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    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      The above poll is a list of features we intend to deliver for CalendarBudget.  This list is created by CalendarBudget development and requests from you, the users.  Some of these features may never be completed as other requests are identified and take a higher priority.  However, when I sit down to develop new CalendarBudget features, this is the list I work from.  Feel free to vote on what’s important to you and post comments changes or new requests. 

      As new requests are made, I’ll add them to the above poll to see if they gain traction.  As items are completed, I’ll remove them from the list.

      Note: This is not a place to report bugs – just new features.  If you are having a problem with an existing feature, please use the Support board.

    • Avatar of obelixObelix
      Participant
      Post count: 48

      I’d like to suggest an adaptation on one of the options to work on.  You have listed to work on tracking and paying off the debt with the biggest interest %.  I would also suggest having an option to alternately pay off the smallest debt first.  By doing that it frees up a chunk of cash that can be put towards the next biggest debt and then so on.  Its not the best way in a strictly financial sense, but it allows the person to actually SEE progress (Well, Honey, thats one credit card paid off).  Its more about building momentum and excitement as the person sees the accounts cleared.  Its called the Debt Snowball.  I got this idea from Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University study. 

      Just my two cents.

    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      I’m familiar with the debt snowball method… and even Dave Ramsey admits its not the best way to go about repaying debt – but you’re right in suggesting that the satisfaction of completing a debt repayment is such a great feeling of closure, its a psychological goal that people can really get behind, whereas paying down a huge debt can feel like using a chisel to conquer a mountain, often resulting in lack of focus.

      My experience is that the debt snowball works best if you have a relatively large number of small debts.  However, since in the end this method results in you paying more, if you have few large debts, paying off the highest interest is definitely the best way to go.

      I agree it would be nice to have both methods, with the debt snowball being a secondary method. 
      Thanks for the suggestion.

    • Avatar of thumperThumper
      Participant
      Post count: 23

      The high and low balances for the currently viewed month is the one in particular I would want the most.

      I have this on another budgeting program.  Soooooo very handy.  ;)

    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      For High/Low if I just highlighted the border to be high=green, low=red (similar to how today is outlined in blue) would that be sufficient?
      I’m imagine a checkbox somewhere in the main interface that would enable the showing of high/low.

    • Avatar of obelixObelix
      Participant
      Post count: 48

      Hmm I like that idea.  Either that or lightly shading the background of those days in the green and red.

    • Avatar of thumperThumper
      Participant
      Post count: 23

      Eric’s idea would probably be better.  If someone selects all the categories on the left side panel, a day with lots of entries will completely cover the background.

      Although, if someone has a long streak of high/low days, will all the borders make it look too busy?

      I was thinking of colouring the bar that the actual date and the total occupy.  However, that too may get lost in the shuffle if all categories are chosen, unless the total bar was set up to flash in that case.  That might annoy folks though.

      Perhaps lightly shading the total bar would work.  It doesn’t really need to stand out like the bold colours of the categories, it just needs to indicate that there is something unusual about that particular day (or days).

    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      I think too many colors can be challenging to digest, especially when they are a similar size as entry-category colorings.  Thats why I was suggesting the cell border colorings.
      When you say there may be a long streak of high/low days…. do you mean there may be several says (presumably in a row) which all have the lowest amount and same for highest?
      I was originally thinking to just color the first low mark and first high mark… however, if there are other cells with those same balances – they should probably all be colored whether they are in a contiguous block or not.

      I may be able to get really fancy and if there is a block of high/lows as described above – to only outline the block, not each cell (remove the colored borders between the cells in the block).

    • Avatar of thumperThumper
      Participant
      Post count: 23

      When you say there may be a long streak of high/low days…. do you mean there may be several says (presumably in a row) which all have the lowest amount and same for highest?

      Yep.  Suppose someone’s looking at a savings account that only get money once every couple weeks.  There could be a lot of days with the same or low high balance.

      I may be able to get really fancy and if there is a block of high/lows as described above – to only outline the block, not each cell (remove the colored borders between the cells in the block).

      Now that would be pretty nifty.  :)

      It might also be something that one could turn on and off, similar to the categories.

    • Avatar of obelixObelix
      Participant
      Post count: 48

      Hmm true I hadn’t thought about the entries covering the background.

    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      High/Low feature implemented and available now – minus fancy group outline, which I’ve deferred to a later date.

    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      Hey Everyone,

      I’ve been working on a mockup of the CalendarBudget UI trying to integrate all of the upcoming features that will have a major inpact on the UI without cluttering things too much and having the UI be too busy.  I’m attaching  my mockup here for comments.

      The following features have been added to this mockup (these features are NOT yet available – its just graphics for now).

      • Ad space used in bottom left corner
      • Account aggregate tab
      • Extra tab with a + symbol – making it easier to add new accounts
      • Search (on top of category list)
      • Alerts will be available as a tab with categories.  Goals would be reported in the alerts tab

      Opinions?

    • Avatar of thumperThumper
      Participant
      Post count: 23

      So the “All accounts” will show all transactions from all accounts on one calendar?  Is that right?

      The “+” tab will make people very happy.  Much more intuitive.

      I guess the ad space was inevitable.  :D

      Looks good.

    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      Yes, the All Accounts will show all of your transactions on one calendar from all accounts – giving an overview.

      Keep in mind – the ad space will only be used for partners and the free accounts.  Anyone continuing to use CalendarBudget “Premium” from calendarbudget.com will have no ads, that will be a pleasing blank space.

    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      One more adjustment thats been bugging me for a while…
      The date controls, high/low picker and bookmarks should be global controls, not specific for each account.  Thus, I’ve moved them out of the account tabs, as in the attached, updated mockup.

