iBal Help Top > How to use iBal

How to Use iBal
Using iBal
The use of iBal should be pretty obvious, especially if you have any experience in using iTunes or iPhoto.

Main Window
This is the big window which looks like iTunes. The big table view shows the list of records, and the little table view on the left shows the list of books and smart books. The search box on the top right can be used to search for comments. The box on the centre top shows statistics such as "total income" and suchlike. Records which have the "Include in stats" checkbox unticked are not included in this data. The button on the bottom right with the "+" is for toggling the "Add new record" window.

"Add New Record" window
Enter details, press "OK". Note that you can't have "0" as the amount.

Keywords
You can set keywords on records, much like that of iPhoto. You must first create keywords in the keywords window, which you can open from the "File" menu (or pressing Command-K). In this window, "New" creates a new keyword, and "Delete" deletes the selected keyword. Selecting a keyword and clicking "Search" will make the main table view only show records in that book with the selected keywords. You can make the table view show all records again by pressing "Show All". Keywords are useful for grouping records such as "Food", "Travel", etc. You can set the keywords of new records in the "Add new record" menu by checking the checkboxes of keywords you want. You can also allocate keywords to existing records by selecting the record in the main table view, and checking the checkbox of the relevant keywords in the keywords window.

Books and Smart Books
Added in iBal2 is the ability to put records in collections, much like the playlists in iTunes. You can create "Dumb Books" which just sits there holding the records you put in them, or smart books. Both are created in the "File" menu. Smart books are intelligent books which update its contents according to the conditions it's been set. You can change the conditions of any existing smart books by selecting the book and selecting "Edit Smart Book" from the File menu. My implementation of the smart book allows you to set "And" and "Or" conditions. Smart books can be very useful if you think carefully.

Graphs
I have not implemented the graph in this version, purely because I don't think there's enough demand for it. If you want a graph, e-mail me.
iBal Help Top > How to use iBal