Undo

[Andrew Sackville-West]

On Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 12:53:41PM -0400, Peter Selinger wrote:
> As I understand it, in a large GnuCash installation, multiple users
> could access the same backend database. The lock-edit-commit mechanism
> prevents conflicts. 
> 
> So what should be the default behavior of U2 and U3 (undo or redo) if,
> for example, the transaction has meanwhile been edited by another
> user? 

could you, depending on how long the undo queue is, maintain locks
until the transaction leaves that queue? I suppose that leaves an ever
growing list of uncommitted actions and the potential for more and
more data loss if there is a problem.

A



> 
> -- Peter
> 
> Karl Chen wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > Hi Gnucash developers,
> > 
> > First, excellent work - Gnucash is awesome.  I especially
> > appreciate the book data format which has allowed me to make batch
> > changes externally.
> > 
> > I have a wishlist request: Undo functionality.  I think Undo
> > (various levels described below) would add a LOT to usability.
> > 
> > I've searched the mailing lists and Bugzilla and only found
> > something about CashUtil, which seems abandoned.  I'd like to
> > request and add a Bugzilla wishlist item for Undo functionality in
> > Gnucash.
> > 
> > It's especially easy to lose text because of the auto-complete
> > feature.  It's easy to accidentally change the account of a split
> > and then have to hunt around to find it.  If you accidentally
> > change an amount or date field, even if you realized what you just
> > did, you might not remember the value to revert to.  I often have
> > to look in backups just to get back a value I accidentally
> > changed.  (I version-control the account file so at least I can do
> > this reliably.)
> > 
> > I see the following kinds of Undo with increasing utility and
> > implementation difficulty:
> > 
> > U1. Undo in account register entry fields (text, date, account,
> >     amount, etc.) while editing a transaction.
> > 
> > U2. Undo for transaction insert, delete, modify, after the
> >     transaction has been committed.
> > 
> > U3. Undo for larger or more complex operations, such as deleting
> >     an account.
> > 
> > Lack of U1 is a big hit to usability - it's almost a standard in
> > GUI applications, since default widgets support this.
> > Implementation of U1 is the easiest since it's "widget-local".
> > The next level, U2, is harder, but would also improve Gnucash a
> > lot.  The "please confirm" dialogs would be obsoleted by U2.  U1
> > and U2 have orthogonal implementation, and having U2 is almost as
> > good as having both U1 and U2 since you can save and undo the
> > entire transaction.
> > 
> > Even just single-level undo would help a lot, though sequential
> > undo (and redo) would be even better and is worth the extra
> > marginal effort.
> > 
> > For an example of a project with great Undo support, see Gimp.
> > You can undo pretty much any operation; nothing requires
> > confirmation.
> > 
> > Thanks for reading so far and I would love to get feedback.
> > 
> > -- 
> > Karl 2007-02-22 14:15
> > _______________________________________________
> > gnucash-devel mailing list
> > gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
> > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
> > 
> 
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> 
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