Month: December 2022

It’s that time of year again: new payroll tax tables for the US and Canada. They’ll be available for download next week.

This is turning out to be a tough year for US state payrolls. Several states did complete overhauls, which need extra time to figure out. Arkansas added a withholding table with 52 steps! Maryland redid things so much that we still can’t figure it out. They combine state and county taxes, but we need to separate them for W-2 forms. It makes the process extra difficult.

Part of the annual payroll process is to update web pages for every state. We already modernized the payroll pages a month ago for the new website. There’s no sense in entering text twice, so the new version will swap into the existing site. It’ll be a sneak peek at the new look.

Meanwhile, the new online Reference Manual is shaping up nicely. Many of the existing pages were too big, but now they are split into bite-sized morsels.

The Reference section is so good that it makes sense to merge all the other support pages into it. Having everything in the same folder will make linking much easier. The triage will start soon: delete some, move some, merge some.

During the Aughties, our marketing was almost entirely SEO- Search Engine Optimizing. It mostly was guessing how Google would rate each page and each keyword.

The rules kept changing. Eventually we gave up. A decade of SEO left behind a lot of clutter on the site: long file and folder names with keywords in them, too many mentions of accounting software. Part of the update process is clearing out all that cruft.

The goal of this website update is to make a useful reference for users, that also is easy for our staff to maintain. Whether Google likes it or not is pretty much like trying to please the weather gods.

Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
TurtleSoft.com

Our new accounting software has a single-window interface. I think it’s easier than the current Goldenseal. Less cluttered:

The outline view on the left replaces about half the menu bar commands in Goldenseal. The buttons across the top replace the other half. If you’re in Sales and want to see a sales report, click the Reports button. To change its layout, click Layouts. It’s quicker than wending your way through menus and sub-menus.

However, we discovered a flaw. It’s harder to write instructions for it. Reports and Layouts used to be in one place, but now they are scattered among many types of records. There’s no concise way to explain how to see specific reports or custom layouts.

The new app already has separate record windows as an option, similar to what Goldenseal does now. Sometimes it’s necessary to show things in a new window, or put them side-by-side. Rather than struggle with the manual, we just added separate windows for reports and custom layouts, too. It’s a second way to see them, and it sure is easier to explain.

Programming-wise, we probably could have saved half a year by keeping the multi-window interface, as in the current Goldenseal. Getting all the pieces working properly took quite a bit of design time. Then, after changing to single-window, we pretty much had to go back and duplicate the old interface anyhow.

However, the new setup is a lot more pleasant to use, day after day. It’s an even bigger improvement for the Windows version, which doesn’t have a top menu bar. The app now looks more like the web, with buttons to click instead of menus to search through. That’s helpful for beginners, and easier for experts, too.

Meanwhile, the online reference manual for the new accounting software is revised up to the L’s. That’s well over half done. Many pages need a major rewrite, which makes for slow going. After 2023 state payroll is done, the new website probably will take a couple more weeks to finish. Not completely done, but far enough along that we can focus more on testing.

Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
TurtleSoft.com

Mark Twain once wrote:  “I apologize for such a long letter – I didn’t have time to write a short one.”

Working on the TurtleSoft website is like that, too. It’s way too big. Many topics are covered several times over. Some pages are almost identical. We’ve deleted a few dupes, but it’s hard to track them down.

After the first pass is done, the remaining file names will go into a spreadsheet, sorted alphabetically. It’s mostly for a checklist, so we don’t miss anything in final testing (or look twice). It also may help find some of the overlaps.

But as with Samuel Clemens, we have plenty else to do. The website will still do its job, even if it’s bloated.

Meanwhile, I recently discovered Stable Diffusion. It’s an AI that creates pictures based on the text you enter. For example, the accounting manual mentions chic hats a lot, so this was one result for Turtle wearing chic hat:

This was the prettiest result from Goldenseal software:

I’m not sure why it decided to use golden marijuana leaves!

This result was the weirdest:

One of the AI results for Turtle Creek Accounting Software seems like decent front page design for the new website. Very corporate!

And I really like this result from Turtle Creek Software. The rear legs are in the wrong place, but otherwise it’s pretty cool!

The TurtleSoft results were boring. Ditto for most text with construction in it. Those tended to give earthworks and excavators, with nary a turtle at the controls.

Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
TurtleSoft.com

Goldenseal accounting software comes with two printed manuals. Our staff started to write them in the 90s, while the programmers were still building C++ code. Often, the manual text was specs for how the app should work.

Physical books are not easy to make. Each manual took more than a person-year to finish. Even the printing process is complicated: pages need to be set up in weird pairs so they’ll come out right when cut and assembled. It took a while to find bindings that lie flat on a desk, and that won’t bunch up.

Support for the the new (yet unnamed) accounting software will be 100% online. Nothing on paper. Books have some advantages, but not enough to be worth the extra time they take. It’s also hard to keep them updated.

The current TurtleSoft site has the print manuals as pdf downloads, and also as web pages. The web version uses text and images from the print version, with hyperlinks added.

This week our staff started to update the online manual to work for the new accounting app. We redid a dozen pages, but soon ran into a snag.

Problem is, when the paper manuals were written, they were the only reference for users. They needed to include everything. Our app does a lot, so it took plenty of text to cover all the details. The books are split into lessons that have a bit of humor, but 400 pages of tech stuff is a lot to get through. Most likely, few people have read it cover to cover.

These days, there is an online Reference Manual with instructions for each window and dialog. Also Special Topics that cover obscure stuff, plus Tech Answers and the Answers button for problems. On top of all that, the web version of the print manual. There are plenty of ways to get help.

The manual pages were just too long and complicated as web pages. We split most of them into a main thread and branches, but that wasn’t enough.

The ideal for “getting started” is an express lane that only covers the very basics. Enough to get anyone up and running in an hour or two. Like, a 20 page booklet with videos. It can always link to pages with more details. That way, users can take their pick: Interstate or scenic route.

Redoing the manuals entirely is a big step that needs thought and design time. Our staff should do it gradually, in parallel with final testing and video making. Maybe it’s what we should put on the main page.

State payrolls, tech answers and special topics are already done, so we moved on to the Reference Manual. It’s 300 web pages, the last big hunk. Some pages are also too big, and need to be split. That makes it slow going. At current pace, it will take into January.

The short-term goal from all this website work is to get a checklist for testing the app. Then we can work through pages in order, and not miss anything. The old manual pages would have done that, but now they are an interconnected web just like the rest of the site.

I’m pretty sure that searching a network and not missing anything is NP-Hard. Similar to the Traveling Sales Rep. You can start at any page, follow a link, follow one of its links, and keep going until you hit something already seen. Then go back one page and follow its next link. Repeat until done. It would be tedious at best on 2000 pages. Maybe one of those billion-year things.

Fortunately, there’s the Answers button. That’s A-Z. It’s how we’ll organize final testing. There still will be some recursion, but not so deep.

The long-term goal: it will be grand to be paid eventually for all the labor that has gone into the new estimating/accounting app. A modern website is a necessary part of actually selling the app to new users.

Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
TurtleSoft.com