tldr: Completely new workflow for adding new transactions and splitting transactions!
Happy Friday!
Although it may not seem like it, a lot has happened since last week. If you are reading this, you are still trying out the beta (or maybe you just downloaded it!). Thanks for trying it out and all the feedback you've given.
First, I've thought a lot about how to receive feedback from the community.
Giving feedback and voting for features
The primary way to give feedback is still to email hello@actualbudget.com or sent a DM to actualbudget. However, to begin some transparency into the process of what's gong on with Actual, I've set up a few things:
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I use Airtable to manage the whole project, including reported errors, internal issues, and more. I created a table to track high-level features that are currently being worked on, and you can publicly view it. You can track upcoming features there and see what I'm working on.
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Airtable is read-only to the public, and I really want a way to collaborate with users. After some research I landed on using Trello to engage with users since they allow boards to be public and any user to interact. Here's the Trello board for Actual, and you can see the same info from the Airtable table in there. In fact, it automatically syncs with Airtable - anytime I update the features table, you'll see it reflected in Trello as well.
Here's the kicker: not only can you vote on features in trello (and you'll see the "vote" column update in Airtable when you do so), you can request new features as well. You can do so by sending an email to actualbot+zqswfceedrvjvlswl9ib@boards.trello.com. The subject will become the cards title, and you can read more formatting options here.
To sum up: trello is where users can engage, vote on and request new features, and that board is synced both ways with Airtable where I manage everything.
What's new in 0.0.65
I spent a lot of time solidifying the transactions table. Please report any bugs, a lot of code has changed!
- New workflow for adding transactions Adding a new transaction was a little confusing before. It wasn't clear what was going on or how the user should interact with it. It's been updating to be more visually distinguishable, in addition to allowing split transactions to be entered.
Here's how adding a new split transaction looks:
- New split transaction workflow The previous method for splitting transactions was confusing as well. It was hard to know how to add a new split transaction, and more. Now there is a clearer way to add a new split transaction, and a more succinct message to help you know how much is left. A small toolbar appears to help you out, and once you've resolved the split transactions it'll automatically disappear.
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Stability The transactions table should feel a lot more stable. Various focus issues have been addressed, as well as minor UI tweaks.
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Tests This isn't visible to you, but I've started a test suite for the frontend. Previously I only had tests for the core parts of the program, but now I have several tests which interact with the transaction table. This way I can make sure to avoid regressions in the future and keep stability moving upwards over time.
Naturally, with so much new code there will likely be bugs. I will be tracking errors and release a follow-up version if I see any problems, but you can also report bugs via email/twitter (see beginning of message). Check out what I'll be working on next!
Have a good weekend!