maybe align on both ends? Re: Text field alignments

[Charles Day]

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 8:20 AM, David Reiser <dbreiser at earthlink.net>wrote:

>
> 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.
>

I believe that's exactly what I used in the QIF importer for account names.
I'll have to take a look and see if that's even an option in the register at
present though, as the code I'm currently working with is GUI-independent.
If not, I suppose it could be added, but I don't know how to do that;
haven't played with or read any of that code yet.


> --
> David Reiser
> dbreiser at earthlink.net


-Charles