[GNC] New auto-clear splits pop-up in reconcile

[David T.]

I followed up a little more on this, checking the references all the way 
through, and downloading the same nightly to see it in action. My 
observations follow.

The discussion that Sherlock references includes 3 messages, and the 
discussion is very brief. The developer announced the implementation of 
the feature, asking for beta testers. A second person expressed 
potential concern/interest and asked about where this feature was 
entered into Bugzilla, and the developer pointed to a secondary thread 
in which the Autoclear feature was proposed and implemented for a very 
specific use-case. That secondary reference is from 2010. This was the 
extent of the discussion.

The 2010 implementation has resided happily under the Actions menu 
presumably since 2010, where the intrepid user can activate it as 
needed. I had never noticed it before in the 15 years since it was 
added. I would be very interested to know whether anyone since the 
original coder has made use of the tool.

It is unclear what triggered the new implementation of this feature, nor 
why its functionality was changed to be part of the regular 
reconciliation process. I am curious as to what perceived shortcoming 
caused the developer to insert this into the process, given its previous 
existence under the Actions tab.

In my opinion, this feature should remain _only_ under Actions, and not 
be inserted into the normal reconciliation process. I could go into the 
overall philosophy behind reconciliation (again), but I won't, except to 
say that Autoclearing transactions that a user has (typically and 
increasingly) downloaded from the bank renders the entire concept of 
reconciliation even more absurd than it already is.

With regard to the feature itself, I remain steadfast that if it is 
going to remain embedded in the reconciliation process(and that should 
be a BIG if), it should be switchable by the user. Furthermore, it is 
unclear why the dialog that is used here is as uninformative as it is. 
There is literally no explanation about what this is intended to do or 
what will happen with either choice. Given that the feature already 
exists and has a clear explanation in *its* dialog (I attach, 
hopefully), this omission is, frankly, concerning.

Finally, there is some logic hidden in the code, such that certain 
invocations of reconciliation do not trigger the dialog. I am unclear 
why this would be the case, but it is odd to me that the dialog would 
show sometimes but not others.

David T.


On 12/12/2025 7:45 AM, sunfish62--- via gnucash-user wrote:
> Well.
>
> ISTM a change of this sort should be announced in the user list, and feedback solicited here. *Before* rolling into a commit.
>
> Personally, I don't think this is such a good idea, and I'd surely want the ability to turn it off. But I'm an old fuddy-duddy.
>
> I also hope that the implementer has updated the documentation to explain the feature.
>
> ⁣David T. ​
>
> On Dec 12, 2025, 7:25 AM, at 7:25 AM, Sherlock <sh025622 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Bruce,
>>
>> This was discussed on the gnucash-devel mailing list last month:
>> https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2025-November/047164.html
>>
>> Select Auto-clear if you want GnuCash to apply it's guess of which of
>> the remaining uncleared transactions need to be cleared to balance the
>> reconcile.
>>
>> Select Cancel if you do not want GnuCash to apply it's guess of which
>> of
>> the remaining uncleared transactions need to be cleared to balance the
>> reconcile.
>>
>> There is no preference setting.
>>
>> Note: If GnuCash is not able to find remaining uncleared transactions
>> that need to be cleared to balance the reconcile, there shouldn't be a
>> pop-up window.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Sherlock
>>
>>
>> On 12/11/25 4:12 PM, Bruce Olson via gnucash-user wrote:
>>> I'm testing the following nightly build on Debian 13.
>>>
>>> This is for the latest nightly build, stable-C5.13-112-g46fe45570f-
>>> D5.13-1-g285f67b7.
>>>
>>> I get a new pop-up window (attached) in reconcile right after I
>> accepted
>>> the statement ending date and ending balance.  I searched previous
>>> emails and I couldn't find the bug this was created for. I also
>> searched
>>> the open bug list.
>>>
>>> I have a couple questions:
>>>
>>> What are the consequences of selecting Auto-clear vs Cancel?
>>>
>>> Can this pop-up be turned off in preferences?
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Bruce
>>>
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