GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 563588
Column Width not intuitive
Last modified: 2018-06-29 22:13:30 UTC
It's my first day using GnuCash, so my comments are based on only a couple or hours' usage. But the facility for adjusting the width of columns seems far from intuitive. I would expect this to work like Excel and other Windows applications: I should be able to drag the vertical line between two columns in the column header bar to set the column width. If I do this with GnuCash, the bar appears to drag, but when I release my mouse it jumps back again, or makes some unpredictable change to this or other columns. Double-clicking these bars to set the column width to the width of the widest cell in the column (or the widest cell in the column that's visible in the window - yes, I know Windows applications aren't consistent in this) seems to work a bit better, but even this doesn't seem to do what I expect (which is roughly what Excel does). Thanks - Rowan Other information:
(I'm pretty sure this has been reported before; at least this bug has been known for a long time. Sorry for that.)
*** Bug 506261 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 345711 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
You can find the Its-a-feature answer in Bug 110716 - Register columns don't resize properly. At least it should be better documented.
Rowan, rest assured your opinion is shared. Specifically, enlarging a column after narrowing it does not do the opposite. When narrowing down a column, Description enlarges to fill the screen. However, when enlarging, the converse does not happen. The columns become too large for the screen and a scroll bar appears. I think calling this "not intuitive" is feeble - the columns resizing behavior is inconsistent and warranted a FAQ item on http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_How_do_I_resize_my_register_columns.3F__Why_can_I_not_shrink_the_description_column.3F Although this item offers a simple workaround and this problem is indeed "just" an interface issue, I believe the problem's Severity minor and Priority Normal are not representative.
This should have been rsolved with Bug 666576.
Oops. Too many bug tabs open. Ignore comment 6.
*** Bug 723890 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I can totally confirm this bug! With the current implementation, I am unable to resolve the following issue. The FAQ ist not helping: http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_How_do_I_resize_my_register_columns.3F_Why_can_I_not_shrink_the_description_column.3F) I want the GnuCash-window to cover the right half of the screen. Usually in win7 this is just dragging the window to the right edge of the screen. This also works for GnuCash but it takes more than half of the screen if an account is open. I can not make the window smaller by dragging the edge of the window. I can not make the description column smaller. If I make some column wider, a horizontal scroll bar appears but I can not make the window smaller by dragging the edge of the window. The whole situation is very annoying since it's not possible to fit two GnuCash-windows on one screen!
Still a problem in 2.6?
Yes, it's still a problem. I am using 2.6.3 and Windows 10.
(nikop@web.de) Just to confirm, this bug is about column widths and not about your window size problem. That's a different bug and deserves it's own bug report.
I guess you're right, Mike. I filed Bug 762647. But concerning this one: I agree with Rowan and Filipus, because making one column behave differently is not intuitive and feels buggy.
OK. I'll leave it open but I don't think anyone is going to fix this.
I am a new user of gnucash and ran into this bug. The net result is that the register for my checking account allows only 999.99 as the maximum amount shown in the "Balance" column (last column of the register). All attempts to widen the column results in an increase of decrease to the width of the description column. All other columns can be changed, but not the last column. gnucash is 2.6.14 OS is macOS Sierra Version 10.12.4 Macbook Air Is there a work-around for this problem?
I'm truly baffled. After spending hours trying to adjust the column widths to no avail, I finally gave up. I installed gnucash on my Linux system, then went to lunch. When I came back from lunch my MacBook now shows all columns properly adjusted to widths that show all data with one exception. Now the description column is truncated. When I expand the register window, the description column expands to show the entire description when I drag the window size large enough. The problem seems to be solved. I should go to lunch more often! I guess I won't need the linux version.
GnuCash bug tracking has moved to a new Bugzilla host. The new URL for this bug is https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=563588. Please continue processing the bug there and please update any external references or bookmarks.