[GNC] hiding expense and income accounts with zero balances

[Adrien Monteleone]

There are also reports that appear to display an error because some options like account selection are required before any results can be shown. While the ‘work around’ was to tell the user they needed to set options, it may not be clear to the newbie what they need to do. But rather than have some reports work one way than others, I like your idea of throwing up the options screen first once a report *type* has been selected. Advanced and/or seasoned users will more than likely be using saved report configs anyway, but will also know to just hit ‘ok’ if they know they want the defaults. It is rare I ever wants defaults now though, and I don’t always want one of my saved configs. Having to run the report, then open the options is just more clicks than necessary. It doesn’t save me any time or clicks, and it doesn’t help newbies either.

I’m not saying it has to be changed, but I’m liking the idea for now.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Mar 7, 2020 w10d67, at 3:17 PM, David H <hellvee at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 8 Mar 2020 at 04:22, Michael or Penny Novack <
> stepbystepfarm at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
>> But there is some preliminary stuff you should know about the process.
>> When you tell gnucash to produce the report, it will do so with default
>> options. You then use Edit => Report Options to change the options that
>> you want for this running of the report. In other words, the report has
>> to exist before you choose options for it. A moment's thought should
>> explain why you don't pick options and then open the report << how would
>> gnucash know WHICH report you meant those options to apply to >>
>> 
>> Michael D Novack
>> 
>> 
>> 
> Michael,
> 
> This has always seemed a bit arse about face to me.  In my simple world the
> report does exist as it's there in the menu items and I can select it and
> run it.  It's the report results that may or may not exist yet.  It would
> make a whole lot more sense for me personally to click on a report menu
> item, have the options displayed at that point in time and for me to verify
> the options and click OK to run the report at that point in time.  It also
> means that I wouldn't have to wait for the report to finish it's initial
> run and then change the options to what I actually need :-) Newbies would
> also benefit by actually seeing upfront what options are available.  As you
> can probably tell I don't run a lot of reports - I just use Gnucash for my
> personal accounts and to track income/spending from a rental property.
> 
> Cheers David H.