How to search ALL (or selected accounts) by memo/notes?

Pinvaulteulah

Accounting 101:

It's imperative that you be able to search by memos/notes, or at least produce a report with memos/notes.

I can see no way to do this in the "improved" Quicken Deluxe 2020 for Mac.

Please tell me that this is operator error…

jacobs

I'm not drinking the "Kool-Aid", as I post my complaints with Quicken when I have them -- but my overall experience with modern Quicken Mac is much better than yours seems to be.

You can do Find/Replace in Quicken 2020. But it has a shortcoming that it doesn't work on splits. That's one of my gripes. Fortunately, I don't need to do a lot of global find-and-replace, so it doesn't impact me often, but it's definitely a shortcoming which needs to be fixed. Please add your vote to this topic to encourage the developers to plug this hole.

As for my reference to what the product manager said about Search versus reports, I mentioned it because I think it's interesting how they approached the issue of how to find transactions in Quicken. While I initially found the absence of QuickReport by Memo -- something I used all the time in Quicken 2007 -- to be jarring, I now find the Search functionality in modern Quicken Mac meets my needs quite well. (I would say say perfectly well, except they need to fix the shortcoming that printing Search results shows the entire transaction rather than only the split lines matching the Search.)

Report customization was a big gripe of mine a few years ago, but I think reports have improved by leaps and bounds as they've developed and extended the new reports engine. I now find reports very customizable.

Regarding Classes to Tags, there was a tradeoff. Hierarchical classes were dropped. But multiple tags can now be applied to a transaction. (I believe this decision was largely to make Quicken Mac work like Quicken Windows in this regard, in order to allow the cross-platform mobile app and web interface.) Depending how each person uses Quicken, this change may have been a big step forward, a loss, or a neutral change. Many users who used hierarchical classes have been able to adapt by changing categories or by simulating sub-classes by naming tags "tag.subtag" or similar naming.

I'd strongly disagree that feedback lands on deaf ears. Look at any of the releases over the past few years, and they are all driven by customer feedback. There are many cases where they've implemented a feature (QuickFill, for instance), listened to feedback, and made one or more rounds of tweaks to add more options so people could tailor it to how they prefer to work.

On the flip side, one can definitely say that it takes too long for new features and enhancements to be implemented. Heck, I think even the developers would tell you they agree! There are hundreds of requests for features, large and small, and some of them require extensive re-writing of code that takes many months to implement. While we all wish they could snap their hands and implement the next 50 things on the wishlist, the reality is that it takes time to add the functionality we users want. But if you compare Quicken Mac now to, say, Quicken 2017, or to the first iteration of the modern Quicken Mac 2015, it's impressive how much progress has been made.

I'm not always a glass-half-full guy, but in this case, seeing the improvements that have been made and the company's apparent commitment to keep the improvements coming, I certainly come down more on the happy than disappointed side of the ledger. That said, we all use Quicken differently, so I'm not saying everyone will or ought to agree with me. 

smayer97

Meanwhile, you can add your VOTE to Report based on keyword of Memo/Notes.

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click the little grey triangle under the VOTE count at the top of page 1 in the blue banner, so your vote will count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version (it may take a moment for your vote to register).
(If the triangle is black, your vote has already been counted.)

Your VOTES matter!

P.S. This is a subset of another idea you can vote on:
Create Useful Category/Transaction Detail Report

and is also related to this idea you can vote on:
Quick Report for Mac

smayer97

Meanwhile, you can add also your VOTE to Improve Batch Editing to include changing Split transactions.

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click the little grey triangle under the VOTE count at the top of page 1 in the blue banner, so your vote will count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version (it may take a moment for your vote to register).
(If the triangle is black, your vote has already been counted.)

Your VOTES matter!

jacobs

@Pinvaulteulah  Two quick ( promise! responses…

1) Your original post was only inquiring about whether you are able to search by memos/notes, or at least produce a report with memos/notes. J_Mike and I responded with a pretty enthusiastic yes, because you can indeed… albeit with some caveats which can be minor or major, depending on the details of the reporting you're trying to pull out. You didn't mention find/replace and other issues until later. 

2) My apologies for going into a lot of history and details once it became apparent you had concerns/gripes that went way beyond your original straightforward query. I was only trying to describe what got us to where we are now, not to justify or defend the decisions of Quicken management or the development team.

