[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: Future Feature List #3560

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.

[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: Changing Recurrence Day & Child Entry Management #3692

I understand that.
I think there are some improvements that can be made to avoid the confusion.

If I detect what changes were made I should be able to deduce the right choice and eliminate that 2nd choice panel altogether as you suggest.  You’ll still be left with the separated (orphaned) entries that are duplicates though.

[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: Mouse Wheel #3586

Yes, I hear that.
My only concern is… when we show 14 for Feb and 28 for March, and I switch to March in the category budgets and month indicator, that the whole month of March is not showing.  The category budgets are set for the whole month and thus there is a visual inconsistency since that whole month is not visible.  If, for example, you had a $5000 entry on Mar 30th (not visible), the category budget amounts won’t appear to make sense for that snapshot of the screen.

Perhaps I’m worrying too much about it, but I don’t want people to scroll partially through and wonder — hey why is that category so high, there’s nothing causing that (except that its in the 1 day thats off screen in the next week).

[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: Why the end date? #3695

Well we do need an end date… here’s why.
Unlike Google Calendar, which just needs to track dates and an associated title, I need to account for dollar amounts that add up through the months.
In Google Calendar, when you create an entry (with or without and end date), I imagine the backend just creates 1 database entry describing the repeat options.  Then when you load a particular month, Google checks any entries marked as repeating and seeing is they should show this month.  Easy enough…
However, for CalendarBudget, I not only need to determine where to show it, but I need to add up all of the values of preceeding entries to incorporate with month’s starting balance.  So, in CalendarBudget, when you create a repeating entry, I have to create a database entry for each and every instance you see in the calendar.  If you create weekly entry for 2 years, that 104 database entries in CalendarBudget. 

So – For that reason, I need to know how far into the future to create these entries.
Does the 5 year default seems too far out?  Would 2 years (or some other number) make more sense?

[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: [FEATURE REQUEST] Credit Card / Loan / Credit Margin integration #3704

Yes, so long as the interest is fixed, we can calculate it along with the warnings and alerts you are suggesting.

[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: Future Feature List #3558

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.

[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: Changing Recurrence Day & Child Entry Management #3690

When editing a repeating entry there is an option dialog that appears giving you some choices:
– Edit this entry only?
– Edit this and all future entries?
– Edit All Entries (including entries in the past)?

If you choose either of the last 2, you are affecting repeating entries.  If you select one of those, an additional option panel appears below as follows:

– Modify properties of existing repeating entries in this series
– Recreate all repeating entry dates based on repeating entry attributes

If you are actually changing the dates, you should choose the later option, to recreate the entries, rather than just modify then in place.
Probably you are leaving the default option to modify existing entries, which leaves them on the current date.

Why do we have these last 2 options, you may ask?
There are a few reasons, both of which are a little complicated.
1) If you move a single entry that was part of a repeating series to another day and you chose “Only this entry”, that entry is taken out of the repeating entry series and is now standalone.  Any modifications to the repeating entries now will not affect this loner.  Sometimes you may move future entries to a different date (if they fall on a holiday or weekend or for whatever reason).  So this future entry, if adjusted will be broken out of the original series.  Now, adjustments to that repeating series will not affect that moved entry. Also, sometimes you will delete a particular entry in the future.  Changing exiting will not affect the deleted entry, but recreating will recreate all entries based on the repeating entry settings.

Now, if there is a change to the repeating entry, you can choose “Modify existing” which will only affect those entries still in the series.  However, those entries broken off are unaffected.  If you choose “Recreate”, the repeating series will be recreated (same as delete and create) and then entries will fall on the new dates you specified in the repeat entry settings.  This will still not affect any entries that were broken off the series… so now you may end up with a few duplicate entries that will need to be cleaned up. 

Basically, we wanted to give you the option to “start over” with the repeating entry (recreate) or just modify some properties (if you’ve made date adjustments in the future or individual deletions).

2) Second reason is for performance.  If you are just modifying entries that are already in the right place… its really fast.
Otherwise we have to delete the existing ones and recreate them, which means the database is deleting (possibly 1000s of rows) and then creating 1000s of new rows.  Rather than have your browser sit there for 30+ seconds while the db is working, we decided is might be more convenient to give you the option. 

We did worry about the options being a little confusing, but decided to push for flexibility.  Is there a better way you think we can work the options?
Perhaps I can detect if the repeat properties (date options) have changed, then force a recreate, not modify.  I’m still a little worried about orphaned duplicates in this case.

Thoughts?

[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: Future Feature List #3556

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.

[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: Future Feature List #3555

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.

[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: Future Feature List #3553

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?

[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: Limited Number of Accounts #3683

Actually, I didn’t think anyone would ever have need for more than 9 accounts.
You need more than 9, really??
It was a technical issue that would have required several hours of programming to overcome and associated testing.  Since I thought it would never happen, I just left it as is.
If you have a real need for more than 9 accounts, I can spend the time to solve the problem correctly.

[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: Future Feature List #3552

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

[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: Upload Image File #3688

Interesting idea.
Would that detail really be useful?

I think if the reason you want to keep a copy of the transaction receipt is for taxes or some other legal reason, you’re going to need the hard copy anyway.  Since you’d already be keeping the paper receipt, what is the value of keeping a scanned image if it?  CalendarBudget will already hold the correct amount.

I had thought originally to put some space to record some details for each transaction.  My thought was it would be a textarea, where you could enter free text about any details you want.  I ended up not implementing it, because it seemed overkill for the average user and I wanted to keep the edit dialog clean and not cluttered with extra fields that most people won’t use.

[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: Future Feature List #3549

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).

[Eric Poulin]

in reply to: Rearranging Account Order #3605

Tab color adjusted as follows (unselected tabs darkened):

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