Text field alignments

[Charles Day]

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 7:32 AM, Donald Allen <donaldcallen at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Charles Day <cedayiv at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 7:18 AM, Tommy Trussell <
> tommy.trussell at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 8:54 AM, Donald Allen <donaldcallen at gmail.com>
> >> 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.
> >>
> >>  Interesting situation, but I think this would NOT be a typical case,
> >> and your situation would be easily addressed by adding a bit of
> >> redundancy to the account name. (You could add the appropriate
> >> initials to them, for example).
> >
> > The current state (a mix of right- and left-justification) seems
> > unacceptable.
>
> I think we all agree with that.
>
>  I can quite easily make it consistent. Does there need to be a
> > debate about left vs. right before I make the change?
>
> Obviously I think so.
>
>  (I'd much prefer
> > right-justification personally.)
>
> Please tell us why.
>

Pretty much because there are whole bunch of accounts starting with
"Assets:Current Assets:" which is fairly long and not as useful to see, at
least for me. Brokerage accounts are even worse, like a whole bunch that all
start with something long like "Assets:Investments:Vanguard:".

With income and expenses, for me the leaf name is usually distinct enough
without seeing the "Income" or "Expenses", as most expense accounts have
names like "Dining", "Gas", etc., which could not be Income. Sure there are
some exceptions, such as "Rent" which could be either income or expense, but
these are fairly easy to distinguish by making a small adjustment to the
name (e.g. name the expense "Rent Paid").


> /Don
>
>
Cheers,
Charles