One of the things that's quite apparent spending a bit of time on this forum is how many Quicken users use the program differently. What's a minor issue to me might be a killer for you, and visa versa. In many ways, that's a testament to the original Quicken Mac providing so many tools and options for users; the downside to providing all those features and options is that it makes the code complex, which makes it harder -- take longer -- to add additional layers and wrinkles without breaking something in the existing code.

For me personally, the current Quicken Mac does not provide all the ease-of-use of the legacy Quicken 2007, but I can make it work well enough. I believe from reading thousands of comments here over the years that a majority of Quicken Mac users are either happy with, or "satisfied enough" with, the current state of the program, but that there are certainly other users hampered to some significant degree by not being able to do something they did with the legacy product. Knowing things are not perfect, I cautiously optimistic because (a) I've seen how far the product has progressed since being re-launched six years ago, and (b) management and the developers do seem committed to plugging away at the long list of user requests for additional features and enhancements.

Best wishes. (But no, I would not ever just send 'thoughts and prayers'. Pleeeese don't put me in that camp. )

smayer97

Pinvaulteulah said:
...a thread I now feel remorseful for starting ...

No need to feel remorseful. Your frustrations are justified and I sought to make sure those were acknowledged. You have identified some key areas in QMac that are impacting you (as well as others) and you are right for them to not be so easily dismissed, especially couched in misleading information.

We can only hope that these will eventually get dealt with. Meanwhile, you are left with trying out the workarounds to achieve your goals.

The community is here to help you through that as you needed.

J_Mike

You perform the search directly in the register.

Open the All Transactions register.
Make sure the Memo/Notes column is included in the display.
Set a date range if desired.
You can search all accounts or selected accounts by setting the filters.

The Search Field is at the top-right of the register display.
Click the magnifying glass icon and select the Memo/Notes field to search - you do this if you want to limit the search to just a particular column.

Key in the search criteria.
The register filters to display transactions meeting your criteria.

Note that with the recent upgrade, you can include Hidden Accounts in a search.

jacobs

And when you get the results you're looking for, you can print the search results register as a report if you wish. 

Longtime legacy Quicken Mac users are used to generating Reports or QuickReports to find almost anything. According to the product manager, the modern Quicken Mac was designed with the idea that many of those "reports" we generated -- especially for something like specific Memo field text -- were things people were just searching for, not needing in a printed report. Quicken 2007 had a very limited search capability (Find), so you had to create a report -- but the modern Quicken Mac Search function is fast and useful. 

Pinvaulteulah

I don't know what kind of Quicken Kool-Aid you have been drinking, but the fact that you cannot do a basic "Find/Replace" (per Quicken 2007) is ridiculous, as is the fact that you have a VERY limited ability to customize reports.

"According to the product manager"? What do you think a product manager is going to tell you?

Swing through the Community, and you will see that the rejiggering of Quicken displeases a great many users, and it's clear that the feedback lands on deaf ears, much as -- apparently -- the redesign did.

The harsh reality is that the "new and improved" Quicken takes away far more features than it offers, and with no replacement.

One need look no further than getting rid of Classes and replacing them with Tags (ala -- no more hierarchy) is proof that in the process of tossing out the baby, they also tossed out the bathwater.

Perhaps the new version is okay for those who don't need the granular breakdown that most accountants need, but I've found it to be a major step backwards.

jacobs

I'm not drinking the "Kool-Aid", as I post my complaints with Quicken when I have them -- but my overall experience with modern Quicken Mac is much better than yours seems to be.

You can do Find/Replace in Quicken 2020. But it has a shortcoming that it doesn't work on splits. That's one of my gripes. Fortunately, I don't need to do a lot of global find-and-replace, so it doesn't impact me often, but it's definitely a shortcoming which needs to be fixed. Please add your vote to this topic to encourage the developers to plug this hole.

As for my reference to what the product manager said about Search versus reports, I mentioned it because I think it's interesting how they approached the issue of how to find transactions in Quicken. While I initially found the absence of QuickReport by Memo -- something I used all the time in Quicken 2007 -- to be jarring, I now find the Search functionality in modern Quicken Mac meets my needs quite well. (I would say say perfectly well, except they need to fix the shortcoming that printing Search results shows the entire transaction rather than only the split lines matching the Search.)

