GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 340037
Register shows splits, not transactions -- confusing with multiple splits into one account
Last modified: 2018-06-29 21:02:46 UTC
1) New file (USD) 2) USD Bank account (USD) 3) JMD Bank account (JMD) 4) Move $100,000 to USD Bank 5) Move $50,000 to JMD Bank (rate 40) 6) Do the following transaction in USD Bank Account Deposit Withdrawal US Bank $30,000 JMD Bank $30,000 (30 in rate) Income:CapGain $10,000 JMD Bank $10,000 (0 in rate) Set View -> Basic View Open JMD Bank Account 1) You will see three transactions. 2) Change view to Transaction View --> two transactions 3) Change view to Auto Split --> three transactions
IMHO, this isn't a bug. The Register displays splits, not transactions. When you have a single transaction with multiple splits into a single account, when you open that account you see that transaction twice, once for each split. Arguably the register might have a mode to combine multiple splits from a single transaction into one entry in Basic mode (or Auto-Split mode when the cursor isn't on the transaction in question).
This seems to have been a rather common misunderstanding over the years. I believe it's because the user perception is that the register is actually displaying transactions in all register modes, (even though this is not technically true). Even in basic mode, one of the most important fields ("Account") in the row isn't related to "this split". It either shows the Account for the _other_ split or "--Split Transaction--". Either way, there's significant *transaction* information representation in the row. So, to the user, the current behavior is apparently (in Auto-Split mode) to show the _same_ split multiple times in multiple copies of the same transaction. They obviously get used to this behavior and it's pretty harmless, but I think it remains idiosyncratic. It's reasonable for a user to expect that Basic mode, Auto-split and Transaction mode all show the same number of transactions. I think the general user experience of these modes is that they change the expansion policy of the cursor (Basic = don't expand by default; Auto-Split = expand the transaction at the cursor; Transaction = expand all transactions), _not_ that these modes are switching from displaying *splits* to displaying *transactions*. I'll also note that there's another HCI faux pas as a consequence of the current behavior: The meaning of the "amount" field for the "transaction" row changes depending on whether the transaction is expanded or not. (because it's not _really_ a "transaction" row at all, it just _looks_ like one.) There's no good reason not to let the cell mean the same thing all the time. Anyway, I really don't expect anyone to change this behavior in the current register, but I plan on making the new register more consistent in this regard.
Reopening as a reminder for the register rewrite.
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