Quicken for Mac v6.0 Released

michaelweinberg

Please, please, please add the simple budget vs actual report requested by @jacobs (and by so many of us over the years). Having the YTD budget vs actual be meaningful only on 12 days during the year is, for me, extremely frustrating. At a minimum, in a particular month I'd like to be able to see the YTD budget vs actual that I was able to see on the last day of the prior month (that is, "Year to end of the prior month"). As things stand now I can only see that YTD budget vs actual report on that last day of the month; the next day it's gone (because it adds to the budget amounts the current month's budget, which is meaningless especially the first part of a month) and cannot be regenerated. I would think this fix would be very easy to implement, as the report already is generated on the last day of the month--just, at a minimum, let me see it throughout the following month. Thanks!

caram

(Cancelled) (It was not a bug as initially thought)

caram

@Marcus,

I am still getting this error when I try to report a problem. Since you probably do not want to lose customer feedback, it looks like this ought to be a high priority bug to fix.

caram

Find > Find & Replace...

... does not exist yet, as far as I can see. That would be a tremendously useful feature. From time to time, I find myself having to recategorize/retag/rename certain transactions. I know you can do this with the Inspector, but:

1) it does not work with split transactions;

2) the search bar does not support multiple search strings (or complex search criterions);

3) you have to select transactions manually first.

Years of experience entering transactions have shown me that, irrespectively of how careful you are when entering transactions in the first place, you can never get it 100% right and you eventually have to clean up your data, which is what accountants spend a fair amount of their time on. Also, you often find over time that you need to refactor your transaction model to adapt to your changing priorities by reorganizing categories and tags, sometimes in a complex manner, and you only want to do this only for transactions that match certain criteria.

Unless I'm missing something, one cannot do this easily with QM today.

caram

Splits

I often find myself having to review the content of splits transactions. I have the "Automatically show splits in register" turned on, but I don't think it's enough because of the 1-second delay when moving down the transaction list with the keyboard.

In fact, I'd like to be able to see the contents of all split transactions at once in the register for quickly identifying the ones of interest or that have an issue.

This could be either added through a Preference or to the View menu.

caram

Window > Payees & Rules > QuickFill Rules

There is a bug, you cannot delete all entries at once.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Go to QuickFill Rules
2. -A to select all entries
3. <DELETE> key
4. All entries are deleted, except the ones with Multiple categories

Expected result:
- All entries should have been selected, including the ones with Multiple categories.

deholz

Thank you! Thank you for addressing the MFA error on d/ling transactions! While I understand it's a difficult issue to directly process two factor auth within Q4M, you've made it much less painful. Thanks for removing at least a couple steps - the new process is much less cumbersome - while still providing the security of MFA at my institution (NFCU).

Shing

deholz said:

Thank you! Thank you for addressing the MFA error on d/ling transactions! While I understand it's a difficult issue to directly process two factor auth within Q4M, you've made it much less painful. Thanks for removing at least a couple steps - the new process is much less cumbersome - while still providing the security of MFA at my institution (NFCU).

Yes, this is much appreciated improvement to the download process. I'm surprised it wasn't highlighted as one of the improvements when 6.0 was announced. 

rundrbillrun

Just installed v6.0 and 6.1 for the Mac. Checking account balances have changed and they no longer reconcile with my Union bank account. Anyone having this problem?

Rick2022

I'm glad that I recreated a short comment about the Download error with bank accounts Download error (-28)  QCS-Server_Error: 323 and didn't waste my time creating the entire comment after the 1st was held for review because it too has now been deleted.   What gives?

mrnave

Please put the title bar back or at least put the filename somewhere on the window, preferably at the top! I use quicken Mac for 3 different companies and want to be sure - at a glance - that I am working with the correct quicken file - I don't want to have to click the Q menu every time. Thanks!
"NEW - We removed the title bar and replaced it with a new Q button. The Q button is located on the right side of the Quicken window. Using the Q button menu, you can view your file name and access your Quicken account."

nicholas.senedzu

Since the upgrade to 6.0 the calendar is no longer reporting the gains and losses for each of my investments. Is this already a known issue?

glennmacc

mrnave@gmail.com said:

Please put the title bar back or at least put the filename somewhere on the window, preferably at the top! I use quicken Mac for 3 different companies and want to be sure - at a glance - that I am working with the correct quicken file - I don't want to have to click the Q menu every time. Thanks!
"NEW - We removed the title bar and replaced it with a new Q button. The Q button is located on the right side of the Quicken window. Using the Q button menu, you can view your file name and access your Quicken account."

mrnave:  In the Menu Bar, under Quicken:Preferences there is a check box where you can have the file name shown in the title bar.  This may help.

