Collapsing all Categories

David Tuma

When I open categories, all categories display and they open to the lowest level. How can I set categories to open only showing the highest level. E.G. "Business Expenses" only and not showing the lower level "Advertising" or "Bad Debt"

RickO

Are you referring to the Categories window? In that window, there isn't a way to automatically collapse the category list. However, if you go through and manually collapse each top level category, the next time you open the window, they will remain collapsed. However, if you change the "Show All Categories" popup menu at the top and then change it back to Show All Categories, the list will, unfortunately, expand again.

jacobs

Category expansion/collapse is handled differently in different parts of the program.

In Reports, the View menu allows you to collapse categories at several different levels. Saved reports retain the state of collapsed categories. If you want to edit the categories in a report and click Edit > Categories, the selection window which opens is not collapsed and there is no control allowing you to collapse it except manually category-by-category.

In Budgets, it works just like Reports: the View menu gives you control over collapsing or expanding all categories, and if you want to edit the categories in Edit > Select Categories, the selection window is not collapsed, and there is no way to collapse it other than manually.

In the Categories window, as @RickO said, it is similarly not collapsed, and there is no way to collapse it other than manually.

In any of those lists where you can edit categories, the best way to jump to specific categories you want to see without wading through the whole list is to use the Search box at the top of the window. Or, as RickO said, in the Categories window, if there are categories you use infrequently and don't want to always see the subcategories, collapse them once and they will remain collapsed in future visits to the window. So you could collapse all your categories if you wish, and they will stay collapsed; when you open a category, just remember to collapse it again before you close the window. (One little trick is that changing the selection menu at the top will expand all categories, so if you have things somewhat collapsed and want to expand them all, toggle the menu to Used or Unused or Show All and it will expand any collapsed categories.)