Time for 2.5.1

[David Carlson]

On 5/10/2013 7:48 AM, Geert Janssens wrote:
> On Friday 10 May 2013 07:04:23 David Carlson wrote: 
>> On 5/10/2013 3:31 AM, Geert Janssens      wrote:
>>> Why do you want the new register to be        visibly different ?      
>>>       
>>> Geert    
>>     Well, to start off, so that I can tell while testing that I am    
> actually looking at a register2 view, not an old view.  I have    already 
> mistakenly thought that I was looking at a new register and    complained that 
> certain issues had not been fixed, when they    actually had been fixed 
> (Thanks, Robert for correcting me).
> That may be useful for testing, but not a valid reason to have a different 
> look in production.
>
>>     The next reason is that the new view does fix several subtle    problems 
> and add some new capabilities. 
>>     A very important one is that it will actually make GnuCash much    
> easier for newbies to learn and use.  This should keep many of the    
> potential users that try GnuCash then give up because they believe    that it 
> is not user friendly.
> I'm not sure which *visual* differences you are referring to that make GnuCash 
> easier for newbies to learn.
>
> Note that I don't oppose any improvements, but in the current stage of the new 
> register project I consider the most important thing worry about now is to not 
> have any *regressions* compared to the rich feature set of the old register. 
> It may have had its quirks, but don't underestimate how carefully tuned it was 
> for its task.
>
>>     You can surely think of other reasons, but I will close with the    very 
> standard marketing tactic - New Look!!!!!  You must have this    baby in your 
> garage!!!!  Greatest invention since sliced bread!!!     ;)
>>     
> ;)
>
> More seriously, I don't think this kind of marketing stragegy matches the 
> average GnuCash user. If the marketing message would have been "Even 
> easier/user-friendlier/more efficient than before, finally fixes most of the 
> quirks in the old program for good" that might help. I'd expect users of 
> accounting software to prefer a stable/reliable system which they know how it 
> works. Changing the looks too much could actually work backwards on such an 
> audience.
>
> Geert
>
I certainly agree with your point about not regressing and losing any of
the existing functionality of the old register view.  That is critically
important.

However, if you sauntered over to your local automobile dealership and
saw that the new models looked exactly like the 20 year old models, how
could you tell that there was something entirely different under the
skin that made them far better and more desirable than the old models. 

A modest visual change can and often does symbolize improvements that
are not visible.  I am not referring to Windows 8.

As far as user friendliness is concerned, every new user has to struggle
with learning how to enter their first few transactions.  That puts off
a lot of new users.  Anything to ease that hurdle would be very
welcome.  GnuCash is not easy to jump into like Quicken used to be
before it got bloated.

Maybe if the program were shipped with an example file pre-filled with a
few example transactions, that might help too. Or maybe if there were
several example files for specific types of transactions available from
the FAQ page of the website.  Just a thought.

David C

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