1.5.97 first impression

[Jeffrey W. Baker]

On Mon, 4 Jun 2001, Robert Graham Merkel wrote:

> > Anyway, Once the beast is up and running it works acceptably.  I did
> > notice that the initial new file wizard doesn't display any account types
> > in its list, so I couldn't use it jumpstart my accounts tree.  Is it
> > supposed to work in this verion?
> >
>
> Could you please explain in more detail what you mean?  It works for us
> here.

For example, I start GnuCash, then I select New File.  In the wizard, I
select USD as the currency and click next.   The next page is entitled
"Choose Account Types" and there is a list widget at the top.  The list
has no entries, only the headers "Account List Type" and "Description".
Also it looks as though there should be an icon in the upper right but
there is only a white square.

> With respect to the perceived difficulty of writing custom reports,
> well, all I can say is that I, and my fellow developere, like working
> with scheme, and intend to keep doing so.  That said, if somebody were
> to contribute and maintain another language binding, that would be all
> well and good, but I personally don't feel any need at this point.

Yeah well I'll push that onto the queue, as it were :)

> > Speaking of reports, generating even the simplest reports takes forever.
> > On my 1.2 GHz Athlon with 512M of memory, generating the pie chart of
> > exactly one expense takes over 30 seconds.  Is there some way I can fix
> > that?
> >
> Reports can be slow, but aren't usually *that* slow.  What version of guile
> are you using?

1.3.4, which came with my distribution.  I'm not advised on the life cycle
of Guile development.  Is it prudent to upgrade?  Guppi congratulates me
on NOT having an ancient Guile when I run its configure script :)

> > Starting GnuCash also takes forever.  I noticed with strace that a whole
> > lot of Scheme hoo-haw happens at startup time, then the display blocks
> > for 30 seconds generating my report.
> >
>
> Like I said, it can be slow, but not that slow.  I have a P3-733 and my
> startup is much, much faster than that.

Okay I'll have a look at it with strace.  Maybe it is stalling on
something really stupid like name resolution.

> I should also add that several of the GnuCash developers are working on
> speedups and performance analysis tools for guile.
>
>
> > The splash screen is usually obscured at startup by the main window, and
> > it also has a frame which usually splash screens do not.
>
> This is partly a window manager issue.  I know that at some stages the
> splash screen was frameless, but Dave Peticolas (the lead programmer)
> changed it back because, I believe, it worked better with some window
> managers that way.  Perhaps he will comment further . . .

My usual advice regarding splash screens is to ditch them, but I leave
that to your judgement :)

Regards,
Jeffrey