Report customization was a big gripe of mine a few years ago, but I think reports have improved by leaps and bounds as they've developed and extended the new reports engine. I now find reports very customizable.

Regarding Classes to Tags, there was a tradeoff. Hierarchical classes were dropped. But multiple tags can now be applied to a transaction. (I believe this decision was largely to make Quicken Mac work like Quicken Windows in this regard, in order to allow the cross-platform mobile app and web interface.) Depending how each person uses Quicken, this change may have been a big step forward, a loss, or a neutral change. Many users who used hierarchical classes have been able to adapt by changing categories or by simulating sub-classes by naming tags "tag.subtag" or similar naming.

I'd strongly disagree that feedback lands on deaf ears. Look at any of the releases over the past few years, and they are all driven by customer feedback. There are many cases where they've implemented a feature (QuickFill, for instance), listened to feedback, and made one or more rounds of tweaks to add more options so people could tailor it to how they prefer to work.

On the flip side, one can definitely say that it takes too long for new features and enhancements to be implemented. Heck, I think even the developers would tell you they agree! There are hundreds of requests for features, large and small, and some of them require extensive re-writing of code that takes many months to implement. While we all wish they could snap their hands and implement the next 50 things on the wishlist, the reality is that it takes time to add the functionality we users want. But if you compare Quicken Mac now to, say, Quicken 2017, or to the first iteration of the modern Quicken Mac 2015, it's impressive how much progress has been made.

I'm not always a glass-half-full guy, but in this case, seeing the improvements that have been made and the company's apparent commitment to keep the improvements coming, I certainly come down more on the happy than disappointed side of the ledger. That said, we all use Quicken differently, so I'm not saying everyone will or ought to agree with me. 

smayer97

Meanwhile, you can add your VOTE to Report based on keyword of Memo/Notes.

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click the little grey triangle under the VOTE count at the top of page 1 in the blue banner, so your vote will count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version (it may take a moment for your vote to register).
(If the triangle is black, your vote has already been counted.)

Your VOTES matter!

P.S. This is a subset of another idea you can vote on:
Create Useful Category/Transaction Detail Report

and is also related to this idea you can vote on:
Quick Report for Mac

Pinvaulteulah

Thanks to jacobs for the thorough response, and smayer97 for the opportunity to express my vote! In spite of my frustrated tone, I do very much appreciate your time and insights.

jacobs, I'm glad that your experience is better than mine, and I'll add to my grousings that Quicken has deliberately dropped QIF exports to stifle the reversion to Q2007, or migration to other platforms.

I know that many are thrilled by all the connectivity bells and whistles the "new" Quicken offers, but one of my functions as a financial advisor is to help consumers better understand their finances. The more you "automate" this peering under the hood, the less they learn.

Quicken has taken very simple functions in Q2007 and made them convoluted, in my opinion. Your explanation of the tradeoff of hierarchical tags makes absolutely zero sense as the metadata modification in the file has nothing to do with cross-platform or mobile compatibility; it's a flat-out imbecilic mistake, and if anyone tells you otherwise, they've never written any code.

Why should I have to "simulate" sub-classes?

I am glad that feedback is responded to, but many of the issues I am bothered by are unfortunately out of the barn already in terms of the "new and improved" architecture.

I'll step back to Find/Replace -- I can find no means of doing a hop, skip and job global or focused find and replace in Q20. If you are referring to the "bulk editing" outlined here https://www.quicken.com/support/finding-and-editing-transactions-quicken-mac, what a nightmare.

If Quicken had thoughtfully rewritten the application, they wouldn't need to address the "hundreds of requests for features, large and small, and some of them require extensive re-writing of code that takes many months to implement" -- most of them are simply bringing back the baby that was thrown out with the bathwater.

I am also a glass-half-full person, but I have no tolerance for software developers who point to some new, shiny features of an application to distract from the sloppiness of their R&D. Face it: Quicken for Mac is Quicken's backwater, compared to the number of Windows users.

I would mimic our leader's "is what it is" response, but the problem now is that Quicken's lack of transparency with export options has us tethered to the application. Funny that…

smayer97

Meanwhile, you can add also your VOTE to Improve Batch Editing to include changing Split transactions.

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click the little grey triangle under the VOTE count at the top of page 1 in the blue banner, so your vote will count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version (it may take a moment for your vote to register).
(If the triangle is black, your vote has already been counted.)

