maybe align on both ends? Re: Text field alignments

[David Reiser]

On Feb 24, 2009, at 10:00 AM, hendrik at topoi.pooq.com wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 09:54:45AM -0500, Donald Allen wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 9:31 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu>  
>> wrote:
>>> Charles Day <cedayiv at gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 10:44 AM, Fred Bone <Fred.Bone at dial.pipex.com 
>>>> >wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> When viewing a register in "Basic Ledger" view, the "other- 
>>>>> account" names
>>>>> in the "Transfer" column are right-justified. So if the complete  
>>>>> account
>>>>> name is too long to fit, the high-end ("Assets", for example) is  
>>>>> cut.
>>>>>
>>>>> However, in a "Split" view, the corresponding text in each split  
>>>>> is left-
>>>>> justified - except when that part of that split is selected.  
>>>>> This means
>>>>> that, for example, I see
>>>>>  "Assets:Current Assets:Savings Accounts:"
>>>>> and have to select the entry to see *which* savings account it is.
>>>>>
>>>>> Is there any particular reason for this behaviour?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I don't know, but if no one responds with a particular reason for  
>>>> leaving it
>>>> alone, I will go ahead and change it to be right-justified.
>>>
>>> I have no idea why it is the way it is; I think changing it is fine.
>>
>> I'd suggest changing both to left-justified. Without doing anything,
>> I'd rather see the high-order bits, the part of the path closest to
>> the root of the account tree. I frequently have multiple leaf  
>> accounts
>> with the same name, e.g., investments in the same mutual fund or  
>> stock
>> in, say, my IRA and my wife's IRA. If all I see, without selecting,  
>> is
>> the low-order part of the path, I could be lulled into a false sense
>> of security that I'm in the right account when I might not be. Seeing
>> the high-order part at least shows me immediately whether I'm on the
>> right track.
>>
>> /Don
>
> I've long been annoyed with the way this works, and woule usually  
> prefer
> to see the end of the account name, and occasionally the beginning.
> Perhaps the thing to do is to remove the *middle* and replace it with
> "...".
>
> As long as the start isn't "Root Account", which it is after some
> ancient gnucash version-transitions.
>
> -- hendrik
>

pango_layout_set_ellipsize(layout, PANGO_ELLIPSIZE_MIDDLE) might be  
able to do that job if we're using pango at this point in the register.

--
David Reiser
dbreiser at earthlink.net