Keystroke saver

[gmsimon]

I enter dividends manually. About 75%-80% of the time, the $amt of the dividend is the same as the previous dividend entry. Would be nice to have the new dividend dialog box default to the prior amount. Admittedly not a biggie but, over time, as more & more of these little savers are added, the software becomes faster & smoother for the end user...

[Mark]

Hi gmsimon,

Makes sense, thanks for the idea.

[gmsimon]

Mark - another one I hope is still on the list...

[Mark]

Hi gmsimon,

Thinking about it now, I'm not sure this would be helpful to the majority of users... I would not expect the dividend amounts to be the same between different investments in most cases?

[gmsimon]

Mark - that is not what I meant.

If I am dealing with a specific, single investment & manually posting a new dividend payment, 95% of the time the payment is exactly the same as it was in the previous quarter for that particular stock. If I received, for example, $100 in a quarterly dividend payment, this quarter's payment is usually $100 (unless I have fewer/more shares than last quarter or the company raised their dividend since the last payment - I would say at least 80% of the time, this would save having to manually enter the $amount of the payment.

Not a biggie - just saves some keystrokes...I like defaults where they make sense. Maybe you could show previous dividend payment & offer a checkbox to set this payment = to last payment?

[Mark]

Hi gmsimon,

Sorry, I misunderstood. I can see this usage...

[gmsimon]

so you will consider doing this at some point? (obviously, I like 'sooner' rather than 'later')

[Mark]

Hi gmsimon,

I'm not real fond of the idea of adding more text and another button to the Distribution dialog. It may help a few, but it adds clutter, and possible confusion. I don't think the overall benefits would out-weigh the overall added overhead. A solution that may work is if we added a keyboard shortcut, so advanced users could utilize it, without cluttering up the dialog. For example, if you put the cursor in the "Value" edit box, and hit the key "L" for maybe "Last", it could auto-fill that value box with the same value as your last distribution. I like that solution the best, as it makes it available to those who need it (and may be willing to read the online help), but it doesn't create more inputs the average user would have to view and deal with.

This is something that is on the list of features to consider. As I'm sure you can understand, I can't get into saying which features we will/won't implement or when.

Another option you could consider for now is to use copy/paste. In the Data Register if you select your last distribution, and right mouse click and choose "Copy", you can then right mouse click again and do a "Paste". This will duplicate that distribution. You can then edit it, and simply change the date. This is convenient if the amount is the same as last time.

[gmsimon]

Mark - probably nothing really needs to be done here - but...

It would at least help to start the cursor in the Value box immediately without having to use a mouse click to get there. Very seldom do I need to change the distribution type or the Reinvestment box.