Your VOTES matter!

jacobs

I'd like to clarify a few things you said…

Pinvaulteulah said:

I'll add to my grousings that Quicken has deliberately dropped QIF exports to stifle the reversion to Q2007, or migration to other platforms.

They didn't deliberatiely disable QIF exports. Modern Quicken Mac never had that feature; it was never built. Users sometimes assume that something which was in Quicken 2007 that isn't in modern Quicken Mac was removed; in fact, it was never built in Quicken Mac, which was re-created from the ground up. 

I know that many are thrilled by all the connectivity bells and whistles the "new" Quicken offers, but one of my functions as a financial advisor is to help consumers better understand their finances. The more you "automate" this peering under the hood, the less they learn.

I'm not sure I understand your point with respect to the topics here. I use Quicken Mac almost totally manually; most people download all or most of thier transactions. Either way requires some work on the user's part ot categorize, tag, split and otherwise shape their data to fit their needs. I'm not sure what bells and whistles are involved in that, or that's so different from Quicken 2007. 

Your explanation of the tradeoff of hierarchical tags makes absolutely zero sense as the metadata modification in the file has nothing to do with cross-platform or mobile compatibility; it's a flat-out imbecilic mistake, and if anyone tells you otherwise, they've never written any code.

I've written code, and it makes sense to me. In order to have Quicken Mac and Quicken Windows be able to share a common mobile app and web interface, data needs to be stored essentially the same way on both platforms. There are instances now where the Mac team has provided a feature in Quicken Mac which is not supported by the mobile app, and it can cause confusion for thosse people who use the app. For the most part, the Mac development team has to conform to certain things in common with Quicken Windows in order not to break the app or make it give unexpected results.

For some people, having multiple tags on transactions was a huge improvement. For some people, the loss of sub-classes was a step backward. I know this is new now to you moving from Quicken 2007, but modern Quicken Mac has been on the market for six years now, so this isn't a new change. Most users who used sub-classes in Quicken 2007 figured out how to re-configure -- using more/different Tags or Categories -- to meet their needs. 

If Quicken had thoughtfully rewritten the application, they wouldn't need to address the "hundreds of requests for features, large and small, and some of them require extensive re-writing of code that takes many months to implement" -- most of them are simply bringing back the baby that was thrown out with the bathwater.

Perhaps, but I'd just note that ignores the history of Quicken Mac basically being left to die on the vine. Quicken 2007 was deterimed to be a dead-end, due to many of the underlying technologies having no path forward in macOS X. The leaders at Intuit back in that era of 2006 and 2007 thought they could create a new program which wasn't a mirror copy, but incorporated some of the modern look and feel of then-new competitors like Mint. So much so that Intuit purchased Mint, and put its creator in charge of all of Quicken. Their first attempt never made it out of beta. They released their second attempt to have something to offer Mac users, but it was a limited subset of Quicken, called Essentials, that many longtime Mac users rejected. Then they found a way to get Quicken 2007 to run under the Lion operating system, as a placeholder until they could develop a more robust Quicken Mac, but Intuit had lost interest in growing Quicken. They didn't devote the money to a large development staff; the originators of the modern Quicken Mac were a small team with only a handful of developers. They could not feasibly re-create two decades of development that had gone into Quicken 2007 with just a few people, so they concentrated on the basics. (Quicken Essentials couldn't track investments; that was the big next step when Quicken 2015. first came to market. there were no loans. There was only rudimentary single-month budgeting. Reports were very limited. There was no QuickFill. The list goes on and on. And then Intuit sold off Quicken, and the team began to expand, and little by little, additional features have been added. 

So while you can say if they had just done it right from the start, they wouldn't be needing to work so hard to get things right now, that presumes that they had the time and manpower to do it right from the start. They didn't. And if that had been the specification -- replicate every feature in Quicken 2007 -- Quicken Mac definitely would have died and never come to market.

Face it: Quicken for Mac is Quicken's backwater, compared to the number of Windows users.

