greetings

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

Welcome to the wonderful world of GnuCash!  We welcome your
help and input.

More inline...

Larry Siden <lsiden at comcast.net> writes:

> Greetings all.  I am new to GnuCash.  I encountered GC while looking for
> an alternative to Quicken b/c I now run exclusively Linux on my home PC
> and I've assumed that Intuit has no plans for a GNU/Linux version of
> Quicken!  However, I soon encountered several problems that made me
> question GC's stability (1.8.8 release).  However, after perusing
> several of these lists, I concluded that GC does has a faithful
> following of both users and developers, and since I am a currently
> unemployed developer who champions free (as in speech!) software, and
> would like to have a stable cash-mgt app on my home Gnu/Linux box, I
> would like to contribute some time and energy to the effort to get GC up
> to an industrial-strength world-class application that can beat the
> socks off anything that Windows can offer.

I'm sorry you encountered this problem.  Whenever I hear of a problem
I ask the reporter to file a bug.  Not everyone does so.  *shrugs*

> I already downloaded and built the "1.8.8-branch" branch from CVS, and
> would like to attack some bugs, starting, if possible, with the ones
> that are keeping me from properly reconciling my check register.

Hmm, there was a bug in 1.8.8 (and prior) w.r.t. deleting entries from
the reconcile window.  Some variables were not properly initialized.
It's possible that there are some remaining problems in other code
paths, although I hope not.  Although if you saw a problem in 1.8.8
and did not see it again in 1-8-branch it's quite possible that your
problem was fixed.  :)

> Right now I'm so new and have encountered so many problems trying to get
> started with GC, I hardly know where to start.  Several of the problems
> I encountered are not even mentioned on Bugzilla, which concerned me,
> b/c at first I was not sure whether this might be due to something
> "strange" about my own box, or b/c GC did not have a wide enough
> following to keep Bugzilla up-to-date.  For example, GC suddenly crashed
> whenever I tried to finish a reconciliation that didn't balance (b/c I
> don't have the true initial balance).  I found nothing about this in
> Bugzilla, however when I tried it again after clearing only several
> transactions, it worked, and now I can't repeat the crash.  (I'd like to
> know if there's an easy way to undo the "R" status of ALL the reconciled
> transactions w/out having to do it one by one so that I can reproduce
> this bug before reporting it.  I don't see any point in reporting a bug
> that I can't reproduce!)

Well, where to start, IMHO, is trying to reproduce the problem.  It's
especially helpful if you can reproduce it in 1-8-branch.  If you can
reproduce a problem, you should file a bug report.  I bet your crash
was with 1.8.8, right?  It's very possible this was related to the bug
that I fixed (you might also want to try searching on fixed bugs, too,
if you're not running the 1-8-branch code).

No, there is no where to reset the reconcile status on ALL of
the reconciled transactions..  HOWEVER, you can revert back to
a backup file.  Go find the .xac file dated before you ran the
reconcile and you'll have effectively reverted back to a bunch
of unreconciled transactions.

> So I guess my bottom line is that I'd like to help but only if I know
> that I can count on the encouragement and support of some key developers
> including whoever maintains the patches and releases.  That isn't to say
> that I expect every patch I submit to be accepted, just that I'd like to
> know that there are one or more people I can turn to for help getting
> pointed in the right directions while I'm getting started and that my
> efforts will be appreciated by someone.  Anybody there?

*** encourages you ***

Yes, you will DEFINITELY get encouragement from me and, if I may be so
bold, from the other developers.  Bug reports are always welcome.  Bug
reports that include patches to fix the bug are even MORE welcome.

You're welcome to come to #gnucash on irc.gnome.org and ask for
developer help.  Most of us hang out there regularly/frequently (I'm
not there right now because my machine is dead and the temporary
machine I'm borrowing does not have an irc client).

* If you have specific questions you can ask them in IRC or here on
  this mailing list.

* Patches should go into Bugzilla, and a reference to the
  bug can be sent to gnucash-patches at gnucash.org.

Did I miss anything?

Welcome aboard!

> Regards,
> -Larry Siden
> http://umich.edu/~lsiden

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available