[GNC] Resizing columns
Paul Kinzelman
paul at kinzelman.com
Wed Nov 5 11:04:24 EST 2025
On 11/5/2025 8:34 AM, sunfish62 at yahoo.com wrote:
> Did you in fact click and drag the right side of the Description column to the left and then release?
Yes, and it snaps back. If I drag it to the right it stays and moves the
Transfer and the
rest of the columns off the screen to the right. I can't seem to shrink
the Desc
column by dragging the right side to the left.
>
> Are you looking at the *Guide* for section 2.3.5? Did you click the link i provided?
I saw what you sent me, but as you said, it's not very clear.
But I also wanted to find it in the documentation. Oh I see it's in the
Guide,
not in the Manual where I was looking.
But I still can't download them. The section says "Downloads" so I figured
there would be a way to download it.
>
> David T.
>
> On Nov 5, 2025, 7:46 PM, at 7:46 PM, Paul Kinzelman <paulkinzelman at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 11/4/2025 10:00 PM, sunfish62 at yahoo.com wrote:
>>> Keep the replies on the list, please.
>> Sorry, it looked like you replied to just me so I replied thusly too.
>>> 2.3.5 is at
>>>
>> https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/basics-running-gnucash.html#basics-register2
>>> First question: why are you double clicking the Withdrawal column to
>>> resize the Balance column?
>> I'm just trying various things to figure out how the column sizing
>> works.
>> Your hint about clicking on the column header from right to left is
>> very helpful and not at all obvious to me. I was just completely
>> confused.
>>> Second: Doesn't your screen have a scroll bar along the bottom of the
>>> register window?
>> Yes. Duh! That was dumb of me. So I can see the rest of the balance,
>> but
>> then when I scroll right,
>> I lose part of the date even as the Description is huge so there's no
>> reason to lose anything.
>> The Description column is not being shrunk.
>>> Third: Others have noted that resizing columns works best from right
>>> to left: double click the balance heading, followed by Withdrawal,
>>> Deposit, etc. The final step is to grab the *right* edge of the
>>> Description column and drag it fully to the left and release. The
>>> Description column will then fill up the remainder of the window
>>> width. (For the record, the Note does describe this process, just a
>>> little cryptically).
>> When I do that, I get reasonable sizes for each column from Transfer to
>>
>> Balance, but it doesn't
>> shrink the Description to fit the window so I get a scroll bar and have
>>
>> to move around. If I maximize
>> the window then I do get all the columns displayed without a scrollbar.
>> Thank you. But I still can't shrink the window less than the entire
>> screen without losing the end
>> columns and getting a scroll bar. It should shrink the Description to
>> fit according to your directions.
>> But what you told me does help, thanks!
>> It does seem like it'd be easier and much less confusing to just have
>> users
>> move the columns where they want and have them stay put.
>>
>> And about documentation...
>> How do I get to 2.3.5?
>> Again, when I go to Support | Documentation | Table of Contents | 2
>> it goes to only 2.2 and when I go thru the pages of chapter 2, I get:
>> 2
>> | Next | 2.1 | Next | 2.2 | Next 3.1
>>
>> And when I go to Downloads | Documentation I don't get anything to
>> download, it goes to the
>> same place as Support | Documentation
>>
>>> David T.
>>> On Nov 5, 2025, at 9:46 AM, Paul Kinzelman <paulkinzelman at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I can't find 2.3.5
>>> Going to the documentation either download or support, I can't
>>> download, all I can do
>>> is page by page and Ch 2 ends at 2.2 and when I go Next, it goes
>>> to chapter 3.
>>> What am I doing wrong?
>>>
>>> I tried your note but the windows still act weirdly.
>>>
>>> With even almost the whole screen width
>>> (and also even with the window maximized),
>>> I see only 1/2 the balance column.
>>> Then when I double-click the Withdrawal,
>>> that column gets wide enough, but it shrinks the Balance so I see
>>> only 1/2 of the column. When I click on Balance, I now see the
>> whole
>>> thing only if the window is maximized. If I shrink
>>> the gnucash window to be less than maximize,
>>> I lose 1/2 the Balance column. I can see it trying to expand
>>> automatically
>>> like you said in your reply,
>>> but it's really not doing the right thing if the window isn't
>>> maximized.
>>>
>>> Why not just allow the user to move the columns around wherever
>>> they want? Wouldn't it be more intuitive as well as
>>> the code would be a lot easier to write too?
>>>
>>> I like to balance my statement against gnucash and display them
>> both
>>> on the laptop screen so I can't really maximize it.
>>>
>>> Thanks for your help!
>>>
>>> On 11/4/2025 8:10 PM, sunfish62 at yahoo.com wrote:
>>>> Apparently, you didn't read 2.3.5, which includes the following
>>>> note:
>>>>
>>>> Note
>>>> In the register windows, you can resize the various columns that
>>>> GnuCash displays, but keep in mind that the Description and
>>>> Balance columns behave differently from other columns.
>>>>
>>>> The Description column is designed to expand automatically to
>>>> fill all unused horizontal screen space. Therefore you should
>> set
>>>> the widths of all your other columns before setting the
>>>> Description column width.
>>>>
>>>> The Balance column must be resized by double-clicking on the
>>>> column heading.
>>>>
>>>> David T.
>>>> On Nov 5, 2025, at 4:44 AM, Paul Kinzelman
>>>> <paulkinzelman at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Sunfish62: I looked in chapter 2 and it's about"Using this
>>>> Document & Getting Help"
>>>> I didn't see any column sizing stuff in there.
>>>> Chapter 4.3 seemed more relevant but I couldn't find
>> anything
>>>> there either.
>>>>
>>>> David: Double-click enlarges the column which is good and
>>>> shrinks the Description
>>>> but still when I drag the vertical bar on the left of
>>>> "Transfer" to the left it snaps back to where it was.
>>>> When I drag the vertical bar on the right of "Transfer" it
>>>> stays put, but the
>>>> vertical bar on the left of "Transfer" snaps to the right
>>>> also when it shouldn't move.
>>>> Something is very weird about resizing.
>>>>
>>>> On 11/4/2025 9:31 AM, David Carlson wrote:
>>>>> What happens if you double click the title of any of the
>>>>> amount columns?
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Nov 4, 2025 at 10:16 AM Paul Kinzelman
>>>>> <paul at kinzelman.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Im running the updated 5.13 release but it happened
>> with
>>>>> older ones too.
>>>>>
>>>>> I can't get the ledger columns to resize properly.
>> Works
>>>>> the same way
>>>>> with both one and Double Line view.
>>>>>
>>>>> The Description field is huge, and when I try to drag
>>>>> the left side of
>>>>> the Transfer column over to shrink the Desc, all the
>>>>> columns Transfer and to
>>>>> the right drag over to the left, but when I click to
>> put
>>>>> them down,
>>>>> they snap back to where they were. I can't shrink the
>>>>> Desc column.
>>>>> And then several of the columns are too small
>>>>> to see. If I drag the left side of Balance to the left,
>>>>> it gets larger, but
>>>>> then Withdrawal becomes too small to see.
>>>>>
>>>>> Suggestions?
>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> David Carlson
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