I been useing manager for a short period. And always having to scroll down to the bottom, especially in single Payments/Receipts and Payments/Receipts all, slows down the workflow and take extra time. I would love to see button as Update, Delete, Previous, next under single Payments/Receipts. As well as Export, Batch Create, Batch Delete, Import Statement and Find & Recode under all Payments/Receipts. See below.
I think it would be great to add top buttons on all the pages where there are buttons at the bottom.
When entering or editing a payment or receipt, there is neither a “Next” nor a “Previous.” Manager operates as a browser, so there is a Back button at the top left and there are breadcrumb links above the transaction pane.
These functions are consistenly placed at the bottom in all tabs. They are all secondary functions. Throughout the program, you find the primary function buttons at the top (in this case, New Receipt and New Payment) and secondary ones at the bottom. They are also the functions with greater potential to damage your records if improperly used. Their placement at the bottom was not accidental.
Next and Previous buttons can be convenient for browsing/searching trough the files (invoices etc.). I guess it’s not to hard to implement either. The buttons simply need to point to the next or previous file.
By “no context,” I mean that the program does not know of any receipt or payment that is next or previous. Suppose you launch the program and go to the Receipts & Payments tab and enter a new receipt. How would the program know of a next or previous receipt? (Review @uniquef’s first post. The first screen shot shows a simulated portion of a payment entry screen with Previous and Next buttons. I was making the point that such buttons would make no sense.)
Now suppose you are moving around in the program, making entries and reviewing data. You view a receipt. Which receipt or payment would be next or previous? Or would next and previous apply to the sales invoice or purchase order you just entered, or to the balance sheet you just viewed? Again, next and previous do not make sense. But, if you want to go back to what you were looking at prior viewing the receipt, the Back button will take you there. Clicking it again will take you back another page, etc.
@Tut I see your point. I disagree I still think it would be useful to have to buttons at the top as well. Another way would be to add shortkeys which would be even faster. This will make the interface less cluttered… And at the same time be able to fast access the functions.
@Tut I see your point how should the program know what direction to go. If you use previous or next date it might be workable Example: if I do a search for telephone for example and what to change maybe the amount of personal use on all of them.
I understand that the shortcuts work differently on different platforms. Still there are a lot of cross platform software that uses shortcuts. So it’s workable if it’s a priority…thats a different story…
There actually aren’t many cross-platform applications. Microsoft Office apps, for example, are different programs for different operating systems. When you do that, you can program the same shortcuts into the different versions, because you know which OS they will run on. Manager runs the same software on different OS’s for the desktop edition. And it allows access by any browser for the server and cloud editions. In the latter situations, shortcuts in one browser don’t translate well to shortcuts in other browsers.
I see your point I was just assuming that if a program has the same version it’s the same application which probably is not true. So I see the difficulty of having shortkeys. Thanks for your reply.
What happens if you have searched for a customer, as an example. Do you still want the next transaction date? Or did you want the next customer? And if you want the next date, do you want the next one for that customer or the next one that was entered? That’s why I said there was no context.
Thank you for explaining. The previous and next buttons should only be visible when viewing a sales-invoice,
a purchase invoice, a customer etc. and not be displayed when entering or editing. So i think the function should be, when viewing a file show the next or previous record, nothing more nothing less.
Just as with the entry screen, you could get to a View screen from many predecessors: a tab listing, a transctions list, a report drill-down, a just-created transaction, etc. And some of those could be the result of searches or sorts. So what would “Next” or “Previous” mean? That would be a shifting answer. And such shifting circumstances would lead to confusion.
I don’t think i made myself clear. When viewing e.g. a Sales-Invoice and you press the Next-button (or Previous-button) the next (or Previous) Sales-invoice should show in viewing-mode. This way you can browse/search trough the Sales-invoices (or customers, Purchase invoices etc.).
You were perfectly clear, @Frankie. The question is, next or previous according to what criteria? Issue date, due date, reference number, days overdue, same or different customer, alphabetical order, code number, item number, status? The possibilities go on and on.
One of the important aspects of good interface design is that the same action produces repeatable and expected results. Given all the possible situations under which a sales invoice, or any transaction, might be viewed, the descriptors next and previous simply do not mean anything consistent.
