David, The various sections covering reconciliation have always made my head hurt. I agree that something should change.
You note that reconciliation is a generic concept, which I agree. Because it is a general concept that might apply to any account, I think the description of the process actually belongs in Guide chapter 4 (Accounts). Details about the field itself should be moved somewhere in the chapter on transactions, although I don't have any spot in mind ATM. I also agree that the reconciliation sections in particular account types ( "Checkbook", which eventually will be replaced with an "Assets" chapter; "Credit Cards", which will eventually be replaced with a "Liabilities" chapter; don't know about others) should refer to one main section on reconciliation. However, I strongly object to putting the core of this text into the Help. As I've noted elsewhere, and attempted to implement, the Guide should contain the fullest description of Gnucash use, with the Help focusing on "What does this button do?" kinds of assistance. Thus, I would recommend putting the lion's share of the text in Guide chapter 4, and streamline all the rest drastically, with references as appropriate. Be aware that if you undertake this, it will be a lot of work to arrive at one clear narrative--and that if you are moving a lot of text around the files, your changes may get held up by objections related to translations. David T. On January 27, 2019, at 7:31 AM, David Cousens <davidcous...@bigpond.com> wrote: I've just had a look at the sections on reconciliation in the GnuCash guide. 4.4 https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-guide/txns-reconcile1.html 5.4 https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-guide/cbook-reconacct1.html 5.8 https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-help/acct-reconcile.html 7.5 https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-guide/cc-together1.html#cc-together-reconcile2 To my mind there is a lot of informationout of sequence. 4.4 Is primarily discussing the reconciliation flags in transactions and then goes off in 4,4,1 ia a discussion of the reconciliation setup windows and the reconciliation winow itself a lot of which is subsequently repeated without the screenshots in 5.8 and then again in 7.5 with a lot more discussion about the process. 5.4 is a general discussion of the purpose and function of reconciliation in the context of a checkbook. This gives the impression that there is essentially something different about the reconciliation of a bank account or a credit card account as compared with any other account and the same information is maintained at three dirfferent points. I would propose restricting 4.4 to a discussion of the flags on individual transactions with a link to the complete discussion as proposed below under section 5.8 and then, consolidating the introduction from 5.4, discussion of the windows from 4.4, and the process of reconciliation of any account under 5.8 as a general section on account reconciliation and the process under 7.5 into a general section on reconciliation of accounts including specific references to specific account types ( e.g credit card where the interest payment is discussed etc) as required and then just provide a link to this section from the current 7.5 and 5.4. I would appreciate any feedback regarding this proposal from the doc maintainers, developers and users re the value in doing the above and any alternative suggestions or ideas with a view to rewriting the above sections a little more coherently. David Cousens ----- David Cousens -- Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
