Version .31 feedback - some ideas and frustrations
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:14 amHi,
I've been playing around with .31 this weekend and it's really coming along since the .27 version I first tried out. I am on the Mac version, and there are a couple of things that would prevent me making this my primary finance app on OS X.
The main register screen (My Checkbook) has a few frustrating features.
- Category can't be added as a column (does anyone really care about payees anyay? Groceries are groceries).
- You cannot edit anything without using the detail screen. It's weird because this has been a restriction on almost every Mac finance app at some point in its life, but it kills workflow speed when importing and correcting items from another app.
- When clicking 'reconcile account', the 'Next' button never activates. This happens on a few screens and it takes a while to work out what I haven't done, but here it never activates
- On the Chart of Accounts screen, you cannot edit the columns; many of them are a waste of space. If you've had your checking account open for 3 years, do you really want to see the opening balance as $0.00 forever? I would say for informational purposes, its here where you want to see:
--Today's Balance
--Value Balance (i.e. all items entered, even if future value)
--Reconciled Balance
All in a list. This information doesn't really help at an individual register level, but at a glance is priceless, especially if the totals reflect this. This would make up a great 'home screen'
List Manager: I love this page, but there is a great opportunity here. One feature that's great in iBank 3 is that the category list shows all you spending in each categories, and there is a nice feature of being able to highlight 2 categories and immediately combine them, which updates all items at the same time. This is great when you're first importing and want to use categories set up in your old finance app, rather than the default one's of your new app.
The reports are really not that user friendly. To run a report on say all my categories, minus tax, school fees and rent, month to date (which is a pretty common thing to need to do), is pretty difficult. The scrolling interface and having to 'Apple-Click' every item is painful. How about check boxes? Also selecting the data over multiple tabs doesn't seem intuitive. A larger screen, perhaps even a real-time chart change, would be nice.
When the chart is drawn, it's very small (on a 13" MacBook) even on my 2nd display (22") it's hard to read. Finally, still no budget or securities support? I assume they're on their way? Quite interested in seeing these integrated.
Sorry about the huge post, I have been meaning to feedback for a few weeks. I think the interface niggles will put off a lot of Mac users, it feels a lot more like a Windows app than a Mac app. Looking forward to seeing the next release.
Cheers
I've been playing around with .31 this weekend and it's really coming along since the .27 version I first tried out. I am on the Mac version, and there are a couple of things that would prevent me making this my primary finance app on OS X.
The main register screen (My Checkbook) has a few frustrating features.
- Category can't be added as a column (does anyone really care about payees anyay? Groceries are groceries).
- You cannot edit anything without using the detail screen. It's weird because this has been a restriction on almost every Mac finance app at some point in its life, but it kills workflow speed when importing and correcting items from another app.
- When clicking 'reconcile account', the 'Next' button never activates. This happens on a few screens and it takes a while to work out what I haven't done, but here it never activates
- On the Chart of Accounts screen, you cannot edit the columns; many of them are a waste of space. If you've had your checking account open for 3 years, do you really want to see the opening balance as $0.00 forever? I would say for informational purposes, its here where you want to see:
--Today's Balance
--Value Balance (i.e. all items entered, even if future value)
--Reconciled Balance
All in a list. This information doesn't really help at an individual register level, but at a glance is priceless, especially if the totals reflect this. This would make up a great 'home screen'
List Manager: I love this page, but there is a great opportunity here. One feature that's great in iBank 3 is that the category list shows all you spending in each categories, and there is a nice feature of being able to highlight 2 categories and immediately combine them, which updates all items at the same time. This is great when you're first importing and want to use categories set up in your old finance app, rather than the default one's of your new app.
The reports are really not that user friendly. To run a report on say all my categories, minus tax, school fees and rent, month to date (which is a pretty common thing to need to do), is pretty difficult. The scrolling interface and having to 'Apple-Click' every item is painful. How about check boxes? Also selecting the data over multiple tabs doesn't seem intuitive. A larger screen, perhaps even a real-time chart change, would be nice.
When the chart is drawn, it's very small (on a 13" MacBook) even on my 2nd display (22") it's hard to read. Finally, still no budget or securities support? I assume they're on their way? Quite interested in seeing these integrated.
Sorry about the huge post, I have been meaning to feedback for a few weeks. I think the interface niggles will put off a lot of Mac users, it feels a lot more like a Windows app than a Mac app. Looking forward to seeing the next release.
Cheers
