Can't adjust width of last column

Thu Sep 17 17:37:34 EDT 2015

For what it’s worth, there is simply no way to adjust the Balance column in Mac OS X except to double click the column heading. When I put the bug in, there were numerous reports of problems on Windows machines as well. Perhaps there was a change in behavior under Windows in the ensuing three years…

It is with a little trepidation that I point out that this issue would probably not exist if the Description column weren’t set to autoexpand to fill the available space. I have always felt that this behavior was… idiosyncratic, to say the least. It has confused many users over the years. Most software packages I use have a model wherein the user can grab the column dividers to resize columns, or double-click any column to auto-adjust the width of that column. While it may have seemed like a good idea at the time, given the expectations of many users, I wonder whether this decision still stands the test of time.

Adding notes to the documentation is one solution; changing the interface to match user expectations might be another.

David T.

> On Sep 17, 2015, at 4:20 PM, David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On 9/17/2015 8:02 AM, David Carlson wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> David, you made me curious, so I tested this in Release 2.6.7 running in Windows 7.
>> 
>> I found that it is possible to grab the right edge of the balance column heading and move it to the right, but strangely (in transaction journal view with double line mode selected) only the split lines section to the right of the description column of the transactions is affected when the horizontal scroll bar appears.  The two top transaction lines in that view are not affected.  With the scroll bar visible it is possible to adjust the width of the balance column. 
>> 
>> Note that while adjusting the width of columns with the mouse, the adjusted width does not become visible until the mouse button is released.
>> 
>> If the scroll bar is visible but not slid all the way to the right, then the right edge cannot be selected.
>> 
>> As noted elsewhere, moving the right edge of the description column to the left can make the scroll bar disappear.  I see the same behavior in single line mode, Auto Split Ledger and basic Ledger views with the the exception of disconnect between the split section and the top section, which only happens when a split is visible in the register and the double line mode is selected.
>> 
>> Just for completeness, I have never tested right to left text mode in Windows that is required for certain languages, or any other non-US settings.
>> 
>> David C
>> 
>> On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 10:33 AM, David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com <mailto:sunfish62 at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> > On Sep 16, 2015, at 9:38 AM, Derek Atkins < <mailto:warlord at MIT.EDU>warlord at MIT.EDU <mailto:warlord at MIT.EDU>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi Ed,
>> >
>> > Ed Fields <ed at efields.com <mailto:ed at efields.com>> writes:
>> >
>> >> Shouldn't dragging left the vertical line of any column, cause the width of
>> >> the last column (Balance) to grow?
>> >>
>> >> My 8 column transaction screen has a very narrow balance column and try as
>> >> I might, I cannot get it to display the full number field.  the left digit
>> >> is not viewable, so value            123,456.78 displays as 23,456.78
>> >>
>> >> I have narrowed all other columns by dragging their trailing vertical line
>> >> left.
>> >> The 'description' column width can be dragged left to a point but not
>> >> enough to leave any white space on the right side of the form.  Very
>> >> careful mouse position on right side of the name field for the Balance
>> >> column can sometimes cause the drag arrow to appear, but dragging in the
>> >> right direction has no effect.
>> >>
>> >> What should I do to view the entire contents of the Balance column cell?
>> >
>> > you need to grab the right side of the header and drag it right, off
>> > the window, until the scrollbar shows up.  Then you can reduce the
>> > description column.
>> >
>> 
>> Actually, Derek, I think the Balance column is a special case, and can only be resized by double-clicking the column heading. At least, that’s my experience. This is documented in https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=666576 <https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=666576>
>> 
>> David
>> 
>> >> thanks for your time,
>> >> ed
>> >
>> >> 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/ <http://web.mit.edu/warlord/>    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
>> >       warlord at MIT.EDU <mailto:warlord at MIT.EDU>                        PGP key available
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> 
> 
> I finally got back to my desktop and was able to review the bugzilla reference https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=666576 <https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=666576>  and think about this some more.  If I recall correctly, David normally uses GnuCash in an IOS environment while I normally use the Windows 7 environment, and some other observers are using some flavor of Linux.  Thus, as a team we can test this in nearly every different environment.  I think that we know that there are some subtle differences in the various environments.
> 
> That bug report contains a lot of technical discussion about the code that makes this work (or not).  Further, there have been changes since the 2.4 series that include the way that user preferences are saved at least in the Windows environment that also impacts this performance.
> 
> As David points out in the last comment, there should be no need for anyone to ever ask about this in this mail list.  Thus, I think the most important thing is to be sure that between the flyover help on the register page and the two help documents that are supposed to be available from within the program, this information is fully covered, including all operating environments.  Then if the next step is to wait for a roll-out of Register2 or some other significant event, we are covered for a reasonable amount of time.
> 
> David C
> 
> 
> 
>  <https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=666576>