On Thu, 18 May 2000, Dylan Paul Thurston wrote:
> On Thu, May 18, 2000 at 07:55:01AM -0500, Richard Wackerbarth wrote:
> > ...
> > I think that that is the mistake. It is ONE TRANSACTION. When displaying
> > a transaction we should show each of the JEs and sort them so that those
> > applying to the current account are sorted first.
> >
> > If you collapse the transaction, then all JEs applying to the same
> > account should appear as a single total.
>
> That sounds pretty nice. The only confusing thing would be that in
> Auto-Single mode, if you click on a transaction which has multiple JEs
> into the current account, the total you see is split up into several
> pieces, and you no longer see the overall total for the transaction.
But is this a problem? If you have more than one entry for "this account",
there must be some reason for it. Otherwise you would have used a single JE
line for the combined effects on the account.
> With this model, you would be able to see the memos for all JEs. But
> where would the the transaction description go?
> Can the JEs referring to the current account be visually
> distinguished?
Only if the Pope is Catholic :)
> I think it's good to keep the single-line mode for naive users or
> simple transactions.
I'm not convinced that single line mode means anything.
Eliminate the non-informational fields and a "single line" entry looks very
much like the pair of JEs in a simple transaction.
> I don't see any sensible way to edit split
> transactions in single-line mode; maybe it should just be disallowed.
I agree. To me, the only thing that we need "single line" for is to compress
split transactions for display.
> Currently GnuCash seems to pick a random JE to be adjusted, which
> seems wrong. Maybe this is what you meant.
>
> > Provide a "button" that adjusts the "total" (the first line of the
> > transaction which is always "this account") and removes the need for
> > a balancing entry. While a transaction is being edited, always
> > provide an extra JE line which does not have any account.
>
> Shouldn't you be able to adjust any JE to balance the transaction?
Certainly. It is just that it is useful to have a shortcut to "edit" the
amount assigned to "this account" so that the transaction is balanced.
In my proposal, editing the amount in ANY JE automatically adjusts the last
entry (which has no account, yet) to bring the transaction into balance.
