Lookup Lists

[hsoft]

From GS

The auto look-up and remembering of Payees is really very nice in MoneyGuru. However there are times I want to see what I have already entered. For example I know I have entered a transaction for a particular payee but as I type their name nothing gets found. So I can only think I used a wrong name before or a misspelling etc. How can I look through the Payee names already stored and edit/correct those that require it?

While, for this particular issue, a "Payee edition view" would do the trick, it would be a duplication of functionality and a weird way to do Mass Transaction Edition (because that's what it would ultimately do: edit all transaction with the old payee, and replace the payee with a new one).

What I'm thinking here is to add a "Lookup list", a list that you could summon while editing any auto-completed field. It would popup a window with a list + search field, and you could double-click an item to put it in the currently edited field.

For this particular issue, this list could be used to figure out what payee to replace. We would then double-click on that "wrongly typed payee" and use it for our new transaction. Then, we would copy/paste that wrong payee in the Transaction search field (with the "payee:" argument) which will allow us to select all transactions with that payee and perform a Mass Edition on them.

[hsoft]

I think I see where you are going. Would this be similar to say the auto-complete pop-up list in other applications like BBedit, Safari etc? So for example if I was entering a medical transaction and began typing "M" for say "Medical Centre" and there was no "Medical Centre" in the payee pop-up list I could conclude that either I had not entered this before or remember I had called it something else and delete the "M" and maybe type say "E" for "East Bwck Med Centre" and see that this was there.
In the applications where I have seen this, only a single click (or even using the arrow keys) is enough to select one of the offered terms, rather than a double click.

This is a great approach from a data entry perspective, unobtrusive and very functional. However it misses out on one thing. If I do not remember that I called the payee "East Bwck Med Centre", I will never know.
Hence the desire to be able to see a list of the payee's already entered. The transaction view does not offer this easily as I cannot change the sort order to sort by Payee (which would at least make scanning the list of payee's easier.)

[hsoft]

No, I don't mean this list to be an auto-complete popup like in Safari's address bar. It would add little functionality to the existing auto-complete feature (as you mentioned, there would still be the problem of needing to know the first letter of the item to auto-complete).

What I was thinking about is a separate window that could be opened with either a key press (something like Cmd-L) or a little button that would be present is auto-completable field. This window could be invoked even when there's nothing written in the field yet. The invoked window would have a search field with below a list of matches for the search (initially, all values).

I think I would also allow fuzzier matches in that window (for example, "med" would match both "Medical Centre" and "East Bwck Med Centre").

[hsoft]

ok, I understand.

"The invoked window would have a search field with below a list of matches for the search (initially, all values)." - your "initially, all values" gives this the function I want and the addition of a fuzzier search completes the feature list :-)

[hsoft]

A suggestion on GS made me think about an additional use for this feature: Quick account jumping. When Cmd-L would be pressed outside the context of transaction editing, it would show a list of accounts and selecting an account from that list would show it in the Account view.

[hsoft]

Not sure we are still in the same context. The look up list is to help entering transactions, the account jumping is more likely associated with reviewing transactions.
What you are suggesting seems to offer two different functions for the same keystroke (CMD_L) depending on where the cursor is.

I can understand having the same look up functionality (i.e. search box with fuzzy items below) look up or present different content depending on which type of content is the current edit field (i.e accounts if in the account field, payee if in the payee field, category of in the category field.)

[hsoft]

Yeah, I guess it deserve it's own ticket (#118).

As for the keybindings, well, I guess I'll see when I try them. I like the idea of Cmd-L bringing up "that quick selection list", regardless of the context.

[hsoft]

(from [1df5965ed312]) [#98 state:fixed] Added completion lookup. I couldn't get it to work on Qt however. For tables, the editor closes as soon as the lookup dialog shows up, and in panels, there can't be any lookup because they're modal. I'm not sure how I'll work around this crap.
http://bitbucket.org/hsoft/moneyguru/changeset/1df5965ed312/

[hsoft]

(from [e8d92ec46e05]) [#98] Changed the title of the lookup dialogs.
http://bitbucket.org/hsoft/moneyguru/changeset/e8d92ec46e05/

[hsoft]

(from [9d596ef95a2d]) [#98] Fixed a bug causing duplicate values to be in the account completion lookup and fixed another bug causing important delays whe tabbing through cells during editing.
http://bitbucket.org/hsoft/moneyguru/changeset/9d596ef95a2d/

[hsoft]

(from [ad6509a265d5]) [#98] Fixed completion lookup for entry table.
http://bitbucket.org/hsoft/moneyguru/changeset/ad6509a265d5/

[hsoft]

(from [eb693c030319]) [#98] When a completion lookup is chosen, clear previous completion.
http://bitbucket.org/hsoft/moneyguru/changeset/eb693c030319/