Zkaka's dashboard

just add the days in grey... and use months shortcuts – Zkaka, on August 06, 2009 17:44

Hey Juan,
What I think jaaake means, about twitter updates and blog posts, that even small bits of info about your progression counts! From the developers point of view, It's like a habit of keeping a diary for the app - many other developers choose to post constant updates on their progression, thoughts, and decisions...
For the users - it helps them keep faith in the product as it evolves... if let's say, about all the forum topics people open on the way budget is implanted... just write an "official" blog post about your thought, even with screenshots or other illustrations... people could be aware of where you're heading... even if you're still working on this or that specific feature and it's not done yet...

you don't HAVE to do it, of course... this way doesn't fit all developers...
just know that people are expecting that since it became very common.... – Zkaka, on August 06, 2009 17:31

I also experienced the notes-related crashes. I just never add notes while creating a new transaction... just after the transaction is created (need to go back to list and enter the Edit mode) – Zkaka, on August 06, 2009 17:08

I didn't... :p – Zkaka, on August 04, 2009 08:57

Im sure i speak for the rest of the users that it would be MUCH better for you to post more FREQUENT updates like many other developers do. Squash a bug, update. Squash another bug, update again. Waiting 3 months between updates is absolutely ridiculous. Especially for something that is meant to be used daily, maybe even multiple times per day.

Point being...your users are calling your app "unusable" because of how frequently it is crashing, or otherwise misbehaving (i.e. scheduled transactions not being put into the account when marked paid, or standing at a place that you just entered the location for and having the app tell you there are no nearby payees).

Find the cause of the crashing, fix it, and update your users. If you can squeeze some UI tweaks or new features in at the same time, great, but dont hold up your functional updates because you want to change the "done" button to say "Cancel". Give us a 1.5.1 release to fix the bugs and make it usable. We can wait til you have 1.6 ready with Transfers, other features or UI tweaks.

I had this problem for a while and then it was gone...

I think the problem is even more complicated. its connected to how categories are treated in cha-ching. If the app was really based on the categories system (which i think midnight is heading there), you can, in theory, manage your transactions without really specifying their title/payee. you can look at your data and still "trust" it... examples:
how many 500$ vacations you went on in march? what was that dvd you bought last year? "oh that "dinner" really close to my birthday... ". that stuff is very intuitive once you have the date/category/sum/(and place!).
it's true that its not a perfect way of managing your finances - but its possible. and in use case, the fact is that you don't want to specify all the time, or don't need to specify all the time, who was the person you paid to. specially if it's small change here and there in cash (which really gets rather big in the end of the month).
I think that "titles" are rather more like Tags. it's a way of managing money (but not the primary way - which is categories). Payees, are too, very similar to Tags. When you specify a payee, what you do is actually make a way for you to track your expenses by whom you paid to.... the main difference between tags and payees are that tags can be anything - a habit ("pizza time"), a type of car treatment ("change oil"), and even a person! ("for my girl"). but payees are different because they have a face, address, a telephone number. it's more "official" kind of tagging. There is importance to both, but they have to behave, in my reason, the same way, they should have equal strengths in the app. like Tagging is something that not everybody needs or want to do... so does Payee(ing)...! It's really helpful if you do, and I hope Cha-Ching will give you good methods to tap into the power of payees and tagging to help you make good decisions with your money. But it should not enforce you doing that. Midnight have to decide on one philosophy - and stick with it. if the app is payee-centered, good for them, but It's not what most people want. There are many Apps like this, the "Business" kind of apps. I feel Cha-Ching is for the people, not for the Suits.

back to your question. i think they should leave "titles". if you need something short and easily searchable, it's tagging, if you want something informal, a reminder of sort, it's a note. if you want something official, salary, bank, a company, it's a payee.

A smart man once said, that when you design a new product, start with making its manual.
Cha-Ching needs to make a manual for itself first. see how it work, and why. many people wanted some sort of guide for this app - a screencast (a manual!)

I'm saying the same things over and over for a while now.
When I opened a topic with some actual ideas i had about how to improve the app... Midnight just set the topic as "Don't have plans to do this". I don't think they tried to understand what I mean, Or I'm just good at explaining, but I still think there's room for change, for development.

I still have few ideas in my head on how to improve it...

I think Cha-Ching can be for money - what iPhoto is for photos.

This should be the philosophy of Cha-Ching.

Hope it will get there.

I hear for a while now that you plan on making an iPhone version for feedly. There are quite a lot feed readers for the iPhone now... most of them with sharing capabilities... what will separate feedly from all the rest? The iphone doesn't have lot of screen estate.... and one of feedly's strength are the way all information is displayed very conveniently in a browser ... but for the iphone it's like a whole other universe...

What will feedly bring to the iPhone that we haven't seen already?

My hope is for experience similar to what iPhone TweetDeck is for Tweets.

Thanks!!! This will fantastic!!!

Well never mind.... i just found out how to change the currency symbol... ;P
but anyway... did you figure out already how to support different currencies? – Zkaka, on July 24, 2009 11:07

"We are working on making the payee system even more robust and we believe it will pose lots of advantages once we flesh things out a bit further in the areas of reporting and analysis."

That's good to hear. I Think I'm drawing for the "less" because right now I can see no advantages of detailing every payee...

I can't wait to see how you manage to pull this. I already said it once in the forums, that this app made me wanna start looking where my money goes. It's like getting a new comfortable chair for your desk - were once you cursed each time you had work to do, now you just wait to take that sit.