Give us the ability to Rearrange Columns

steve150@

in the register view

UKR

More details, please.
What exactly are you trying to do?
A limited way of rearranging columns is available in banking account registers in Quicken for Windows. Go to Edit / Preferences / Register to see the options.
You can add or delete columns from the register view by selecting the Register Columns gear icon. For example, if you don't use Tags, delete the Tag column.

You can change the register view and toggle between 1-line and 2-lines-per-transactions modes by pressing CTRL-2

There's currently no way to rearrange columns in the investment register view other than changing between 1- and 2-line modes. To do so go into Edit / Preferences / Investment transactions and change the "List display" option.

steve150@

Specifically - I would like to be able to move the Cleared column from the right of the Payment column over by the Date column. So that it's a little easier to see when I last reconciled. I also might rather have the Payment and Deposit columns closer to the Payee column. I look for the amount I paid someone more often than the Category, the Tag, or the Memo.

Also, I thought I posted this in the Suggestions thread.

Thanks

smayer97

Yes, this IS in the suggested IDEAs section.

shopthomas13

I am new to Windows 2020 Deluxe from Mac 2020 Deluxe.
I thought I wasn't doing something right because I couldn't move columns either.
Such a simple task....why would the Mac version do something the Windows won't?
I am truly not liking this software now.

smayer97

shopthomas13 said:

I am new to Windows 2020 Deluxe from Mac 2020 Deluxe.
I thought I wasn't doing something right because I couldn't move columns either.
Such a simple task....why would the Mac version do something the Windows won't?

Because QMac is being built from the ground up so they are able to do things differently. That said, that is also one reason why so many other features are still missing from QMac.

apb5309

why can I not move my "memo" column, in my register to show after "categories"

Rocket J Squirrel

apb5309 said:

why can I not move my "memo" column, in my register to show after "categories"

You can. Edit > Preferences > Register, un-check "Show memo before category".

captgpl

I agree with apb5309 on 1/20/21. When we are entering batches of data, the MANDATORY Fields should come first: Date/Check #/Payee/Amount/Category, then followed by the OPTIONAL Fields of Comments and Tag. Not all entries require Comments.

ARandomUser

Why is this even a discussion? With any modern application I think the ability to move columns around via drag-and-drop and arrange in any order that works for you and save the layout is basic functionality.

Chris_QPW

ARandomUser said:

Why is this even a discussion? With any modern application I think the ability to move columns around via drag-and-drop and arrange in any order that works for you and save the layout is basic functionality.

What makes you think that Quicken Windows is a modern application?
Quicken is over 30 years old and it certainly shows it age in certain areas.

The register code is definitely one place where that is.  It a custom set of controls and such that were created many years ago.  I'm sure it is nightmare to work in that area.

This is in fact the area that the Quicken Mac developers called out as "unmaintainable" on Quicken Mac when they started a complete rewrite of Quicken Mac in 2007.

ARandomUser

> @Chris_QPW said:
> What makes you think that Quicken Windows is a modern application?
> Quicken is over 30 years old and it certainly shows it age in certain areas.

Maybe I am giving them too much credit here. We are paying for this thing, they really should spend fewer development cycles on connectivity and integration and more time on the UI and general user experience. It is a grid control, swap it out for a better one and you have taken a big step forward.

jtemplin

ARandomUser said:

We are paying for this thing, they really should spend fewer development cycles on connectivity and integration and more time on the UI and general user experience.

If you spend any time at all in these forums, the biggest gripe users have is connectivity, e.g. "why have downloads from BigHonking Bank stopped working?" Quicken is being admirably responsive to their biggest complaints.

As a career software developer, "it is a grid control, swap it out for a better one" overlooks all the deep tendrils the register has into other parts of the software. Splits, tags, transfers, searching, etc. come immediately to mind. It's stable, and it works. The register is the heart of the system. Personally, I don't blame Quicken at all for not wanting to mess with it. Look at the mess caused by trying to rewrite the Mac version. That tells you all you need to know.

Your suggestion is a "nice to have" not a "must have." 

Chris_QPW

@jtemplin you nailed!  I'm also a software developer (over 40 years), and couldn't agree more.  I think the only thing worst than changing things in the non investment account register, must be changing things in the investment register!  That is even a worse mess.  You will notice that they finally put in the ability to make changes to multiple transactions.  They did it by bringing up a separate window that you check off the transactions you want to change on.  And of course that leads to the question of why they didn't just allow multiple select in the investment register.  And I think the answer is obvious, trying to do that would be next to impossible.  I have looked at those controls in "spy" and they are a whole bunch of separate controls.  It is no wonder they don't do things the "right way" and that area has all kinds of "focus", and performance problems.

For the record Quicken Mac did get the feature of being able to reorder the columns in the register, and select the columns they want displayed.  But that certainly didn't come for free.  Not only do you have all the years of development just to get close to what they had before (in some cases more, but little of that) and still no where near what Quicken Windows Deluxe has, there were other "concessions" made.

There isn't any two line register mode.  There isn't any alternate line coloring.  There isn't any ability to change the fonts.  To add a new transaction you select Command N, because there isn't any blank transaction selection to add the next transaction (this one was called out by the Mac developers as something that caused a lot of the reported bugs because it was "different" than the rest of the register "grid").  Oh and no Downloaded Transactions tab.  They only have "automatic transaction entry mode", where you review the transactions in the register (which I like, but there are tons of long time users that really hate this).

