Installing on iMac

[John Ralls]

> On Jan 5, 2016, at 1:45 PM, Michael Ellenbogen <michael at eonscreative.com> wrote:
> 
> Thank you John.
> 
> I am planning to read a book about accounting and also have seen that there is a book specific to GnuCash. Will that one book be enough to get a basic understanding of my basic accounting needs?
> 
> Also, I did mean that I was going to set up different accounts for business, non-profit, and personal… only that in each one there are multiple accounts (i.e.. Cash, stocks, etc that I want to connect as they relate to the main accounts); I assume GnuCash will handle this well.
> 
> Your directions below concern me a bit however as they point to what appears to be a user with a “developer” background… for example - I do not believe I use “Terminal” in my day to day use of OS X.
> 
> Sorry to be high maintenance but could you send me something more “dumb” to install the program?
> 
> Or, is it possible this may be too much for me? I was frustrated by Quickbooks shortcomings with OS X environment years back and stopped using it… now I’d like to return to accounting but was researching for something better suited to MAC and that’s how I found out about GnuCash.
> 

Please remember to copy the list on all replies.

If reading books is generally sufficient for you and the book is a good one then it should be enough. Be sure to get help from an accountant if at any point you feel over your head: It's a lot cheaper to get help setting up than cleaning up!

Sorry that the instructions for checking the certificate are too techy for you, but AFAIK Apple hasn't provided another way to check the code signature. This stack exchange article: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/82587/how-can-i-determine-if-a-certain-app-file-is-signed has a link to a third-party program that is supposed to do that, but I don't know anything about it.

If that's too high a barrier for you then perhaps its enough for you to know that the official Gnucash.app is signed with a current paid-up Apple Developer certificate and if GateKeeper alarms then you have either gotten a corrupt copy or downloaded it from somewhere you shouldn't have.

For that matter, your use of the term "install" suggests that you've gotten something other than the official application bundle. Gnucash.app is a drag-and-drop installation: You download the dmg, open it, and drag Gnucash.app to your Applications folder. GateKeeper doesn't care about any of that. When you double-click to open it you will normally get a warning that you downloaded it from the Internet (as opposed to the App Store) and ask if you want to continue. Then it checks the certificate; since Gnucash.app is signed it should start up without any further warnings. If the GnuCash you downloaded required that you run an installer then it's not from us.

Since you say that you were frustrated with Quickbooks shortcomings with [the] OS X environment, I should point out that GnuCash is not a native OS X application, so it has a rather ugly look to it and doesn't always behave the way a native program would. If that's important to you then you'll have to look elsewhere. I suggest the App Store.

Regards,
John Ralls