Re: Minimum required setup?

["R. Ransbottom" <..hidden..>]

On Mon, Apr 17, 2017 at 01:52:50PM +0200, Erik Huelsmann wrote:

> > I would advise requiring more setup than less.
> >
> > All the "simple" stuff should be required.  Company info, basic CoA, etc.
> 
> When a person or organisation has already decided to go for LedgerSMB, I
> completely agree that this is the way to go. However, I'm wondering: if
> it's very hard to evaluate the software one is considering - e.g. because a
> full setup is required - won't people turn to products which are much
> easier to get up and running (even if not setting them up completely, one
> does get a feel for the product's UI...).

> How do we balance required configuration with "acceptable effort before
> evaluation"?


> purposes? Or is this something people should enter when setting up the
> company through setup.pl? (Bring their own, so to say?)

I don't feel I have a handle on the target audience.

Most new businesses will want a minimal CoA or will be fed one by an
accountant or facimile. 

The last 4 or so accountant's CoAs that I have seen look like old 
ascii reports; perhaps with pipes, grouping headings, and maybe quotes
around the account names:

1000 | Cash                 | Asset       |  Contra

Some simple loader might help, but I'm not in the loop enough to know
if getting plain text from a user is practical anymore.

A small CoA for a demo makes sense.  Public demos get messy with
basic interface play.

I suppose there is much to recommend a loaded demo/tutorial.  A demo
with some data at every lump in the flow.  So people can see what is
going on quickly.  There is an anxiety attached to filling out forms
when it is unknown if it is the form you want, or if it has precursors
or prerequisites.  There's youtube.

> Yes, I'm running into this due to the fact that I'm implementing tests for
> things that don't currently have tests. But since I was changing the code,
> I felt that I had to implement tests for the code that was already there
> *and* for my changes. That's how I discovered that I couldn't test some of
> the functionality that was already there (as the minimum company setup
> didn't include prerequisites for functions I was trying to run).

I think we are agreeing as the above implies that a more completely
defined setup will simplify your task.

I took your post as an consideration of allowing more flexible or varied
levels of set up by user admins.  This will add some complexity that will,
more or less, propagate through the code.

Easing comprehension of the set up questions and of the mechanics of
responding seems better.

Thanks,
Rob

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