A first stab at budgeting

[Darin Willits]

Hi All,

Based on our recent conversations and Stewart's summary document, I have
gone ahead and put together an initial implementation of budgeting
support for gnucash.  I have submitted a patch to the gnucash-patches
list but just in case people are eager to see what (possibly)awaits them
I have put together a few screen shots to give you an idea.  You can
find them here:

http://www.darin.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/


As for what works so far:

- create/modify new budgets with initial categories which correspond to
the current account structure.
- assign values/frequencies to each category.
- change/modify the accounts that a category is associated with. 
Categories are currently allowed to be associated with any combination
of accounts.  This might have to change... we'll see.
- classify a category as inflow/outflow.
- add/delete categories.
- generate budget periods from budget frequency.
- generate budget values for each category corresponding to the budget
periods. (Balance Budget tab)


What doesn't (these are only the big things. There are far far too many
little things ;-):

- saving/loading to/from file.
- I don't really use the commodities yet although each category has
one.  Currently I just kinda fudge the calculations and use the value as
a float.  This will have to change once I figure out just how all that
commodity stuff actually works.
- Pretty much everything on the Track Budget tab.  Just empty values so
far.
- I am not generating/using engine events yet.
- I am not using the start date value for each category.  For now they
always run the entire course of the budget.  It would be nice if a
category value could start half way through the budget.
- The tree views and the budget list view are a little buggy because
they are not being notified of updates properly.  They just don't redraw
properly sometimes.

I will also put together a design doc and todo list over the next few
days/weeks, but for now this gives you an idea of where I am headed.

I have been working on the gnome2 branch (which is getting better almost
daily!  --good work!) as that seems the proper place for a large new GUI
feature like this one.

Any questions/comments/concerns are welcome!

Cheers,

Darin