is a really long email. It details my past few weeks using
gnucash and some ideas/suggestions I've had for it in the process. I apologize
to those of you who have to pay for your internet access by the minute.
My setup:
v 1.3.4, rpm
Mandrake 7.0, PII 266, 256M RAM
First of all, gnucash is just awesome. Thank you so much for such a great
app. I remember trying to use gnucash a year or so ago when the gtk version
was still in the "it won't compile" stage and being frustrated that it wouldn't
load my qif's w/o crashing completely. I never got very far after that, but I
recently tried again w/1.3.3, and have now updated to 1.3.4. I have been using
it everyday now for the past couple weeks and, all in all, I love it. Below
are some of my thoughts on possible improvements. Please note that they are
/only/ suggestions; I find gnucash incredibly functional and easy to use at the
moment and am pleased as punch that such a high quality app is available as
"free" software. I don't mean to ruffle any feathers, and I apologize if my
comments are interpreted as such.
== QIF importing
This is huge. What a tremendous help. It wasn't perfect, I still had a lot of
duplicate transactions, and it crashed a couple times, but overall IMHO this
will bring in the most new users to gnucash.
I had exported my accounts from quicken into qif's in two ways: in one huge
mega-qif, and in multiple qifs, one for each "account". Importing the
monolithic qif produced data that looked too difficult to sift through and
correct by hand. So I tried again, this time importing the individual account
qifs, with much better success. As mentioned, there were still lots of
duplicates. Almost all of the duplicates had the same exact date, amount, etc.
I'm not sure how that is handled in the code, but it was worth it to me to go
through and delete them by hand. It took most of a Saturday afternoon, but all
my accounts are now in gnucash.
The interface for importing qifs is really nice (thanks, Bill!). A couple
suggestions:
* The "select file" button shouldn't be so far away from the actual file
selection text box. The way I've normally seen this in gui's is with a small
button that directly follows the text box. I've normally seen the button with
just three dots "..." as its label.
* I would recommend a more traditional druid/wizard layout, separating the
steps a little more. For example, the first tab is currently somewhat
confusing, as it isn't readily apparent that you must hit "Load file" before
the qif is actually parsed. Rather, make the first tab solely for selecting a
qif (along with setting date formats, etc.), with the "Next" Button actually
parsing the qif file and taking the user to the next tab, which displays the
information that the current first tab displays after "Load file" is displayed.
The last two tabs are nicely laid out and would probably remain unchanged.
* In making it a druid/wizard, you could have "Next" buttons for each tab, so
that a new user would know to follow the steps in the order shown, and that
each step has important information they should check out. The final tab would
then have a "Finish" button, as well as an "Import Another QIF File" button,
that would start the wizard over again. But keeping the tabs there would also
be beneficial, so that a more experienced user could skip to whatever step they
want to go to.
As I mentioned, the importer crashed gnucash a couple times on me. It happened
when I imported my qif files in a certain order. I tried again, importing in a
different order, and it worked. I haven't tried again since to determine
exactly what the problem was, but hopefully I can experiment with that again
soon so I can file a more formal, useful bug report.
== The Register
Wow, this is much improved from the Motif version, at least visually. The
color selection is nice and makes for easy reading. I found the auto
completion very nice, and the recent addition of +,-,[,] keys for the check
numbers is also quite helpful. I don't think it will take too long for gnucash
to be a real "Quicken killer"!
Again, some suggestions:
* Normally, I would think that using the '+' key in the check number field
entering the next highest check number in that account would be the intuitive
way for it to work. But I had a problem with it. When I first opened my
checking account years ago, I was given a pack of "starter" checks whose
numbers were way higher than I would conceivably ever reach (like in the
15,000's or something). My actual checks started at 100, and I'm now only in
the 400's. So when I hit '+' in the check field, the check number entered was
15,011. I don't know what a fix would be for this, or even if it should be
fixed, since it would seem a small percentage of users would have this problem.
I believe Moneydance actually enters the next highest number of the most recent
check in the register, but this isn't perfect either, since I often postdate
checks and I thus end up with checks with higher check numbers coming before
lower-numbered checks in the register.
* I find the column resizing behavior to be quite annoying. I normally don't
expect the actual window to change size when I move a column border. I saw
this come up in another thread earlier, but at that point I hadn't been using
gnucash all that much. I now put forth my vote that the window should only
resize when the actual window border is manipulated by the user. This would
also affect changing the default register type. Changing from single to double
line entries, or from splits to no splits, shouldn't affect the actual window
size, either.