Quicken Mac has far fewer users than Quicken Windows. Traditionally (certainly back in the Intuit days), Quicken Mac generated far less sales income than Quicken Windows. And so Quicken Mac got a smaller development team than Windows. But whenn Quicken became an independent company, one of their early orders of busienss was doubling the size of the Mac development team. And if you haven't been using Quicken Mac over the past six years, you reasonably can't be able to appreciate how far things have progressed. Are they where we all wish they were? Of course not. But is the trajectory good? I'd say yes, they are committed to making it better, to making it somewhat on a par with Quicen Windows, and although the progress isn't speedy, the product has steadily been getting better and more robust. 

Quicken's lack of transparency with export options has us tethered to the application. Funny that…

For a program that has a wishlist of features that is still a mile long, it's not surprising to me that it hasn't been a top priority of the developers to devote time to building functionality only needed by people who want to leave the product and move to something else. (Nor, I would say, has there been much user clamoring -- relative to many other issues on the wishlist -- for such functionality.) Certainly, some users have decided to move on… and for anyone who determines Quicken doesn't meet their needs and finds another program that does, that's a logical step to take. 

smayer97

Some corrections:

Modern Quicken Mac never had that feature [QIF import]; it was never built.

FALSE.... QEM, on which "modern" QMac is built, did have this ability. And "modern" QMac does have QIF import. It has now simply been limited to only support import from MoneyDance and Banktivity and ONLY for the creation of a new data file. And they have removed QIF export.

So yes, its original ability HAS been removed from "modern" QMac and is now severely limited.

[re:tags vs classes]
For the most part, the Mac development team has to conform to certain things in common with Quicken Windows in order not to break the app or make it give unexpected results.

FALSE. The main reason was to standardize between the platforms (that part is true) and use the more commonly used concept of tags...it has nothing to do with "not break[ing] the app or mak[ing] it give unexpected results". Even in QWin they have not removed QIF import and export (if they had, I think it would have created a huge uproar...IMHO) BUT have now disabled all code with the ability to perform all the matching functionality it used to do, just like importing QFX.

QWin first introduced/moved to tags back in about 2007 (maybe a little earlier?) but since Mac development had been virtually abandoned it never made it into QM2007 onward. Was only introduced in QEM (and its never-released predecessor). BUT tags is a viable solution...it just takes some rethinking like you pointed out.

... it hasn't been a top priority of the developers to devote time to building functionality only needed by people who want to leave the product and move to something else.

FALSE. QIF import and export serve more than just for migrating to other products. It also helped in fixing data problems or helping to split and merge data files, just for starters. And Quicken HAS marked this idea as NOT PLANNED, which would have served as a useful substitute for the same. So users do not have much of an alternative other than a wholesale export and import of ALL data using proprietary QXF, which does limit users, especially in troubleshooting, so it does feel tethered.

jacobs

smayer97 said:

Modern Quicken Mac never had that feature [QIF import]; it was never built.

FALSE.... QEM, on which "modern" QMac is built, did have this ability. And "modern" QMac does have QIF import. It has now simply been limited to only support import from MoneyDance and Banktivity and ONLY for the creation of a new data file. And they have removed QIF export.

The question was about QIF exports enable reverting to Q2007 or migrating to other platforms. I don't believe Quicken Mac ever had this capability. The export from Essentials wouldn't have dealt with investment transactions because Essentials didn't have them. So I believe it was correct to say that full-fledged QIF export, suitable to export to move data to another program, was never built for Quicken Mac. 

smayer97 said:

[re:tags vs classes]
For the most part, the Mac development team has to conform to certain things in common with Quicken Windows in order not to break the app or make it give unexpected results.

FALSE. The main reason was to standardize between the platforms (that part is true) and use the more commonly used concept of tags...it has nothing to do with "not break[ing] the app or mak[ing] it give unexpected results". Even in QWin they have not removed QIF import and export (if they had, I think it would have created a huge uproar...IMHO)

I'm not why you're mentioning QIF again here. This has nothing to do with QIF; we're discussing classes, sub-classes and tags. I believe the producrt manager has said thta compatibility in this area between Quicken Mac and Quicken Windows was needed to make Quicken Mac work with the mobile app.

smayer97 said:

... it hasn't been a top priority of the developers to devote time to building functionality only needed by people who want to leave the product and move to something else.

FALSE. QIF import and export serve more than just for migrating to other products. It also helped in fixing data problems or helping to split and merge data files, just for starters. And Quicken HAS marked this idea as NOT PLANNED, which would have served as a useful substitute for the same. So users do not have much of an alternative other than a wholesale export and import of ALL data using proprietary QXF, which does limit users, especially in troubleshooting, so it does feel tethered.

