Finally, the most-awaited migration from
GUIDE to AppDesigner
has occurred. That of my beloved program: AcBook... and as expected, the new
version is numbered 9. This latest version of AcBook could have been easily
numbered 10, just like Windows 10 came after Windows 8(.1) by completely
skipping 9. The reason that could have happened is because this new AcBook is
completely redesigned from the ground up (as Microsoft is so fond of saying
for almost everything every couple of months) in AppDesigner with only bare
bones of GUIDE code surviving the transition. The reason that did not happen
is because I like (even love, if that’s possible) the number 9 and there’s no
way I would have skipped it.
We start at the start screen, of course. The Menubar and Toolbar have been
stripped down with only “essential” items being in these two places. The
toolbar duplicates the File menu, more or less. Below these is a collection of
tabs. The first tab is obviously the Home (🏡) tab. It contains the welcome
area with sign in buttons and load/save button. Below this fun area are three
sections where you can enter transactions, view/edit recent transactions, and
get an overview of your transactions via 5 (or less, if you want) “widgets”.
The second tab is the Transactions (💳) tab. This tab allows you to view all
your transactions. You can do all sorts of actions on your transactions here:
edit, filter, delete, search, sort, etc.
The third tab is the Accounts (📚) tab. This tab shows you information about
all the existing accounts as well as an overview of the transaction data in
those accounts. In addition, you can create accounts here as well as perform
actions on them: edit, merge, remove & reorder. I am proud of implementing
the last action in the way that I have done it, because MATLAB does not have a
straightforward way to reorder rows of a table!
The fourth tab is the Groups (📑) tab. This tab shows you information about
all the existing groups as well as an overview of the transaction data in
those groups. In addition, you can create groups here as well as perform
actions on them: edit, merge & remove.
The fifth tab is the Budgets (💰) tab. This tab lets you create multiple
budgets and see their details right there. In addition, this tab harbors the
currency converter (which used to be a part of the start screen in previous
versions) and explicitly shows the exchange rates for various currencies.
The sixth tab is the Charts (📊) tab, which allows you to visualize your
transaction data in various ways. This tab has changed a bit from the previous
versions with some new charts for certain options, new behaviour for certain
combination of options, and an explicit transaction data table present which
shows the transactions used to plot the charts!
The seventh tab is the Settings (⚙️) tab, which is itself split into two tabs.
Its first tab contains global settings for the user of the program (🧑💻).
Sadly, the widgets settings do not all work in this version. In fact, only the
“Show Widget” setting is currently implemented and working well. Other widgets
settings will be completed in the next version (hopefully) because some more
work on the structure of the file data (as it is stored & manipulated in
the background) itself needs to be done for these settings to work properly or
even be properly implemented! For the first time in two decades, I have
implemented the “auto-save” feature against my own wishes and I like it. I
even got used to it for a few weeks but then debugging errors (unrelated to
this setting!) with this option checked is not a good idea, so I’ve turned it
off for myself for the time being.
Its second tab contains local settings for the currently open file (🗄️). This
tab is self-explanatory but let me know if you think I have missed some
settings that should be included here (or the previous tab for that matter!).
Well, that more or less wraps up the changelog post for this version. But
before I end with the link to the installer, I want to introduce you to a
“similar” app:
Cashew
(available on Android and Desktop as a
webapp). It is a
well-made app with a gorgeous UI, intuitive workflow, truckloads of useful features
(even has some version of
ExpenSplit
in it!) and frequent updates dealing with bugs, enhancements and improvements.
It feels pleasant to use and works smoothly. I know that none of my readers
will ever use AcBook (because there is huge potential well to even install it
and it is available only on Windows 11) but I urge you to give Cashew a try at
least for a week. I am pretty sure it will redefine for you what an app should
be like. I am even willing to say that a couple of years back when I dabbled
into Xamarin to make an AcBook app, I had a vision which was similar to what
Cashew is. But I had neither the expertise (in other words, familiarity with
the “app paradigm”) nor the patience to see it through. Anyway, enough with
praising Cashew, let me praise its lead developer now.
James (from Canada) replied promptly and politely to my
emails about bugs in his app and fixed them on priority (it seemed so to me).
He even took one of my enhancement requests in the same spirit and implemented
it in the next day’s update! So a great person and a great app… what’s
stopping you to use it!
Finally, let us get back to AcBook. The webpage from where you can download
the installer follows.
AcBook Page
