Hi Ario
On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 5:12 PM, ledger-smb-users <
ledger-smb-us...@infopower.nl> wrote:
> Hi,
>
I have been thinking about your complaint above and this email a bit. I
would guess that previously
that the problems you had were the result of difficulties using our web
interface. I think most people
on this list understand and appreciate that the web interface generally can
be improved and that
it is and needs to be a priority.
>
> regarding 'blazingly fast', I'm still trying to set it up.
> In essence I'll be trying to abuse the Memento Database UI's
> template generating ability in that after reverse engineering
> the format used by it, it could become possible to generate
> one oneself.
>
> The idea is to use the 'Radio Button' feature extensively,
> rather than the concept of drop-down lists to select entries
> for a field.
>
Ok so one of the things i have been working on lately has been a web
service wrapper around LedgerSMB. This is needed so we can write the user
interface separately from the state logic. As you have no doubt
discovered, a command line, a desktop app, and a mobile app have
differences in how they need to work and we need a better separation of
concerns to allow better mobile interfaces.
>
> The table of accounts is in fact a structured list, which can
> be translated into a general tree. From that tree, one can
> generate a template for Radio Buttons which would mostly
> result in a sequence of selections to go through with one's
> thumb (on a smartphone).
>
> Let me visualise this highly conceptual blabber a bit:
>
> Assume the following accounts:
>
> assets
> assets:banks
> assets:banks:Citi
> assets:banks:Citi:savings
> assets:banks:Citi:checking
> assets:banks:Citi:ATM
> assets:banks:AIG
> assets:banks:AIG:savings
> assets:banks:AIG:checking
> assets:cash
> assets:cash:me
> assets:cash:me:wallet
> assets:cash:me:wallet:USD
> assets:cash:me:wallet:EUR
> assets:cash:wife
> assets:cash:wife:wallet
> expenses
> income
> liabilities
>
> etc.
>
> Then, when entering an account to record a transaction in the field,
> your smarphone presents you a set of buttons to touch:
>
> .assets .expenses .income .liabilities
>
> Assume you touch .assets with your thumb.
> You'll then be presented the following:
>
> .banks .cash
>
> (If you had touched .expenses you'd seen something else.)
> Assume you touch .cash, you'll see
>
> .me .wife and choose: .me
>
> Etcetera. For .expenses and all the rest you'll be presented
> the relevant buttons for those choices and the following choices
> you'll make.
>
> I think that this way your accounts can be 'thumbed in' quite fast
> withouth the trouble of scrolling through an extensive drop-down
> list or moving around a keyboard.
> Of course, if there's any new account you would have to enter that
> completely.
>
Ok so basically what you are doing is effectively navigating down the tree
of headings to the account using touches. Yeah, I could see that as a
useful way to go on mobile apps. Obviously it would be a mess on a desktop
web interface and make the interface frustrating and slow there. But
that's exactly what the focus on getting to a web services-oriented
framework ought to allow us to do.
>
>
> In the same manner, the products that you buy can be entered.
> Let's say you do some groceries, they can be structured as well:
>
> .Delhaize .Carrefour .AH .Ikea
>
> Touch .Carrefour:
>
> .hardware .food .clothes (touch food)
>
> .vegetables .fruit .starch-based .spices .gels (touch gels)
>
> .jam .chutney .preserve .sambal... no, sambal is spices
> (touch jam)
>
Nice. Sambal. Indonesian/Malaysian food :-D.
But that reminds me of why partsgroups need to be hierarchical too.
>
> etc.
> up to the packing and units:
>
> .box .bottle .sachet (I know, you don't have this for beer)
>
> (Grolsch beer): touch bottle
>
> .300 ml .500 ml .1 l
>
> No more typing, no more scrolling.
>
> All this information can be obtained from previous purchases,
> or entered as they are encountered for the first time.
