Patch for guide file "ch_basics.xml"

Geert Janssens janssens-geert at telenet.be
Thu Oct 14 14:24:26 EDT 2010


On Thursday 14 October 2010, jh wrote:
> On Thu, 2010-10-14 at 12:11 +0200, Geert Janssens wrote:
> > Really, I mentioned this because the location of these options struck me
> > as rather unintuitive even while understanding the relationship.
> >
> > I don't have a good alternative though. So for now I'd suggest to only
> > move the Summarybar options below the date options. Start/End date are
> > two parameters I much stronger relate to the accounting period and are
> > the first two I'd want to configure for it.
> >
> > Geert
> 
> Hi Geert,
> so far I thought, that changes in the GUI would fall under the
> feature/string freeze.
To be honest, I don't know what the rules are here. For me also this is the 
first time I go through this phase in the release cycle as a dev. So I hope a 
more experienced developer can shed some light on this.
Is it still ok to make (minor) GUI changes at this point ? Or should that be 
considered in conflict with the current Feature/string freeze we're in ?

> Otherwise I agree, that the current location and
> aggregation is anything but intuitive. I found that for a couple of
> other GUI features as well (for example the 'Close' button and menu
> item). The function of the 'Windows->new window' menu is also rather
> obscure to me, particularly since some windows parameters are shared
> between multiple instances of GC and result in weird phenomena, when you
> manage to have two windows open at the same time.
> 
> When I first started to work with GC, I was puzzled by the function of
> the summary bar.  I found the existing documentation very insufficient
> and confusing. I do think, that the summary bar and a good explanation
> is important for any new user, since it is part of the main screen and
> everybody will automatically play with it initially. It's function is
> absolutely not self explanatory. Particularly if someone starts with GC,
> he will most likely not use multiple currencies and not enter stocks. In
> this case, the default setting of offering a summary or not does not
> make any sense, since there is no difference between the two in the
> described situation.
> For me, the general layout of the summary bar also suggested, that I
> should see 3 sums and it took me weeks of searching and probing, to find
> out that this is not the case (is it?).
> I also find it confusing, that the first column is called 'Assets' when
> there is an account called 'Assets' but the two are not the same. From
> what I figured out so far, the 'Asset' column is rather an Equity
> column, going by the basic accounting concepts text.  However, I still
> did not get an answer to my question, how the 'Assets' in the summary
> bar are calculated.
I didn't know either how this value is calculated. But I looked it up in the 
code for you:
"Assets" is the sum of all accounts of types Bank, Cash, Asset, Stock, Mutual 
Fund, Credit Card, Liability, A/Payable and A/Receivable, obviously taking the 
proper sign into account. Calling this "Assets" would indeed be confusing at 
least.
"Profits" is the sum of all Income and Expense accounts.
Trading accounts and equity accounts are not counted at all. There is a note 
in the code that wonders if trading accounts should be treated as 
Income/Expense and hence be used in the Profits calculation.

What would be a better word for Assets in the summary bar ?

And can someone give a hint as to what should happen with the trading accounts 
? My accounting knowledge is too limited to answer that.

Geert


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