[PATCH] Tax-related inconsistency in UI

[J. Alex Aycinena]

David,

See comments below:

On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 10:00 PM, David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> As the user in question, I'd like to note that the Edit->Tax Options has other oddities that make it more difficult to use.
>
> The one that most annoyed me was the fact that the window only saves the tax setting for ONE account at a time. Thus, to set a number of accounts, you have to repeatedly open Edit->Tax Options, navigate through the account hierarchy (changing over to Income, if you're working on those accounts) to the account in question, then scroll through the list of tax lines on the right then click OK. This makes the process much more work than it needs to be.
>
> The second part that is annoying is that the dialog happily lets you "change" all your accounts in one pass, without notifying you that only the last account you change will actually get saved. This, combined with the first part, is pretty frustrating.
>

As a clarification, the current Edit->Tax Options dialog does let you
set the tax-related flag and assign ONE tax code to multiple accounts
at a time. For example, if you select a parent account and then click
on 'select sub-accounts', the parent and its sub-accounts will all be
selected (or you can individually select multiple non-contiguous
accounts using the ctrl key while selecting them with your mouse or
contiguous accounts using the shift key) and, once multiple accounts
have been selected, click the tax-related check box to enable the TXF
Categories pane, select a category and click OK to update several
accounts, but all to the same ONE TXF Category. You can also un-select
the tax-related check box for multiple accounts in a similar fashion.

> I would recommend changing the Edit->Tax Options dialog to allow the user to change multiple accounts in the dialog, perhaps by adding a "Save Account Changes' button, and changing the OK button to read "Save and Exit" (its behavior could remain the same). That, or store all the account changes and commit them all on close.
>

What you can't do, which would be a good improvement, is select
multiple accounts and assign them to multiple TXF categories, some
perhaps shared, others not, with one dialog interaction. This may be
what you're getting at. I know, for example, that older versions of
Quicken work that way and it is much more convenient. I'll try to
remember to add this as an enhancement request - or you could if you
want.

By the way, do you know that you can add a 'Tax Info' column to your
account page using the arrow on the right. This lets you see which
accounts are assigned to which TXF categories very easily to review
and make sure you didn't overlook any or mis-assign any. If you use
the TXF categories, this is a good column to have displayed all the
time.

> David

Apart from this enhancement opportunity, do you agree with my proposal
that it doesn't make sense to be able to set the 'tax-related' flag in
the 'Edit Account' dialog because you can end up in the illogical and
confusing condition of having the flag set and no TXF category
assigned? And that it is better to direct the user to the Tax Options
dialog where the two can be updated together and kept consistent?

Alex

>
> --- On Sat, 9/27/08, J. Alex Aycinena <alex.aycinena at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> From: J. Alex Aycinena <alex.aycinena at gmail.com>
>> Subject: [PATCH] Tax-related inconsistency in UI
>> To: gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
>> Date: Saturday, September 27, 2008, 4:49 PM
>> Hello,
>>
>> While testing a modified Tax Report that I submitted
>> recently, I found
>> what I would consider a UI inconsistency that initially
>> caused my
>> report to bomb until I fixed the report to handle this
>> condition. That
>> is, that you can set an account as 'tax-related' in
>> the edit account
>> dialog and then not assign it a tax code using Edit->Tax
>> Options.
>> Another user that was helping me test the new report
>> assumed that
>> by simply setting the flag, the appropriate data should
>> show up on
>> the report, without realizing that the Tax Options dialog
>> needed to
>> be used also. This is a mistake any user could easily make.
>>
>> I think as easy solution is to change the account edit
>> screen to display
>> the tax-related field but not to allow it to be changed and
>> to add a
>> tooltip to the field to direct users to use the
>> Edit->Tax Options dialog
>> to set the flag and assign a code. Also, the help contents
>> should be
>> modified to make this clear.
>>
>> If these changes are agreed to by the developers, I have
>> attached
>> two patch files to do this.
>>
>> The log entry for patchfile should read:
>>
>> "Changes the 'Sensitive' Property to
>> 'No' from 'Yes' in 'account.glade'
>> for the 'tax_related_button' widget so that the
>> setting is displayed but
>> cannot be changed in the account edit dialog. Sets the
>> Tooltip
>> property to "Use Edit->Tax Options to set the
>> tax-related flag and assign
>> a tax code to this account." in
>> 'account.glade'."
>>
>> For docs-patchfile, the log entry should read:
>>
>> "Updates the Account-Actions help chapter to direct
>> the user to use the
>> 'Edit->Tax Options' dialog to set the
>> tax-related flag and assign
>> a tax code during account set up and maintenance. Indicates
>> that the
>> tax-related flag on the account edit dialog is display
>> only."
>>
>> I would appreciate any comments on this proposed change.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Alex
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>> gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
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>
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