The idea thread you mention, which Quicken says they are not going to do, is a request to be able to select vasrious types of data to export in QXF format and to add the ability to import such data in both Quicken Mac and Quicken Windows; it wasn't a request to export in QIF format to be able to move off Quicken, which is what the original poster was talking about, so I'm not understanding the relevance of citing that idea thread.

-------

THIS ALL SAID, since this discussion has traveled way, way off the original topic of how to "search by memos/notes, or at least produce a report with memos/notes", I suggest we let this discussion end here and not continue to go back and forth about how and why Quicken was/wasn't developed with various other features. 

smayer97

My responses are directly due to the exchange between you and the OP that warrant response because you are framing the conversation inaccurately.

The question was about QIF exports enable reverting to Q2007 or migrating to other platforms. I don't believe Quicken Mac ever had this capability. The export from Essentials wouldn't have dealt with investment transactions because Essentials didn't have them. So I believe it was correct to say that full-fledged QIF export, suitable to export to move data to another program, was never built for Quicken Mac.

FALSE again... QIF export was available in 2 forms...standard QIF and QMTF, the latter which is simply QIF specifically designed to migrate back to QM2007. QMTF export was removed from v5.9 then added back in in v5.10+. Any lack of support for investments was simply due to the fact that QEM did not have that capability. You are simply trying to reframe the issue based on your lack of understanding.

I'm not why you're mentioning QIF again here...

That was a mistake...I seem to have placed that text in the wrong place. The reference to QIF belongs with the previous section. But the point is to show that there is far more to the story about QIF than you understand.

I believe the producrt manager has said thta compatibility in this area between Quicken Mac and Quicken Windows was needed to make Quicken Mac work with the mobile app.

Yes, again, simply because of wanting to standardize on an approach...nothing to do with "in order not to break the app or make it give unexpected results." It makes sense from a developer and user perspective but that is different than how you are falsely framing the issue.

The idea thread you mention, which Quicken says they are not going to do, is a request to be able to select vasrious types of data to export in QXF format and to add the ability to import such data in both Quicken Mac and Quicken Windows; it wasn't a request to export in QIF format to be able to move off Quicken, which is what the original poster was talking about, so I'm not understanding the relevance of citing that idea thread.

I know what the IDEA for QXF is for. I created it. The relevance is that you are again framing QIF import/export as strictly an issue about moving off of Quicken, as valid justification for Quicken to remove it. My point is that it goes beyond this and you are ignoring that. But more so, the lack of having a practical form of export/import capability and the lack of support for such now or the the foreseeable future since Quicken has stated no support for anything of the sort, does support the OP's sense of feeling tethered.

THIS ALL SAID, since this discussion has traveled way, way off the original topic...

Stop trying to control the narrative... you engaged the OP on all these issues brought up BY the OP (so this is just following THEIR thread, not yours) but then have tried to frame the conversation inaccurately and have provided false information. That warranted being addressed.

And the ultimate point is that you do not seem to be giving the OP any latitude in the justification for their level of frustration. Especially starting from what seems to be a basic yet important function that is STILL lacking like creating a report based on the memo field, which has received no attention in over 6 years, from which the original thread (and frustration) stems.

jacobs

Sigh. I said to let it be, but you couldn't. I disagree that your "framing of issues" is right and mine is wrong, but I'm not going to continue this discussion where you're repeatedly attacking me. There are many threads on this forum where people point out "I think you've got that wrong…" or "I disagree with your summary/analysis/point-of-view…" without repeatedly splaying "FALSE" in all caps. So I'm out.

smayer97

I'm not attacking you... I am challenging your assertions (some of which are based on opinion not fact). BIG DIFFERENCE...

Another example of you trying to re-frame the discussion.

And the point of my responses is to give the OP a more accurate framing....my concern is for the OP's issues, not yours.

Pinvaulteulah

Well, as we said back home: "Dayam!"

I never imagined to kick such a hornet's nest…

I think there are some great points brought up by both sides (the "OP" finds it all…interesting), though there does seem to be a great deal of defending Q20 for Mac with a level of granular analysis that doesn't really resolve various aspects of the application I consider problematic.

