[GNC] QIF import "Unspecified" transaction

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 4/5/2024 6:43 AM, Joseph Keithley wrote:
> When importing a QIF in the "Match payees/memos to GnuCash accounts"
> window, an "Unspecified" transaction will be listed under "GnuCash account
> name".  When you double click on the item, a window pops up that lets you
> scroll
> through the different "accounts" and assign the item to a specific one.
>
> Is there some way to just type in the account name directly instead of
> surfing around with the mouse?

Perhaps not. As a retired senior systems analyst/senior business analyst 
I can see a very good reason requiring you to select from the list of 
existing accounts.

Answer this question --- if free entry of an account name were allowed, 
what would you want the system to do if the string of characters you 
typed in were NOT the name of an existing account? Do you want it to 
give you an error message at that point? Do you want it to not let you 
enter an invalid character*? Is introducing this error process (and how 
user recovers) worth the complication of the user's work flow?

Michael D Novack

* That's possible because the set of existing accounts can be expressed 
as a tree structure with the nth level of the tree being the possible 
nth characters. So this is like the nth character entered causing the 
"not (yet) in dictionary" of the Lempel-Ziv algorithm. Notice that even 
this "not letting you" would, have issues. because as a user, how do you 
know "well what character am I allowed to enter?"


-- 
There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality of the grave.