> The price from a previous 'encounter' can also be presented,
> or re-entered if changed. The only thing you need the keyboard
> then for is to type in the number of items bought, which will
> probably default to 1 (or 12 in the case of beer :).
>
Interestingly it seems like we are moving in the direction of being able to
support the development of such interfaces. I don't know what they will
look like yet so I would be interested in a demonstration video when you
get this together if you can.
>
> The nice thing about the Memento Database buttons is that they
> can be made dependable on previously entered fields, so only
> buttons that make sense are shown to choose from.
>
> After a day or so, the whole table can be exported and
> converted into the format readable by ledger.
>
> I had planned to work on this the previous months when
> something more urgent came up, but with some luck within
> some time I could pick up where I left soon.
>
>
> One other thing that put me off about LSMB was the time lost
> for inputting data. Oh, and also the difficulties installing
> it on other platforms than the primary supported ones, and as
> a result the difficulties with the frequent upgrades which
> required additional work. That's why I was excited to see
> there's now a Docker container available.
>
Great. Hope the docker image is helpful for you :-)
>
>
> regards
>
>
>
> On Tue, 11 Apr 2017 21:26:49 +0200
> Erik Huelsmann <ehu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 2:54 AM, ledger-smb-users <
> > ledger-smb-us...@infopower.nl> wrote:
> >
> > > On Mon, 10 Apr 2017 20:20:50 +0200
> > > Erik Huelsmann <ehu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Will you be using Docker to run LedgerSMB?
> > >
> > > No I won't: I don't run LedgerSMB anymore.
> > >
> > > The 'trust breaking event' was some hundreds (or more) of
> > > transactions mishandled because LSMB automatically marked
> > > them for processing and 'assumed' my 'OK' when I tried to
> > > leave that page, without any warning.
> > >
> >
> > Yes. I'm aware of that. Your reaction triggered me to think you were
> > going to use it again as you were enthousiastic about the new
> > possibility for installation.
> >
> >
> > > I would have had to delve deep into the caves of
> > > PostgresQL to try to fix that, and because also the
> > > inputting (lots of clicking, dropping down and typing) of
> > > transactions makes the process too slow to my liking.
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > I found ledger-cli which stores everything in human-readable
> > > text files and it has enough features for me.
> > >
> > > And I found a rather quick way to input transactions on a
> > > smartphone and am working now on a 'blazingly fast' way to
> > > improve the speed (to reduce valuable time wasted on inputting).
> > >
> >
> > I think every user of LedgerSMB would be tremendously interested in
> > having entry be "blazingly fast". Could you provide a bit more detail
> > on how you achieve the fast entry? Maybe the entry methods in
> > LedgerSMB can be adaped to allow it?
> >
> >
> > > There is also no interaction with taxing departments that have to
> > > be lulled into believing that once a transaction is registered
> > > it can not be altered anymore. ;)
> > >
> >
> > Assuming you have a company, don't you have to file taxes? If you
> > don't have a company, I'm very interested to learn why you keep books
> > at all.
> >
> >
> > > My interest in following this list comes from the fact that I
> > > learned accounting through LSMB, and am secretly hoping that
> > > one day I read an announcement that it has
> > >
> >
> >
> > > 1. become 'blazingly fast' to input transactions as they are
> > > performed during the day, i.e.: 'on the fly',
> > >
> >
> >
> > > 2. and therefore also works on smartphones.
> > >
> >
> > So far I think this is a matter of process, not of tooling. Is there
> > currently anything that's preventing you from doing this? I have
> > actually used LedgerSMB on a tablet; I'm thinking the small screen of
> > a phone will probably inhibit productive use of the UI in general
> > (although I can imagine specific use-cases where a dumbed-down UI
> > would work pretty well with mobile applications -- shipping and
> > receiving comes to mind).
> >
> > Again, I'm very interested to learn how you're solving the data entry
> > problem on your phone at this point; hoping there's something to be
> > learned for LedgerSMB.
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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--
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
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