<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Wade Brainerd</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:wadetb@gmail.com">wadetb@gmail.com</a>></span><br>Date: Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 1:20 PM<br>
Subject: Re: Finance-1 quick feedback<br>To: Gary C Martin <<a href="mailto:gary@garycmartin.com">gary@garycmartin.com</a>><br><br><br>Hey Gary, <br><br>Thanks for the feedback! It's really encouraging to know people are taking a look at Finance.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="Ih2E3d">On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 12:34 PM, Gary C Martin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gary@garycmartin.com" target="_blank">gary@garycmartin.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">1) I was initially confused as the icon Finance-1 is using is for Colors-activity.svg :-)</blockquote>
</div><div><br>Yikes, I'll fix that. I have a real SVG, it must just not be in the package I released.<br> <br></div><div class="Ih2E3d"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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.</blockquote>
</div><div><br>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.<br>
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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. <br>
<br>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 :)<br>
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3) The View tab icons (Register, Budget, Chart) should be a radio button group so they indicate which view mode is currently set.</blockquote></div><div><br>Agreed. I was going to make a 'manual' radio button out of ToggleToolButtons, but a radio button group might be even better.<br>
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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).</blockquote>
</div><div><br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br><br></div><div class="Ih2E3d">
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5) When entering items into the register, I was wanting to use tab to get to the different input fields (description -> amount -> category).</blockquote></div><div><br>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.<br>
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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. :-)</blockquote></div><div><br>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.<br>
<br>Best,<br>Wade<br><br><br></div></div><br>
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