entry transaction not only at bottom

[Tommy Trussell]

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Daniel Trezub<daniel3ub at gmail.com> wrote:
> I often download statements from my bank website, spanning from a week to a
> month. Then, these statements are imported into gnucash. Sometimes, the
> save/import process skip some transactions (prob my bank's fault), so I have
> to check the imported QIF against my printed statement.
>
> If I see there is a missing transaction way back the beginning of the month,
> for example, I have to go to the bottom of the transaction list, enter the
> transaction, and then go back manually to the the point the new transaction
> has been inserted (cronologically) to continue my checking. Some times this
> point is a few screens up.
>
> There is no sense to me, while doing this job, for sorting the transactions
> in other way than cronological order, as I am checking the transactions
> against my printed statement.

So in the use-case you described, you are trying to match transactions
between a QIF import and a bank-produced statement, so you want the
transactions to appear in the same order to make comparing them
easier.

> As I understand the original 2003 question (and as I agreed with it), the
> problem lies in having to go to the bottom of my transaction list, and has
> nothing to do with the newly entered transaction disappearing from there. My
> proposed solutions would be:
> 1. the ability to enter transactions in any point of the screen (like
> clicking in the "new transaction" button, and a blank line being inserted
> just after or before the line where the cursor lies)

Here you are describing being able to "freeze" or disable the
live-sorting feature of the spreadsheet so that it (temporarily) works
like an office spreadsheet program.

> 2. or to have the "enter transaction" "form" in a "frame" aways present on
> the screen (in the bottom of the screen). This could be an option in the
> "View" menu, but I can see a lot of hate coming against this solution, as
> this is the way MS Money works :(

I think I can see how someone might prefer this, because you could
additionally present the data in a manner not conducive to the
spreadsheet metaphor. However, I think its benefits are outweighed by
the expectation people have for being able to scroll directly to the
transaction and seeing one (and only one) representation of their data
in the list.

> 3. The idea of a popup window when clicking the "Enter new transaction"
> button seems the easiest to implement, but also seems the most awkward, as
> people do not like popups :)

Moreover, having the items remain in order might still also require a
"frozen" spreadsheet as described above, so you might as well just
"freeze" the spreadsheet and "insert" a new line instead.

Here's another possibility -- what if the QIF Importer could present
you with a "Imported transactions" tab similar to the "Created
Transactions" tab that the "Since Last Run..." wizard of the Scheduled
Transactions module creates?

Of course, in your use-case, you would need to be able to add (and
presumably delete and edit) transactions. I just tried it, and while
you can edit and delete transactions in the SX Created Transactions
tab, you cannot ADD manual transactions that appear there (they get
entered into the correct registers, but they don't persist in that tab
because they don't match its Search Results). The proposed Imported
Transactions tab would need the ability to add items (as well as
display them in the order you expect).