experimenting with changes
jer
I would like to experiment with some changes to my Moneydance file (on Windows 10). Would it be safe to make a copy of the data file with a new name and make experiments on that file. I would be concerned that there might be shared files other than the data file that would be affected (I see somethings about a "preferences" file for instance). Desire would be for experiments not to affect existing in any way. If I am successful with experiments would adopt the experiments data file as baseline going forward retaining the original file for history.
Nature of experiment - have decades of old investment data with hundreds of securities in an account that has been closed. These were all imported from Quicken. All of the old security data adds complexity to the category drop down that I would like to eliminate. I suspect they also contribute to long load time of the program (>60 seconds). Proposed experiment would be to delete obsolete account that held these securities, correcting any affects on new account that did accept some of the securities, though most were sold before closing first account..
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1 Posted by jer on Dec 25, 2018 @ 04:35 PM
A clarification - the category "complexity" mentioned is with Tools>Categories. I have already made obsoleted securities "inactive" so they do not affect the category dropdown assignment. However they make maintaining the Tools>Categories messy since they remain displayed even if grayed out and they are inserted in the list alphbetically. It would be nice if there were a "HIDE INACTIVE" button. Plus the issue of long load time remains, so still asking original question about copy and experiment with data file.
2 Posted by dwg on Dec 25, 2018 @ 08:22 PM
I'm a fellow user.
So long as you not syncing the data it is fairly safe to make a copy, if you are syncing data it is extremely dangerous and you would most likely corrupt the data.
In Moneydance 2017 deleting data does not do what many expect it would. Moneydance writes data as a series of transactions, so if you enter a transaction, change it, then delete it it is not actually gone as such, there would actually be three transactions recorded, the initial ADD, then the MODIFY then the DELETE all of that is still there.
So doing the above actually increases the size of the data. Moneydance 2019 manages the transaction data better and should reduce the overall file size.
3 Posted by John Roling on Dec 25, 2018 @ 09:20 PM
I would be looking at deleting entire accounts not individual securities. Does that make a difference to size? Would instead archiving account remove its information, particularly the security names included in categories? That is something I would try first as the scores of security names are the biggest problem with categories view..
I don't see anything on Moneydance site that speaks to version. How do I find out more about v2019? My theory for slow startup is that Moneydance is loaded completely to and runs out of RAM (not sure who told me that) and I have a very large file. Do you know if v2019 make what has to be loaded different (even without my deleting accounts)? Perhaps not loading inactive accounts or archived accounts?
Thank youjer
On Tuesday, December 25, 2018, 02:22:45 PM CST, dwg <[email blocked]> wrote:
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4 Posted by dwg on Dec 25, 2018 @ 09:40 PM
Deleting entire accounts just means you are deleting more data so more deletes are being written to the file.
Moneydance 2019 is currently in Beta testing so you will not see a lot mentioned in the forums, it is not yet ready for prime time. So it tends to be the hardy that get involved and those that have a spare machine.
MD2019 will do a lot of compressing and internal archiving of older TXN files so to make the overall file size smaller, it should help to improve loading times, but I don't expect an application written in Java to ever be real speedy in opening plus Moneydance is doing some update tasks when it starts as well, it does things like checking for updates received via syncing, rolling TXN files into the main trunk file etc.
You may have seen RAM discussions around the Java Virtual Machine and the need to increase or even decrease the size made available to it, that appear to have an effect on if Moneydance will or will not start rather than data size.
5 Posted by John Roling on Dec 25, 2018 @ 10:17 PM
Maybe v2019 will solve my load time issues, but only solution to security names embedded in categories view is to start over without the account that held them. Would have to start over with all other accounts too, so probably not worth it.
Really wonder why Moneydance does not include a preference for hiding "inactive" categories or better a button on the categories page? Maybe too close to Quicken implementation and worry about legalities? Seems too simple and obvious to be a technical issue. I suppose that most people would not have my problem with quantities of securities of course.
Thanks for your assistance,
jer
On Tuesday, December 25, 2018, 03:40:38 PM CST, dwg <[email blocked]> wrote:
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6 Posted by -Kevin N. on Dec 25, 2018 @ 11:00 PM
Hi John,
Categories can be marked as 'Inactive' which hides those categories from most drop-down lists.
Securities, do not enjoy the same capabilities. Security nomenclature adheres to ASCII rules. Appending an X or Z to the beginning of a security name will not hide the security but it will relegate it to the bottom of most lists thus getting those securities out of the way. I wouldn't relish the idea of having to do so to your 'hundreds' of securities though.
-Kevin N. (not a member of MD support)
7 Posted by dwg on Dec 25, 2018 @ 11:36 PM
Moneydance in my view has only gone part of the way in handling inactive items, as Kevin has said Securities do not have any option at all.
This has come up before but it has never seemed to risen to the top of the list of what to implement.
8 Posted by John Roling on Dec 27, 2018 @ 09:10 PM
Changing names of securities ("z" prefix) in the security list reorders the security in the security list but not those in the category list.
Changing names in category list has the desired affect. Not quite perfect since INCOME and EXPENSE categories still separated by vast number of INACTIVE securities but at least within the INCOME and within the EXPENSE areas the desired categories are now collocated.
This has helped immensely, though the discussed product changes are still desirable.
Thank you again for your assistance
JER
On Tuesday, December 25, 2018, 05:36:17 PM CST, dwg <[email blocked]> wrote:
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System closed this discussion on Mar 28, 2019 @ 09:20 PM.