* It would be nice if autocomplete for the description would also enter in the
information from the last transaction with that description. That's the
default behavior in moneydance and quicken, and I find it speeds up my data
entry considerably. Also, I was curious why the autocomplete for the
description didn't also pop up a window the same way the autocomplete for the
account did. That way, someone could type in the first char or two, and
then use the arrow keys to find the exact description they were looking for.
* It would be nice if, when an unknown account is typed into the register entry,
a dialog popped up asking if the user wanted to create a new account. If they
answered yes, then the new account dialog could then pop up, allowing the user
to create a new account there on the spot, with the account name autopopulated
based on what they had typed in. If they answered no, then the entry would
behave as normal. I think this would be especially useful for new users who
don't already have all of their accounts set up, so they can create them "as
they need them."
* It would be nice if register windows remembered their size, placement, and
entry type (single vs double, auto split or no) after they're closed so that
when they're reopened I don't have to go and change their settings to what I
prefer every time.
* It would be nice if there was a hot key to toggle split entry mode for a
particular entry. Ctrl-S would be my first choice, but perhaps that is already
mapped to 'Save'. If there is already such a hotkey, forgive my ignorance.
== Overall Structure
Before I switched to linux full-time, I used Quicken '99. Its interface was
very browser-like, in that each register, report, etc. opened up in the same
window, and you could move backwards and forwards through these "pages" with
the traditional "Back" and "Forward" buttons. They also had each page "tabbed"
so that you could go to any opened "page" directly. I think this type of
interface would be a huge usability boost for gnucash and would help prevent
the desktop cluttering that currently happens when several different accounts
are open in different register windows. If a user prefers separate windows,
this could also be accommodated the same way browsers do, merely by selecting
"new window" from the pull down menu or via a hot key. I don't know if this
has been considered in the past or not, and I would imagine there might be some
who would oppose such a change for aesthetic reasons. As I haven't contributed
any code to the project, I can't expect anyone to make the change for me just
because I want it, so I offer it merely as a suggestion (as I do with the rest
of this overly verbose email). Hopefully there are others who think this isn't
such a bad idea, too. :)
In that same vein, I like Bill's suggestion of using Bonobo components for
creating a richer, more functional application. I'm surprised others haven't
commented on it yet. I've never programmed with Bobobo or gnucash, so I don't
know the feasibility of converting the gnucash register into a Bonobo
component, but I agree that doing so at least has the potential for opening a
wide variety of possibilities. For example, one thing I liked about Quicken and
its "browser" interface, was that it had a configurable "home page" whenever
you started the app. It could be configured to show the balance in selected
accounts, upcoming transactions, selected stock prices downloaded off the
internet, charts/pie graphs of how my assets were divided, or whatever.
Moneydance, too, has a similar, although somewhat more conservative, start
page. I find it incredibly useful as a quick synopsis of my financial status
and of upcoming financial events. It would seem using Bonobo w/html would make
implementing such a start page more feasible.
== Final thoughts
Finally, I can't stress enough how useful a 'repeated/upcoming transaction'
interface would be. This is the one thing that forces me to continue using
Moneydance in parallel gnucash. The "Duplicate" option in the right-click menu,
though, has proved to be invaluable in simulating this behavior, and I thank
Dave for implementing it and whoever for suggesting it.
Another idea I had, and one that I think I might be able to implement (if
others agree it would be useful), would be a druid to help users set up an
initial set of accounts. I find the account structure given in the help files
to be quite useful, and I pretty much modeled my current account structure
after it. I think a druid for setting up these accounts as a default, while
allowing for some basic modifications of these accounts, would be a nice way to
ease a new user into gnucash. If others think this would be beneficial, I can
give it a go this weekend. I've never programmed with gnucash before, so it
might be over my head, but I'm decent with C and did a lot of scheme
programming as an undergrad.
Again, I apologize for how long this message has become. If you made it this
far, I hope some of my suggestions resonated with you. I'd love to hear
comments on them, even if it's just "this isn't something we want for gnucash."
If it's merely an issue of needing someone to code it, I'll see what I can do.
Any encouragement appreciated... :)
Many thanks,
-Scott
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