Not quite what I was expecting

Ive been a Squirrel user since 08, and this update is a pretty big miss for me, for a bunch of different reasons. Firstly, a complete rewrite of the app and redesign of the UI seem like a much bigger change than just going from 0.8.6 to 0.8.7. This feels like a major version bump, like going from version 1 to version 2. On that note, its strange that an app in the Mac App Store is still pre-1.0.

Along those lines, the number of changes in this version that arent backwards compatible is both surprising and frustrating. I have two computers that I cant/wont upgrade to Lion for at least another few months, and this version requires 10.7.2 to run. Worst of all, the format of the database has changed and is no longer compatible with 0.8.6. So either I keep using 0.8.6 on Snow Leopard and Lion, and put up with the issues on Lion, or I switch to 0.8.7 and cant use it on my Snow Leopard machines. Again, for a non-major version bump, that amount of breakage is very unexpected.

Another issue with the major infrastructure changes is that 0.8.7 doesnt support custom database file locations. Not only does that mean I cant keep the DB in my Dropbox to stay synced between machines (I shouldnt be forced to use iCloud to accomplish that), but it means I had to figure out where the new DB was buried in ~/Library just to get it to load my existing data. Way more work than it should have been, since theres no way to actuall import a Squirrel DB; not even with the Import command...

As far as the app itself, none of the changes are absolutely terrible, but a lot seem like a step backwards. Ill start with the good stuff, though. The new view for budgets makes a lot more sense. The "Past Periods" chart still wastes too much space to be useful, but the individual budgets are nice. Its great that the account graphs can scroll all the way back through their history, rather than just being a limited period. And the fact that it works in Lion now is a welcomed improvement. The transaction list in Reports is an actual table now, which is nice.

Theres a lot of bad stuff, too. The new entry form is vertical rather than horiztonal. That means theres less room in the spreadsheet to fit tags/commonts etc, *and* less room in the form for that same data. The form also isnt resizable, so on any given entry I can see at most one tag at a time unless I bring up the HUD. The new graphs are (I think) a lot uglier, and a lot less useful. They dont have x-axis (date) labels, so you cant actually tell what youre looking at unless you mouse over the graph. The account views seem to have dropped the current/future/reconsiled overview and the quick filter bar. The reports also look much less appealing, and dont have persistent labels (either category or amount), so theyre pretty useless for a quick overview. Even if you try to use them to make comparisons its a pain. The report graphs also render *much* slower than in 0.8.6, and the breadcrumbs to clear category filters make no sense. While the graphs do allow for scrolling, which is nice, they dont offer any way to zoom out, so theres no way to see more than ~3 months on one screen (on my 13" screen, at least). They also dont seem to graph future balances, which was great for a quick forecast.

Again, these are things that were pretty much all there in 0.8.6, and have disappeared with the update, and feel like a step backwards. For me, theyre much more important than iPhone syncing and iCloud integration, so hopefully they just got lost in the rewrite and will be added back before long.

There are a lot of little glitches that didnt used to exist. When some modal dialogs load sometimes dropdown menus will show some SQL-related code and then quickly get replaced by the actual display values. Sometimes the graph labels will get cut off, and other times the entire graph just wont show up. There are some pretty weird graphical issues with the graph hovers. The database upgrade seems to have forgotten several of my smart folders.

While this app continues to show really strong promise, theres just a lot missing from this update that I rely on, and none of the additions or fixes are things I was desperately looking for. For now Ill be going back to 0.8.6 and just dealing with the weirdness on Lion. Once the Mac App Store version catches back up to that in terms of actual, useful features, Ill consider switching, even if it means Lion-only machines.

Chris Kalafarski about Squirrel