Can't delete a transaction

[David T.]

Interestingly, when I look at the Help Manual (which is, I believe, the document that should cover this), I do not see an appropriate place to explain this aspect of the program. 

There does not appear (looking at the table of contents and scanning through several chapters) to be any systematic description of the options on the Menubar, and in this case the Actions Menubar entry. Explaining this aspect of Gnucash will require some work to implement a valid documentary framework.


David



________________________________
 From: Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU>
To: Carsten Rinke <carsten.rinke at gmx.de> 
Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org 
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 6:59 AM
Subject: Re: Can't delete a transaction
 

Carsten Rinke <carsten.rinke at gmx.de> writes:

> Even though this behaviour might be correct according to intention and
> design, I also see it as a misleading. The impression of this warning
> is that it asks for a confirmation, if the user really really wants to
> execute the deletion, and it offers to remember the confirmation in
> order not to show this dialog again. It does not give the impression
> that it might disable the delete button.
>
> My suggestion is to add some more explanation to the dialog box to
> tell the user what a "remember cancel" really means and how he can
> undo his decision.
>
> Meaning at the same time, that solitone might open a "enhancement" bug
> report for it.

I'll just point out that the "remember cancel" is throughout ALL of
GnuCash, not just this dialog.  ALL dialogs will remember "Cancel".
This is true for this dialog, it's true for dialog protecting reconciled
transactions, it's true for other places where GnuCash does try to
protect you from overwriting.  And it's always been this way, since the
feature was added a decade ago.

So if you do want to augment the documentation you should make sure it's
not specific to this dialog, but instead a global "if you remember
cancel for a feature it will effectively completely disable the
functionality."

> Carsten

-derek

> On 04/11/2013 02:11 AM, Keith Bellairs wrote:
>> In traditional bookkeeping all entries were done in ink. Disallowing
>> deletions is even somewhat rational.  You can still "reverse " a
>> transaction, leaving behind a trail for future audits.  In a production ERP
>> almost no one would have the authority to delete posted transactions.
>>
>> Kb
>>
>> Sent from my BlackBerry® PlayBook™
>> www.blackberry.com
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* "Derek Atkins" <warlord at mit.edu>
>> *To:* "solitone" <solitone at mail.com>
>> *CC:* "gnucash-user at gnucash.org" <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
>> *Sent:* April 10, 2013 12:08 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: Can't delete a transaction
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> solitone  writes:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I found the following very old message, which describes the exact same
>>> issue I was facing till few minutes ago:
>>> http://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2007-August/021452.html
>>>
>>> Apparently the problem was not solved at the time, but here I'm
>>> proposing a solution that might be helpful to others, in case they face
>>> it again.
>>>
>>> In my case, this issue came out when I tried to delete a transaction. A
>>> popup prompted me to confirm I really wanted to delete the transaction.
>>> I checked the "remember and not ask again" option, but I mistakenly
>>> pressed the "cancel" button.
>>>
>>> >From that time on, when I pressed the delete button to try and delete a
>>> transaction, nothing happened--no feedback, no changes, as the original
>>> poster reported. Still, deleting a split was possible, again another
>>> thing in common with the OP.
>> Right..  GnuCash is doing exactly what you told it to do!  You told it
>> to remember your choice for answer of the dialog, and then you told it
>> (by the cancel button) that your answer is "do not delete".  This is not
>> a bug, this is GnuCash doing exactly what you told it to do.
>>
>>> I then looked at the gconf xml configuration files, and I found the file
>>> /.gconf/apps/gnucash/general/warnings/permanent/%gconf.xml,
>>> whose content was:
>>>
>>>
>>>           type="int" value="-6">
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Ah ah...! I googled "register_delete_trans", and found out its default
>>> value is "0". So I edited that value in the xml file, and now I can
>>> again effectively delete transactions.
>> An easier way to reset this is via Actions -> Reset Warnings...
>>
>>> It seems like I managed to make gnucash permanently remember I didn't
>>> want to delete a transaction when I pressed the delete button--that's
>>> odd behaviour! Anyhow, overwriting that parameter value to its default
>>> solved the issue.
>> Yes, you did.  But it's not at all odd behavior.  (Well, it's odd that
>> you would WANT that, but GnuCash happily listened to your request,
>> regardless of how odd the request is/was).   :-D
>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>    Davide
>>> 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

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