All of these differences are there because the built-in "grid" controls would have to have custom code that basically makes them not "generic" and leads down that same path of having a very complicated, hard to maintain code.

Some of these will most likely get changed as they have time and as the users pressure them, but caving to that pressure isn't always the best thing for the program in the long run.

PatCosWal

I really don't care how hard it is for the developers to give us users (who pay for the developers!) a function that I not only want, but need. I'm regularly exporting registers and reports to Excel so that I can see my data the way I want to see it. Maybe it's time for Quicken to rebuild the Windows version too. Otherwise, someone else will build a more friendly UI and your customers will leave you.

Chris_QPW

PatCosWal said:

I really don't care how hard it is for the developers to give us users (who pay for the developers!) a function that I not only want, but need. 

You don't have to care if something is difficult or not, but the difficult level will certainly play into the possibilities of it happening or not.  And as for paying, every customer is paying, and a lot more of them want other features, than this.  So, your "need" is going to be weighed both against the difficulty and the majority of the users wants/needs, making the request even more unlikely.

PatCosWal said:

Otherwise, someone else will build a more friendly UI and your customers will leave you.

A register that you can move columns around hardly counts as a feature that is going to cause a mass exit of Quicken users.

Quicken Anja

Hello All,

The Community Support team regularly reviews long-standing posts and Ideas for relevancy and current interest. This Idea seems to have stalled and we would like to gauge the current interest in this request. 

If you would like to see this idea implemented, please add your vote and a comment explaining how this idea would be beneficial for you. More information, including steps to vote and how to submit your own Ideas for future product features/improvements, is also available here.

Thank you,

Quicken Community Support Team

Zoolook

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20165418#Comment_20165418

Your comments about the deep integration of the grid to the rest of the software made my laugh a little. Yes it's deeply integrated but also it's awful and doesn't really work at all. Search and filtering is awful, you can't even filter a view in your investment register by a ticker symbol (or by anything searchable for that matter) and you van't even add a column to show the symbol. This isn't difficult to remedy - anyone who spent the first 10 mins of a REACT.js Grid class could do this is about 15 mins. The issue isn't the register per se, it's the entire UI wrapper, which was coded in Visual Basic 6.0 (if I'm being generous) and no one at Quicken wants to rebuild it.

The entire application runs on a single 32-bit thread as well, so performs about the same on a 2023 PC as it does on a machine from 2003.

If this is never going to be addressed, then Quicken should either start a new version of Quicken for the remainder of the 21st century, or build out the web version until it has functionality parity with the desktop version. One day, Windows won't support code this old.

Zoolook

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20367150#Comment_20367150

The reason the discussion stalled is because 7 years after your CEO said the UI needed a refresh, nothing has happened, so people stopped asking for it.

I guess the question to Quicken is basically: is there any plan to provide a UI in Windows meeting basic modern standard, which you have in the Mac and Web version (like re-ordering columns, filtered views based on searchable text, etc) or not? If not, does that mean Quicken on Windows will die when Microsoft stop supporting UI libraries from the mid 1990's?

95033SCMtns

PLEASE allow manual sorting of columns e.g. in the Register. For instance, I want to show the "Account" column at the end of the display.

UKR

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20376189#Comment_20376189

May I ask which "Account Column" you are talking about in an individual account register's register view? There is none.
But if you are talking about the Account Side bar, usually along the left side of the Quicken window …

It can be shifted to the right side of the Quicken window by clicking View / Account Bar / On Right.

DaveOzric

I just realized this is not possible. Using this to check for bogus transactions I want to see the amount next to the Payee, and it's not possible. It's 2023! Mac can do this but Windows can't?

Let's get this fixed.

RonO808

It would be so great if users could rearrange the columns in registers.

Jim_Harman

Note that for reports with selectable columns such as the Register or Itemized Categories reports, you can now rearrange the columns by clicking on the icon that looks like a spreadsheet to the right of the column headings.

Quicken Anja

Hello @RonO808,

Your idea has been merged into this already active Idea thread regarding the same request.

Thank you!

Quicken user

I honestly can't believe that this is possible in a product with a subscription model.

"Unmaintainable code" discussion is absolutely laughable when users are paying $x per month and more than willing to use another web-based platform that just happens to popup. If they can't afford to do coding for the most fundamental aspects of the UI other than syncing transactions, they will most certainly not continue to be relevant.

Mint's obsolescence is Quicken's is one of the few remaining chances of capturing the market and they're embarrassing UI and experience is not faring well.

Chris_QPW

I honestly can't believe that this is possible in a product with a subscription model.

I fail to see why a product sold by subscription means that you will get XXX. It just the way you pay for it, it doesn't tell you anything about what will be fixed/add to any given product.

One could just as easily say "I paid $XXX for this product, I would have expected it to have YYY.".

But the key here is really what is $XXX in terms of is that enough to pay for the resources to do what you believe should be done, and whether it is even a priority for the other customers, because it really isn't your $XXX that matters as much as everyone's $XXX and their desires of what is the most important things to add or fix first. And yes, it matters that Quicken is a very old program, because that means that the resources to fix some problems go way up.