> On Nov 16, 2015, at 4:52 PM, Mike Alexander <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> --On November 14, 2015 at 12:37:04 PM -0800 John Ralls <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
> 
>> Let’s at least make the non-trading account view look like the
>> trading account view with each split amount. That will help some with
>> the confusion.
> 
> You mean always show the amount instead of the value?  I thought about doing 
> that when I implemented trading accounts but didn't since one of my design 
> criteria was to change the behavior of GnuCash when trading accounts were 
> turned off as little as possible.  I changed the display with trading 
> accounts on since I though it was very confusing otherwise.  Changing it to 
> always show the amount instead of value would be a good idea, I think.

Yes, that’s exactly what I mean, and the user confusion level is high enough 
that I’d consider doing it for maint.
> 
>> I don’t think it makes sense to show the value without also showing
>> the price. I think ideally we’d switch split-view to the layout in
>> STOCK accounts any time there’s more than one commodity involved in
>> a transaction in ledger view any time there’s a visible transaction
>> with multiple commodities).
> 
> Having a way to use the stock account layout for any register sounds like a 
> great idea.  However doing it based on what's visible may not be the best 
> way.  If I understand what you're suggesting then scrolling around in a 
> register would make the extra columns appear and disappear depending on what 
> is currently visible.  This would be disconcerting.
> 
> You could base the decision on whether there is a transaction anywhere in the 
> register that uses two or more commodities, but then one multi-currency 
> transaction way in the past would change the register layout forever, which 
> isn't too good either.
> 
> How about just making it an option for the register?  We could an a command 
> to the View menu, View->Show Value and Price, (assuming amount is always 
> shown).   The default would be based on the current behavior. This would seem 
> to give us the most flexible solution.  It would also make the exchange rate 
> dialog less important, which wouldn't be a bad idea.
> 
Ugh. UI design always makes my head hurt.

My original thought was that any multi-commodity transaction in the current 
working set (we’re talking about master here, and the goal is to retrieve from 
the database only the most recent n transactions where n is some multiple of 
the number that would be visible. You’re right that scrolling could move a 
multi-currency transaction in and out of the working set and that the view 
changes would be a bit disconcerting.

Making it an explicit option would indeed fix the view-switching problem but 
might make the user experience a bit confusing: If “show value & price” is set 
then the user doesn’t get the transfer dialog, but if it isn’t she does. We 
could do the view switch on clicking the split button for a multi-currency txn, 
but then the creation use-case will still have that disconcerting “pop” when 
the user selects an account with a different commodity.

I guess making it a user selection is the least evil. Rather than an option I 
think it needs a toggle, at least in the View menu and maybe a toolbar button 
like Split View.

Regards,
John Ralls


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