    • Avatar of lucasLucas
      Participant
      Post count: 34

      As a “Work Offline” feature is in that list, I’d like to bring to your attention (if you weren’t already totally aware of it) the great tool that is Google Gears.

      Check out http://gears.google.com/

      Services using this:
      Google Reader, Zoho Writer, Remember the Milk and Google Docs.

    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      Yup – I have considered Google Gears, but mainly for performance, not off-line work.
      To my knowledge, Gears simply stores files on your HD rather than pulling them from a network resource.  So in our case, I could make the whole HTML/JavaScript library Gears enabled, then next time you visit CalendarBudget you only really pull your data, not the HTML/JavaScript.  That will improve performance.

      However, working off-line requires more.  I have thought about this and I believe there is a good solution to it.  Factor include having to store the changes you make until you connect again, then pushing those changes to the server.  I have a bunch of higher priority features lined up ahead of this, so I haven’t done any in-depth thinking about it yet, except that I am comfortable that it is possible and on the future development plan.

    • Avatar of lucasLucas
      Participant
      Post count: 34

      As far as I can tell, Google Gears already has these kind of features enabled in its API, so I’m not sure just how much actual coding would be required for this specific feature… I might be completely wrong though (I’m not a programmer).

    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      Working off-line is fine… however, eventually you want changes you’ve made to be pushed to the server.  Thats where the challenge comes… That, and prioritizing this item with other features :)

      On another note… All Accounts tab is almost finished.  We’re testing it now and correcting a few bugs before updating the system.

    • Avatar of lucasLucas
      Participant
      Post count: 34

      I think Google Gears handles the update from offline to server also…

      I had another flash (when you get tired of them, just tell me :P) in regards to the “Stay logged on” feature.

      What I’ve noticed is that if I put my computer to sleep and then come back to it later with my browser still open, I can still view what’s on my calendar for the current month, try to add or edit items, but if I try to actually make a change it gives me a “Session Expired” error, I click OK, and i can still see the calendar and everything.

      My suggestion would be:
      If the system detects the session is expired, it shows you a box that says “Session expired, please re-enter your password: [********] [OK]”, and will have kept in memory the change you were doing. It logs you right back in, does the change you requested, and voilà! You don’t actually need to remember sessions and logons, you just have people re-enter their password (which isn’t very annoying or intrusive if you ask me).

    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      I’ll have to take a closer look at Google Gears.  However, I know Dojo also supports offline and CalendarBudget already heavily uses Dojo.  Rather than introduce a new javascript library, I’ll first check out Dojo to keep CalendarBudget as lightweight as possible.

      I really like the session refresher idea of just re-entering a password.  I actually came up with a design for that a long time ago, but it always got pushed to the bottom of the priority list.  I think it won’t take more than a few hours to do that, so I’ll find my design and re-prioritize that.  When is does happen, its annoying, especially if you lose a complicated entry.

      Keep the ideas coming!

    • Avatar of lucasLucas
      Participant
      Post count: 34

      Along with the session refresh, maybe you could think about adding a checkmark to the Accounts Setup screen, “Visible on All Accounts”. Some might think it defeats the purpose, but I would actually call it “Overview” and give the option to ignore some accounts. I actually have a Visa and my Car Loan account in there, and seeing a negative number in the 5 digits in my “all accounts” isn’t very enticing to my budget (Plus, it shows transfers as 2 entries which can be confusing).

    • Avatar of kerrbearkerrbear
      Participant
      Post count: 8

      Keep in mind – the ad space will only be used for partners and the free accounts.  Anyone continuing to use CalendarBudget “Premium” from calendarbudget.com will have no ads, that will be a pleasing blank space.

      I am wondering if it would be possible for premium accounts to extend the categories box to eliminate or at least make less scrolling in that box when looking through the categories/budget for the month.  Of course, this isn’t a priority, but makes more sense to me than the blank space when I have a long list of categories.

    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      Yes, we may do that. We are having some internal discussions about that space now.
      We’re trying to decide what to do when people are using CalendarBudget Premium from a partner.
      At the moment, the free account shows an ad for them to upgrade to Premium.  If they sign up for premium, the partners’ ad shows.

      I think if people sign up directly from calendarbudget.com, we can just leave that space blank and extend the categories down like you are suggesting.

      We’ll have a decision on this soon.

    • Anonymous
      Guest
      Post count: 42

      Wish List – I wish I could – Reports – Category Trends – 1. option to have a “Monthly Income and Total Expenses” Report –  [only 2 lines]; 2. Only Monthly Expenses Report [exclude income]; and 3. option to only Report selected categories PLUS a Print Report option.

      Thanks – keep up the great work!

    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      So would a monthly balance sheet work for this request?  A balance sheet would show income on a left column, expenses on a right column?

    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      We’ve just made the category sidebar extend all the way down.  If you are a Premium user, there is no ad, and you have all of that vertical space.

    • Avatar of globallzgloballz
      Participant
      Post count: 1

      Would there be any way to make it so the remain balance before a payday could be zeroed out for people who transfer the remaining balance of the checking account to their savings account every month?

    • Avatar of eric poulinEric Poulin
      Keymaster
      Post count: 379

      Let me propose a clarifying scenario.
      Lets say you had $450 in your checking account, and had a payday coming in a few days.
      You are suggesting you want to transfer this $450 to your savings account?
      You can do that today, by creating a transfer from your checking account to your savings account for the $450 remaining balance.

      I think there are not many who do this on a regular basis, such that we’d not likely automate this, however, creating transfers in this way are straight forward, and you can even create repeating transfers into the future which will just need to be adjusted as the amounts vary from entry to entry.

      Hope that answers your question. Let me know if you had something else in mind.

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