John_M

Marcus – in the new version, the way that transaction reminders are shown was changed. We now click on a little clock in the upper right corner of the transaction.
All of my registers have this icon except for my two loan accounts. Was this omission on purpose? If not, can you put it on the list of fixes? Thanks.

lhossus

The release notes that popped up in QM 5.18.2 when QM v6.0.1 was released said ...

• NEW When filtering transactions in the register, the Clear Filters button has been changed to a green Show All Transactions button to hopefully make it more visible when your register is filtered.

I don't see any green button - just the same old Clear Filters button with the X in a red dot..

The in-program Release Notes do not reference this NEW feature. Must have gotten pulled at the last minute.

Scott Rose

lhossus said:

The release notes that popped up in QM 5.18.2 when QM v6.0.1 was released said ...

• NEW When filtering transactions in the register, the Clear Filters button has been changed to a green Show All Transactions button to hopefully make it more visible when your register is filtered.

I don't see any green button - just the same old Clear Filters button with the X in a red dot..

The in-program Release Notes do not reference this NEW feature. Must have gotten pulled at the last minute.

I actually prefer the "Clear Filters" terminology, so let's hope they keep it like this!  

Scott Rose

Minor bug in Quicken Mac 6.0.1:

When you hover over the new "Refresh" icon in the left toolbar, the tooltip never appears to let you know what that button does.

Scott Rose

I think my #1 biggest complaint about the new interface in Quicken Mac 6.0.1 is that the light-colored toolbar (where it says "Home", "Reports", "Budgets", etc.) is NOT the right color for an active window on macOS.

The current toolbar color is actually the macOS color for INACTIVE WINDOWS.

So even when Quicken Mac is in the foreground, you will inadvertently think that it is in the background.

It always looks like a background window no matter what, so this causes tremendous confusion.

The toolbar should simply follow normal macOS color conventions, so we can easily tell when the window is in the foreground or the background.

Please fix, thank you!  

John_M

Scott – when I hover over the refresh arrow, I get the following:



With respect to the top toolbar, I haven't been able to figure out what the Big Sur convention is yet. The top of the Safari window has a light grey bar, but Calendar and Mail look exactly like Quicken with a grey sidebar, but all white along the top.

Scott Rose

John_M said:

Scott – when I hover over the refresh arrow, I get the following:

Ah, thanks! After I quit & relaunched Quicken Mac, the tooltip started working again for me, and I see exactly what you see. So it looks like it was just a one-time problem immediately after I updated from Quicken 5.x to 6.x, but after a quit/relaunch, it's fine. 

With respect to the top toolbar, I haven't been able to figure out what the Big Sur convention is yet. The top of the Safari window has a light grey bar, but Calendar and Mail look exactly like Quicken with a grey sidebar, but all white along the top.

Very interesting, thanks. I'm actually still on Catalina, so I didn't realize that Apple had changed this convention for macOS — or at least they changed the convention in SOME of their apps.

In Big Sur, do all of Apple's "Quicken-like windows" ALSO look like they're in the background at all times? Or did Apple change the background color to a different color?

jacobs

I find the color differences between the top navigation bar, the heading below it, and the white background of the rest of the register window so very, very minor as not to be worth the conversation. Certainly not worth complaining that one shade of white is misleading and the other is fine, and for sure not the number one complaint with the user interface. I don't find them meaningful differences, and I think many people's eyes won't even register that there's a very slight difference. I put a Photoshop eyedropper on each area -- and you can see the minimal differences.


I would argue that they should either all be white, or the heading should be more meaningfully different in color. (I thought the blue bar was clear and distinctive, but apparently the ''whiter shade of pale" design is somehow considered "more modern".)

Scott Rose

@jacobs You are misunderstanding me. The color difference between those areas is not what I was complainimg about. I don’t care what all those colors are. What I care about is being able to tell whether a window is in the foreground or the background, which is always achieved by looking at the color of the toolbar. Now it is no longer possible to tell. The toolbar always makes it seem like Quicken is in the background.

John_M

I think that Quicken is following the lead of Apple. If you look at Apple's updated programs (Apps, Podcast, Music), you will see they all look like Quicken 6.0. Searches on "Big Sur" will show that not everyone likes the changes Apple has made.

There are still two good ways to see which window is in the foreground:

1. Look at the menu. It shows the name of the program.
2. Look in the upper left corner of each window for the "traffic lights." Only one window will have them.

I agree that it's not as easy to see as before, but it's still doable. Just something to get used to.

jacobs

Scott Rose said:

@jacobs You are misunderstanding me. The color difference between those areas is not what I was complainimg about. I don’t care what all those colors are. What I care about is being able to tell whether a window is in the foreground or the background, which is always achieved by looking at the color of the toolbar. Now it is no longer possible to tell. The toolbar always makes it seem like Quicken is in the background.

