Success installing Windows v2.2.1; first impressions (and some bugs)

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

"John Roberts" <textpxy at hotmail.com> writes:

[snip]
> -- I tried getting stock quotes.  In the "New security" dialog under
> "Quote Source Information" it says: "Warning: Finance::Quote not
> installed properly."  I think I need to install ActivePerl (per the
> Wiki), but I'm not sure.  It would be nice if this process was better
> documented.

Yeah, you need to install AvtivePerl.
I'm not sure where this is documented.  It's probably on the wiki
page for the windows install, but you're right, it should be better
documented somewhere.  Or perhaps the installer can offer to fire
off an installation if it can't find it?

> -- It took a few minutes to figure out that I'll have to create a
> separate sub-account of brokerage accounts for each stock I own.  I
> think this actually makes a lot of sense, but I need to ponder the
> implications more.

Yes, gnucash requires a separate account for each security.

> -- Tiny nit: Under the reconcile colum "y" seems to mean "reconciled"
> and "n" seems to mean not reconciled and "c" means pending.  A graphic
> "check" symbol would look nicer than "y" and blank would be nicer than
> "n".  Clicking on unreconciled transactions toggles them between "n"
> and "c" but not "y" which is different from Quicken.  Also needs
> pondering.

Note that we're NOT quicken.  As Maf pointed out there's a reason it's
done this way.  The reconcile state has three states (well, four,
actually): [N]on-reconciled, [C]leared, [Yes]-Reconciled, and [V]oid.
In the register UI it will swap between N and C.  To get to Y you
need to run the reconciliation process, which is generally performed
once a month when you receive your bank statement.

The docs are pretty good on this topic.

> -- It's not clear if/how I can make GnuCash prompt for a password when
> changing transactions prior to a certain date (i.e., the date when my
> books were closed).

A) we don't have "book closing" support per se, and
B) there are no passwords.  This is explained in the FAQ.

> -- The "Price editor" GNI is seems broken (or it's very
> non-intuitive).  In particular, I think it should be possible to
> specify historical values for a stock here.  Instead, each time I
> enter a new price, the entries for the stock I created all get updated
> to the new price/date and I get multiple entries for the stock.
> Closing the price editor and going back seems to show values that seem
> plausible.

Yes, there are some known issues with the price editor.

> -- The "general ledger" has a bunch of empty transactions in it.  I'm
> not sure why.  They're dated with today's date and appear before the
> "Opening Balance" transaction I created.  Clicking around on the
> screen causes the blank transactions to vanish.  Trying to enter a new
> transaction into the ledger creates warnings as I try to enter it
> saying "This transaction is already being edited in another register.
> Please finish editing it there first."  Closed and re-opened gnucash.
> Still funny empty "phantom" transactions appearing in general ledger.
> As I do other things, the number of junk blank transactions seems to
> increase.

This is also a known bug, but I thought it was fixed before 2.2.1?
There are a number of other issues in the GL; it's not an interface
that we recommend people use for regular data input.

> -- In the reconcile window, the symbolunder the "R" column that
> probably should be a check-mark is just a bit of a squiggly line.  I
> think the checkmark is too large to fit into the space allocated and
> as a result is being cropped.

This is probably a windows-only thing.  It looks fine for me on Linux.

> -- The "Save file automatically" dialog is annoying, especially since
> it keeps popping up even when other programs are running.

You can tell it to stop popping up.  It will only pop up once and
then go away if you tell it to.  Of course it's not going to care
if other applications are running, too, or which application has
focus.  That's exactly the point of the dialog, to let you know that
you have unsaved work and that if you don't save it you'll lose it.

> -- My general status of the program's status is that it's "alpha-test"
> quality.  It might be a good idea to convey this a bit better on the
> home page, as a reviewer might otherwise expect it to be more polished
> and write an (unfairly) negative review as a result.

Perhaps the windows port is alpha-test, but the application itself
is far from alpha.

> [Note: I'm not currently subscribed for Bugzilla, so hopefully someone
> can report any of these that seem significant.]

I recommend you get a Bugzilla account if you intend to submit
bug reports.

Thanks,

> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.

-derek

-- 
       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