You can say that comparing Q07 with the rewritten Quicken (aka "not-so-new") is apples and oranges, but pretend that we cannot look behind the curtain at either the code issues, nor the technical/cultural/economic issues are attached to the Mac-version-as-****-offspring/loss leader of Quicken for Mac:

I'm expressing MY opinion about some rather simple "tools" that I'm used to which seem to have vanished.

One could go down the line and say, "Well, they had to change this to accommodate X, Y, or Z…" or "Most users prefer to blah-blah-blah…" Not to sound self-centered, but I ain't talkin' about other users.

I was trying to describe my frustrations to a layman -- including the exchange in a thread I now feel remorseful for starting -- and said that the response is like someone whose basement frequently floods being told that their trusty sump pump cannot be used; instead they given colorful Dixie cups with which to bail out the deluge.

Peripheral to this writing, I'm trying to go through a series of Find/Replaces for a client whose Quicken file is a mess, and then generate some customized reports, and if you're going to tell me that it's "better" in Q20 than in Q07, you must've enjoyed Mike Pence's non-response responses at last evening's debates.

Why don't you just say, "Our thoughts and prayers are with you about the loss of your old 'Find/Replace' function…"?

jacobs

@Pinvaulteulah  Two quick ( promise! responses…

1) Your original post was only inquiring about whether you are able to search by memos/notes, or at least produce a report with memos/notes. J_Mike and I responded with a pretty enthusiastic yes, because you can indeed… albeit with some caveats which can be minor or major, depending on the details of the reporting you're trying to pull out. You didn't mention find/replace and other issues until later. 

2) My apologies for going into a lot of history and details once it became apparent you had concerns/gripes that went way beyond your original straightforward query. I was only trying to describe what got us to where we are now, not to justify or defend the decisions of Quicken management or the development team.

One of the things that's quite apparent spending a bit of time on this forum is how many Quicken users use the program differently. What's a minor issue to me might be a killer for you, and visa versa. In many ways, that's a testament to the original Quicken Mac providing so many tools and options for users; the downside to providing all those features and options is that it makes the code complex, which makes it harder -- take longer -- to add additional layers and wrinkles without breaking something in the existing code.

For me personally, the current Quicken Mac does not provide all the ease-of-use of the legacy Quicken 2007, but I can make it work well enough. I believe from reading thousands of comments here over the years that a majority of Quicken Mac users are either happy with, or "satisfied enough" with, the current state of the program, but that there are certainly other users hampered to some significant degree by not being able to do something they did with the legacy product. Knowing things are not perfect, I cautiously optimistic because (a) I've seen how far the product has progressed since being re-launched six years ago, and (b) management and the developers do seem committed to plugging away at the long list of user requests for additional features and enhancements.

Best wishes. (But no, I would not ever just send 'thoughts and prayers'. Pleeeese don't put me in that camp. )

smayer97

Pinvaulteulah said:
...a thread I now feel remorseful for starting ...

No need to feel remorseful. Your frustrations are justified and I sought to make sure those were acknowledged. You have identified some key areas in QMac that are impacting you (as well as others) and you are right for them to not be so easily dismissed, especially couched in misleading information.

We can only hope that these will eventually get dealt with. Meanwhile, you are left with trying out the workarounds to achieve your goals.

The community is here to help you through that as you needed.

Pinvaulteulah

Hello stalwart respondents jacobs and smayer97,

I wanted to thank you both for providing energetic responses, and I mean that as a positive appraisal.

Without heading to the skin the cat adage, I am figuring out a lot of workarounds, and -- based on what smayer97 has written about the evolution of the "new" Quicken -- I am relieved I didn't jump on the first upgrade bandwagon to roll past.

I think much of my chagrin has been displacing frustration about entities that throw out the baby with the… with ground-up redesigns, along with companies that SHOULD throw out the baby with the bathwater, but continue to carry along clunky, "dirty" code. Without having the books to scrutinize, we can only surmise why this is, and I suspect it all comes down to money.

Frankly, I'm surprised (but relieved) that Quicken for Mac still has a pulse.

No: it ain't ideal, but I've yet to work with software that is.

Through this animated dispatch, I've learned a great deal, and I for one am always interested in hearing the nitty-gritty details behind-the-scenes, ala a historical context for how what Quicken for Mac users presently have came to be.

Maybe Quicken should've become loan sharks long before they did…