Activity & Expense Tracker - 5.0

i was surprised when i ran this app to find the GUI nowhere near as ugly as i thought it would be based on the GUI-critical reviews; i actually thought it was kind of nice-looking in its way. there's a smooth quality to the colors and text that gives the UI a very clean sort of look. but then when i started trying to actually navigate the UI and do things, i started to see what people meant. the UI is pleasing enough to the eye, IMO - albeit in a very non-Mac-looking way - it doesn't have the hideous pixelated graphics of your typical PC app, for example - but it's the layout and functionality that're the killers. the windows are a jumble of UI elements with no apparent method to their placement, and some of the means of doing things - or supposed means - are unthinkable. set the highlight color by Control-clicking a color in the background color list?? egads. and that didn't even work...until i figured out that the author doesn't know that the Apple key's proper name is the Command key, not Control.

i saw other wacky behavior too...there's a Preferences item in the File menu, for example, but it doesn't work; the only way to open the prefs is to click the Prefs button in the Welcome window. stuff like that. i don't mind the app's appearance on a superficial level - there's something i find kind of soothing about it, actually - but in terms of usability it's a horror. i'll pass, thanks.

agree that the GUI for A&ET is awful. No rating, because I haven't tested the functionality -- the interface is too much of a turn-off.