Question About Price DB (fwd)

[Derek Atkins]

David Carlson <carlson.dl at sbcglobal.net> writes:

> That is weird.  I always click Reply List in Thunderbird.  I do not know how that happened.

Possibly the message wasn't "from the list" because you were in the CC?

> David C.

-derek

> --- On Tue, 2/5/13, Mike Alexander <mta at umich.edu> wrote:
>
> From: Mike Alexander <mta at umich.edu>
> Subject: Re: Question About Price DB (fwd)
> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Cc: "David Carlson" <carlson.dl at sbcglobal.net>
> Date: Tuesday, February 5, 2013, 12:55 PM
>
> Please send your messages to the list.  That way others can participate 
> in and benefit from the discussion.
>
>            Mike
>
> From: David Carlson <carlson.dl at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: Question About Price DB
> To: Mike Alexander <mta at umich.edu>
> Date: February 5, 2013 12:34:36 PM -0600
>
> On 2/4/2013 9:21 PM, Mike Alexander wrote:
>> --On February 4, 2013 8:58:10 AM -0600 David Carlson
>> <carlson.dl at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>>> My personal observations, you can confirm this in the code:
>>> The currency trade pop-up prompt that does appear when starting a
>>> multi-currency or security(stock) transaction edit from a "Currency"
>>> or "Bank" account window is very confusing.
>>
>> That's hard to confirm or deny in the code.
>>
> What I meant about the currency trade pop-up was that after it pops
> up, I look at it and I cannot figure out what to do next to correctly
> finish what I was trying to do.
>>> It uses the equals sign
>>> in the prompt and asks for a ratio without stating that the divide
>>> symbol works.
>>
>> I'm not quite sure what you mean by this.  If you mean that you can
>> enter something like 2/3 as the exchange rate, then this is not an
>> attribute of the exchange rate dialog.  You can enter an expression
>> in most, if not all, numeric entry fields in GnuCash.  It doesn't
>> have to be a simple ratio, something like 2*5+3/4 works too.
>>
> All the text under "Basic Information" and under "Transfer From" and
> "Transfer To" seems to have no bearing on the cryptic choices under
> the "Currency Transfer" title.  Now it looks like I should decide to
> use one box or the other depending on whether I want to enter "xxx
> USD = yyy (Stock symbol)" or "yyy (Stock Symbol) = xxx USD".
> However, in either box it seems to only accept something that has a
> single value with no equals sign such as a rate or an amount or (as
> you point out) an expression that reduces to a single value, but
> which number does this value represent, x, y, r or 1/r?  You need two
> amounts to determine the third, right? and which side of the equation
> am I on (since r is implied by the units shown)?
> Whatever I enter, it seems like I do not get the desired values back
> to the stock purchase or sale transaction that I was trying to record.
>
>>> Also it gives conflicting information about which
>>> number should be in the numerator vs which number should be in the
>>> denominator.
>>
>> I cleaned this up a bit.
>>
>>> Then it leaves the display value in integer divide form
>>> in the price database entry rather than decimal form.
>>
>> It's always a ratio in the price DB.  If the ratio happens to have a
>> denominator that is a multiple of 10 then it's displayed as a decimal
>> number.
>>
> What I meant here is that values coming from an online quote or a
> manual entry are displayed in decimal form, but if they come from
> this dialog, they are displayed as an integer fraction, which is
> confusing to most people.  Why is it not displayed in user friendly
> decimal form?  A displayed value is often not in the form actually
> used to implement a computation.  As a retired programmer from
> another profession I recall the hoops that I used to jump through to
> use sixteen bit integer math to implement a calculation without going
> out of range or dividing by zero, then converting the result to
> decimal for display with a side calculation to place the decimal
> point correctly.
>
>>> I am not sure
>>> what the Fetch Rate button is supposed to do, it doesn't seem to do
>>> anything.
>>
>> It is supposed to use Finance Quote to get a rate, but this requires
>> F::Q to be set up correctly and is a bit fragile.
>>
>>> I believe that the nice prompt asking whether to adjust the price,
>>> shares or amount pre-empts the currency trade pop-up when the
>>> transaction edit is started from the security asset account window
>>> and then the price DB entry code inadvertently gets skipped,
>>> probably because it is mixed in with the currency trade prompt
>>> generating code.
>>
>> Yes, that's correct.
>>
>>> Also, in my opinion the price DB entry in either case should
>>> ask the user whether to take the price  just manually entered (as if
>>> this is a record of an actual transaction rather than a value
>>> estimate based on a quote) or to take the last recorded quote price
>>> from the price database as it currently does. If the choice is not
>>> given it should at least declare that the last recorded quote price
>>> will be used.
>>
> I wasn't asking for another prompt. I was pointing out that at least
> when I am entering or editing a register transaction which has a date
> it is an actual trade which is not the same as an expression of value
> or estimate of value at some unspecified time.  Thus I think that I am
> using the actual trade values and I don't want the program to
> arbitrarily change them to match a quote that I probably don't even
> know about whether it exists in this particular data file or what
> it's value happens to be or what time or date is associated to that
> value or whether it is "Last Trade", "Bid", "Ask", "NAV" or from
> which exchange or whatever.
> Starting from that perspective, I want whichever prompt appears to
> simply give the user the choice either to commit the numbers that the
> user just entered or the values at the start of this register
> transaction edit session if meaningful or tell the user what numbers
> it will commit instead to this register transaction and where it got
> them from.  In this case there is the possibility of a side entry or
> edit to the price DB as well as the register transaction edit that
> the user thinks that he is trying to make, so I would like the prompt
> to tell the user when that is happening as well as what the side
> edit/entry consists of. Please read my comments below.
>
>> The exchange rate dialog (but not the stock transaction register) is
>> always prepopulated with a price from the price DB (except for an
>> existing transaction that already has an exchange rate).  With my
>> recent changes it also always adds the new price to the DB unless
>> there is an equivalent price on the same day.  I'm not sure another
>> prompt here would be worth the annoyance.
>>
>>               Mike
>>
>>
>>
> Thank you Mike for taking the time to respond to my comments from your
> knowledgeable perspective.  Thanks also to John R for helping me to
> understand why users like me get so frustrated with an overall
> excellent program that just happens to have a few 'gotchca's left in
> it.
>
> By the way, I am aware that it is possible to get to this dialog from
> an incorrect entry point that can cause a stock register transaction
> edit to fail before it is finally committed, and I will soon be
> requesting a clarification in the manual to warn about that (see my
> "Stock transaction" thread).  I believe that is a separate issue,
> although it appears to overlap.
> I am trying to understand how GnuCash works now before I actually ask
> for any action to change either the dialogs or the program.  Do not
> consider this email a request for action, but as a request for
> information to help me make an informed request for action later.
> I especially do not want to request any program changes at this time
> that could delay the next stable program release with all the
> improvements that have already accumulated since the 2.4.11 release.
>
> I believe that GnuCash outshines all other competition in the free or
> relatively inexpensive personal finance or small business finance
> sectors.
>
> David C
>
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-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available