Version .31 feedback - some ideas and frustrations

[Zoolook]

Hi,

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

[mthadm]

Thanks, we are studying the list. Most of these make sense actually.

Would you mind posting a screenshot with grayed out Next button on reconcile ?

We can't reproduce this bug no matter what we do, so we would like to see what are the values entered, perhaps there is a comma somewhere where it shouldn't be

Thanks

[Zoolook]

Sure thing.

In this screen, I have imported all my account data from Chase from 2006 to present (taken from iBank 3 QIF export)



I have tried changing the date also.

[Zoolook]

I posted a video of this. Sorry for the crap commentary

http://www.markanthonyhall.us/dump/noreconcile.mov

Not sure if you've nailed it, but as you can see, reconcile doesn't work even with a brand new account and one entry.

[mthadm]

We made a fix, but the problem is that we can't reproduce it in our offices so it is a bit of a sailing by the lee at this point.

You mind if we cut a private build for you with the fix telling us if it does take care of the issue ?

Thanks

[Zoolook]

You mind if we cut a private build for you with the fix telling us if it does take care of the issue ?

Thanks

Go for it, I'll be happy to test it.

[mthadm]

Please check the private mail on board, we uploaded a private build that (hopefully) should fix your issue

Thanks

[Zoolook]

Hi,

I opened the new build and got an error immediately.

java.io.FileNotFoundException: /Applications/config/mthkeypublic.jar (No such file or directory)
at java.io.FileInputStream.open(Native Method)
at java.io.FileInputStream.<init>(FileInputStream.java:106)
at java.io.FileInputStream.<init>(FileInputStream.java:66)
at com.mth.mlm.AbstractKeyStoreParam.getStream(AbstractKeyStoreParam.java:48)
at com.mth.mlm.LicenseNotary.getKeyStore(LicenseNotary.java:488)
at com.mth.mlm.LicenseNotary.getPrivateKey(LicenseNotary.java:374)
at com.mth.mlm.LicenseNotary.sign(LicenseNotary.java:276)
at com.mth.mlm.LicenseNotary.sign(LicenseNotary.java:212)
at com.mth.mlm.LicenseManager.create(LicenseManager.java:386)
at com.mth.mlm.license.trial.MoneyTrialLicenseManager.verify(MoneyTrialLicenseManager.java:264)
at com.mth.mlm.LicenseManager.verify(LicenseManager.java:596)
at com.mth.mymoney.Money.main(Money.java:1243)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585)
at apple.launcher.LaunchRunner.run(LaunchRunner.java:115)
at apple.launcher.LaunchRunner.callMain(LaunchRunner.java:50)
at apple.launcher.JavaApplicationLauncher.launch(JavaApplicationLauncher.java:52)

I tried deleting all the old folders and saved files and had no success.

[mthadm]

You mind downloading it again ? It is at the same location.
We forgot to include one of the new cryptography modules.

Thanks

[Zoolook]

OK it now works, good stuff! The reconcile feature also works, looks like you fixed it.



Something I noticed this time (I think it was an issue last time too) is that the balance always shows as $1.00 when reviewing the import:



Also, when reconciling, it would still be great to highlight all and select reconcile, rather than clicking one at a time.