Undo

[Derek Atkins]

Are you offering to code this?

Yes, Undo would be cool.  I'd also like to see larger-size undo atoms,
like "undo import".

-derek

Quoting Karl Chen <quarl at cs.berkeley.edu>:

>
> 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
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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