Thanks for clarifying, Scott; I did misunderstand your complaint. I prefer a colored toolbar better, and I prefer making the buttons/tabs more evident, too, but this isn't Apple's latest style. (Apple doesn't always get things right, and they sometimes violate their own praised guidelines for style reasons.) I think Quicken's problem is that sometimes there is a highlighted button/tab in the top navigation bar, and sometimes (when in a register) nothing is highlighted/colored. UI design is supposed to make things clearer to users, and this menu design does not do that. 

Scott Rose

John_M said:

I think that Quicken is following the lead of Apple. If you look at Apple's updated programs (Apps, Podcast, Music), you will see they all look like Quicken 6.0. Searches on "Big Sur" will show that not everyone likes the changes Apple has made.

I agree that it's not as easy to see as before, but it's still doable. Just something to get used to.

Thanks, @John_M! What a bummer that Apple has gone in this direction, and that many Mac developers are now following their lead. As @jacobs said, Apple doesn't always get things right.

Yeah, good idea to just look for the colored traffic lights & the app name in the upper left corner of the window. I just feel like we're progressing backwards to do that, though.

jacobs said:

Thanks for clarifying, Scott; I did misunderstand your complaint. I prefer a colored toolbar better, and I prefer making the buttons/tabs more evident, too, but this isn't Apple's latest style. (Apple doesn't always get things right, and they sometimes violate their own praised guidelines for style reasons.) I think Quicken's problem is that sometimes there is a highlighted button/tab in the top navigation bar, and sometimes (when in a register) nothing is highlighted/colored. UI design is supposed to make things clearer to users, and this menu design does not do that. 

Yes, I totally agree with you. UI design is supposed to make things clearer & easier for users, but this menu design does not do that.

I much preferred the old colored toolbar of Quicken Mac.

jacobs

Scott, if you haven't already discovered it, you might find this useful: go to Quicken's Preferences > General and check the box to "Show file name in title bar". This adds back a title bar of sorts, with your file name and the small red Q icon. But the icon is only red if the Quicken main window is in the foreground; when you switch to another Quicken window or another application, the Q becomes gray. So if the red/gray Q would help you better distinguish if Quicken is in the foreground or not, you might find this helpful.

Scott Rose

@jacobs to the rescue again!

I did not know about this new preference, and this definitely solves the problem for me! This makes it MUCH EASIER for me to tell whether my Quicken window is in the foreground or the background!

Thank you so much, @jacobs !! SuperUser is the right term for you!!

jacobs

@Quicken Marcus  A question came up in another thread about Quicken 6.x support of tabbed windows. A user wanted to be able to view his checking account register in one tab and his budget in another. In previous versions, this required only opening the checking count in its own window, enabling tabs, and merging the main window with the account window into a single tabbed window.

In Quicken 6.0.x, it appears the main window no longer supports showing tabs, or being dragged into a tabbed window. Is this by design, or an unintentional byproduct of the cosmetic changes to the main window?

(For the user wanting to view an account register and the budget in tabs, I found it could be done by opening the budget in a new window of its own, and then merging with the account window -- but it takes some extra steps to get there and isn't as intuitive with the main window not showing or supporting tabs.)

caram

jacobs said:

Preferences > General and check the box to "Show file name in title bar". This adds back a title bar of sorts, with your file name

I would have done things differently. My compass here is the Finder:

• File name at the same baseline as the Home, Reports, etc. menus
• Home, Reports, etc. left justified (and maybe using icons)

This may be a matter of taste. 

jacobs said:

But the icon is only red if the Quicken main window is in the foreground; when you switch to another Quicken window or another application, the Q becomes gray.

It took me a while to recognize the Q you were referring to. There are two. I was looking at the other one, the big red Q on the right hand side.

I think it's that one that should turn grey when the app is not active.

Hm... the cool thing for me is that I now have access to the formatting toolbar in this forum. It makes a difference. Maybe I have earned enough points? Or maybe this has become a more general feature.

RCinNJ

I just updated to 6.0.1 and it went very smoothly. However, I do want to add my voice to those that miss the colored top bar. I also wonder if the contrasting gray lines are lighter or is it just that the loss of contrast on top makes the whole page look less contrasty? 

Following new Mac conventions isn't always a design plus. Now that the iOS tail is wagging the Mac OS dog, changes are sometimes made that don't make sense for desktop users. Having a flatter color pallet might look better on a cellphone or tablet where only one program is displayed on the screen at a time but makes it much worse on my two monitor desktop where I can have several windows open to make it easy to move between programs that I am using together. This is often the case for me with Quicken. Can we get an option to fix this?