Difference between revisions of "User talk:Jim DeLaHunt"

Latest revision as of 04:33, 10 December 2023

This is a place to have conversations. Please put each topic under a different heading.

Context menus on MacOS

Hi Jim, Thanks for contributing to GnuCash's wiki. My name is David T., and I've put in a bit of time on the documentation over the years. I appreciate the information about the change in CTRL-Click behavior (as a longtime Mac user).

I was wondering whether your would object to a re-wording of the question? I think it would be stylistically better to say:

"Q: How can I get context menus on MacOS?"

The issue here after all is accessing context menus--not using the non-existent right button. Changing the question in the above way makes it clearer, in my opinion.

Also, the current official designation for Apple's OS is "MacOS."

Next, I'd recommend a few changes to the body. You have:

"A: Use two-finger click on an Apple trackpad. MacOS interprets this as a right-click, and GnuCash displays a context menu. The normal control-click convention does not gives a right-click on Mac OS systems, as of GnuCash 3.5. It gives a normal click instead. (This is a limitation of GTK3, described in bug 797286.)"

I would go with a different approach (again to emphasize the change between versions):

"A: In GnuCash versions prior to 3.0, users can access context menus by using Control-click.

To access context menus in GnuCash versions 3.0 and higher, use a two-finger click on the trackpad.

With version 3.0, GnuCash changed to use GTK3, which interprets Control-click as a normal click. This is a limitation of GTK3, as described in 797286)."

The result would be:

Q: How can I get context menus on MacOS?

A: In GnuCash versions prior to 3.0, users can access context menus by using Control-click.

To access context menus in GnuCash versions 3.0 and higher, use a two-finger click on the trackpad.

With version 3.0, GnuCash changed to use GTK3, which interprets Control-click as a normal click. This is a limitation of GTK3, as described in 797286.

If you agree, I can make the change, or you could do it yourself. Just let me know. Cheers!

--the above comment posted 10:37, 24 June 2019‎ by User:Sunfish62

DavidT aka Sunfish62, thank you for your comments and thank you for all your work improving the wiki.

This is a wiki, so please go ahead and make improvements as you see fit. Others will also, and I will too. I think there are really two issues to clarify: that one gets context menus in GnuCash 3.x on macOS by means of double-tap, and that GnuCash 3 does not interpret control-click as right-click as one might expect. Both issues matter. The documentation mentions "control-click on macOS", so it's reasonable to expect that people might try control-click on GnuCash 3.x on macOS, observe it fail, and look for an explanation of why.

Also, I think the Wiki's content on macOS topics has a haphazard structure still, despite your recent improvements to it. It might be that these notes about context menus and about control-click don't really belong on the FAQ page, they should be on the MacOS page instead. Also also, I think the official name for Apple's OS starts with a lowercase letter, as in macOS Mojave. "MacOS" is wrong, strictly speaking, but Wikimedia rules that article links start with a capital letter will make it hard to spell correctly everywhere. There are still many references to "Mac OS X" throughout the Wiki. Those are correct if referring to old versions, but wrong if referring to current versions. So, I expect that if we work on these bigger issues, we will have plenty of chances to fix the details.

Jim DeLaHunt (talk) 21:56, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Change <tt> tags to <pre> or <code> throughout, because <tt> does not give correct formatting, and Help:Formatting does not mention <tt>

[1]

Hi Jim, you are right and I fear I am becoming old: <tt>: The Teletype Text element (obsolete) shows a few more modern replacements. And we have Wiki Tips and Wiki Conventions. Feel free to help me to keep them current and apply them on existing pages. --Fell (talk) 15:32, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, Fell, for the appreciation and for the reference to the Wiki Tips and Wiki Conventions articles. When I was making my edit, I looked for documentation of correct usage, and did not find Wiki Tips and Wiki Conventions. I wish that Help:Formatting was a page which we could usefully customise. It would be helpful to have links to Wiki Tips and Wiki Conventions in Help:Formatting. But I it looks like it is hosted on the MediaWiki site, so is not under our control. How else could we make our local guidance more visible? Jim DeLaHunt (talk) 15:54, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

New users get the links in the registration process, but perhaps we should add them at other prominent places. And right, help links to mediawiki pages. --Fell (talk) 21:30, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Online Quotes: (Add category MacOS)

https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/index.php?title=Online_Quotes&curid=1814&diff=21944&oldid=21762

Why do you think this page should be shown in Category:MacOS? It is also for Linux and Windows users. --Fell (talk) 03:04, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Good question! I added Category:MacOS because this page has content which answered a Mac-specific question about Online Quotes on the gnucash-user list. In looking for the page, I checked the pages tagged with Category:MacOS, and Online Quotes was not included. But I knew that there was relevant macOS content there. I added it myself! I have learned a trick for finding things — if you look for it, and can't find it, then when you eventually find it, put it in the first place you looked. Also note, I don't interpret Category tags to mean that a page is about only that topic, rather that it is at least in part about that topic. I think it would be fine to tag Online Quotes with categories for Windows and Linux as well. Jim DeLaHunt (talk) 05:22, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Then we would have to mark almost all pages with all three OSes. That would IMHO make the category system useless. The top level category of this page is Usage —without OS restrictions. --Fell (talk) 03:57, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't get what you mean by "top level category of this page is Usage". Yes, it has a link at the top to another page, Using GnuCash. But that doesn't stop this page from having OS-specific information, and so I don't see how it should stop this page from having an OS category displayed at the bottom. Also, that link to Using GnuCash does not seem to use the Category mechanism. Maybe it's a top-level "approach"? "theme"? Jim DeLaHunt (talk) 04:33, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

So, I think I disagree with your take on two fronts. First, having lots of pages categorised by OS seems fine to me. That means that if I am looking for OS-specific tips, I can go to the OS category page, and get a pretty comprehensive list of pages that have information specific to that OS which differs from the platform-independent information. As I explained, that would have helped me discover this information in a specific recent situation. Second, I don't see why having one "top level category" prevents having other category structures applied as well. "Usage Guidance" and "OS-specific guidance" are cross-cutting frames of reference. A single explanation can be categories in both frames at once. Some readers will want one frame, some will want the other. Jim DeLaHunt (talk) 04:33, 10 December 2023 (UTC)