[Testing] Fwd: Finance-1 quick feedback

[Wade Brainerd]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wade Brainerd <wadetb at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 1:20 PM
Subject: Re: Finance-1 quick feedback
To: Gary C Martin <gary at garycmartin.com>


Hey Gary,

Thanks for the feedback!  It's really encouraging to know people are taking
a look at Finance.

On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 12:34 PM, Gary C Martin <gary at garycmartin.com>wrote:

> 1) I was initially confused as the icon Finance-1 is using is for
> Colors-activity.svg :-)


Yikes, I'll fix that.  I have a real SVG, it must just not be in the package
I released.


> 2) Seems to be in $ (dollar currency) only, really will need some way of
> picking a currency (perhaps also a smart initial default based on country
> language setting). The other alternative could be to use a generic little
> symbolic money/currency icon that is non-locale specific, to keep your UI
> nice and simple, little pile of coins and/or notes perhaps like your
> intended activity icon design.


Actually it formats all monetary values using Python's locale.currency()
method, so in theory if you were to change your locale, monetary values
should show up in the correct format for the new locale.

That said, it might be cool if you could override the locale in the UI, or
even use multiple currencies and supply conversion tables (it could get them
if there was an internet connection), but that might be more complicated
than it's worth for the Finance activity.

Perhaps a dedicated Currency activity would be worth making, which can
download conversion tables and convert values.  I'm already planning to
create a Loan activity someday which would be a simple loan calculator.  It
would allow you to set up a loan, record payments, see things like total
interest over the life of the loan, etc.  Perhaps "Currency" would be
another good addition to my suite of financial activities :)


> 3) The View tab icons (Register, Budget, Chart) should be a radio button
> group so they indicate which view mode is currently set.


Agreed.  I was going to make a 'manual' radio button out of
ToggleToolButtons, but a radio button group might be even better.


> 4) When in Budget view, setting a Period to something other than Month
> doesn't make sense. The budget graph scale changes, but not the values to
> match. Not sure if you should just make Budget view lock to Month only, or
> if it makes sense scaling values (i.e Month budget = $10, so a Year view
> would show budget at $120).


Yeah.  I know about this and will try and come up with a solution. The
Period setting was a late addition, in case someone wanted to use Finance in
a high volume (or low volume) environment where working in terms of Months
was not appropriate.  One possibility is to add a combo widget next to each
budget saying 'This amount is per <Day|Week|Month|Year|Forever>.  Then the
bar would adapt based on the period of the budget, and the currently active
period.  I'm just not sure if that's too over-complicated for what is
needed.

I also hope to add Income Goals to the Budget view: Say your club is trying
to raise $100 per month in bottle drives or something, it would allow you to
track progress towards your fundraising goals.

5) When entering items into the register, I was wanting to use tab to get to
> the different input fields (description -> amount -> category).


Good suggestion!  When entering a lot of data, it's also easier to reach the
Tab key than the Right arrow.  I'll see if I can make that happen, probably
can do it by hooking the key-press event.   Although, if a user were limited
to only using the keyboard, that would make them unable to Tab over to the
toolbox....  That might not be a problem though, everything else in the
activity can be done via keyboard shortcuts.

Will add Finance to the list of activities I try to spend some testing time
> with – looks like it will be a great Activity addition. :-)


Awesome!  I am glad it seems to have gotten a good reception so far.  I have
plans to expand it when I find time, including a line graph-based History
view, the aforementioned Income Budgets, an interactive Chart screen
(ability to click on wedges to see detailed information), Alerts on the
Register view for things like over budget or negative balance, a Search
feature on the Register view, and lots more.  If it seems to get a lot of
use I will definitely move that work up on my priority list.

Best,
Wade
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