Call for Testers: HBCI in GnuCash

Wed, 06 Nov 2002 11:23:06 +0000

Christian Stimming <stimming@tuhh.de> writes:

> The beta release GnuCash 1.7.2 features HBCI online banking
> support. This makes it the world's first *free* HBCI-enabled personal
> finance manager.

Good work!

It took me a few days to get everything up and running.  The gnucash
autogen.sh is an unpleasant experience, but I could make it work.  I
disliked that the default install prefix for libopenhbci is
/usr/local/openhbci (all the rest of the world defaults to
/usr/local), and that the gnucash configure doesn't even start
searching in that default place.

Dependencies seem to be wrong, the HBCI code uses symbols from
src/gnome, but HBCI is built before src/gnome, so linking fails. After
manually invoking make in src/gnome, the application actually
compiled.

>    - Users with self-generated file-based keys need to run this for the
>      first time to generate their keys and have their Ini-Letter printed,
>      which they need to send to their bank. After some days when the bank
>      has processed that letter, they need to run the HBCI Setup druid
>      a second time.

I'm currently using the commercial software Moneyplex for HBCI (at
least it's a native Linux program!), and so I already have an
established key with the bank.  Unfortunately, libopenhbci (and thus
both gnucash and aqmoney) was unable to open my key file, with error:

MediumKeyfile::mountMedium: This seems not to be a medium file (bad type). (0) at MediumKeyFile::_reallyReadFile()

I proceeded by getting a test account from PPI. With a key generated
by gnucash I was finally able to connect and retrieve a list of
accounts.

> * Account functions: In the register window of your GnuCash accounts,
> you now find the submenu item "Online Actions" ("Online Aktionen") in
> the menu "Actions" ("Aktionen"). Each item in this submenu invokes a

Now that doesn't work for me. I keep getting: 

GnomeUI-WARNING **: gnome_app_insert_menus_custom: couldn't find insertion point for menus!

GnomeUI-CRITICAL **: file gnome-app-helper.c: line 640 (install_menuitem_hint_to_appbar): assertion `uiinfo->widget != NULL' failed.

This is with LC_ALL set to de_DE.  If LC_ALL is unset, I don't get the
error, but no Online Actions menu either.  gnucash version is CVS main
branch of two days ago.

> * Currently each HBCI action can only be executed while you are
> online; support for off-line preparation and queueing is not yet
> implemented.

Shouldn't that be easy to implement wby just using the account for
queueing, and tagging the transaction (or split)?

> If you think you can do better on any of these issues -- why not give
> it a try and start coding on yet more HBCI features? Gnucash only

I'm looking into it.

Andreas

-- 
"In my eyes it is never a crime to steal knowledge. It is a good
theft. The pirate of knowledge is a good pirate."
                                                       (Michel Serres)