I'd like to create an applet for gnucash

[Derek Atkins]

Martin Kaffanke <technik at roomandspace.com> writes:

> On mån, 2007-06-25 at 17:12 +0200, Andreas Köhler wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Am Montag, den 25.06.2007, 16:51 +0200 schrieb Martin Kaffanke:
>> > Your suggestions are really good.  But I'm not sure if I really like it
>> > that way.  There must be also a way to make the applet just bring the
>> > gnucash window into the front if the user wants to insert any
>> > transaction.  This should be possible, but if the applet runns the user
>> > will always get an 'file already open' message on starting gnucash
>> > itself.
>> 
>> Using a GtkStatusIcon to put a running GnuCash process into the
>> notification area (system tray), just like at least pidgin and rhythmbox
>> do, is not what you want?
>
> I might not use gnucash the way it is wanted...
>
> When I open gnucash it opens also about 6 reports and the data is
> inserted since 1.1.06, where I have also many private things, like many
> entries for supermarket (simple imported from my online banking export
> ofx).  So there is many data processed and open gnucash takes more than
> a minute on my 1400 MHz Notebook with 1.2 GB RAM.
>
> So my suggestion was a way to simple insert _one_ (or three, but not
> many) transactions into gnucash at a time where I don't want to see all
> the reports and avoid the long start time just for inserting one
> transaction.
>
> The thing is:  I _don't_ want to start gnucash.

But if gnucash was ALWAYS RUNNING, then what's the difference?  in
other words, instead of:

 1) Start gnucash
 2) Wait for it to start
 3) Enter a couple transactions
 4) Save
 5) Exit gnucash
 6) Repeat from #1

Why not:

 1) Start gnucash (maybe as part of Gnome Session)
 2) Wait for First Start (only at gnome session start).
 3) Gnucash puts an icon in the application bar of the gnome panel
 4) click on the gnucash icon and the app opens immediately
 5) enter a couple transactions
 6) save
 7) "exit gnucash" (which really just hides it)
 8) repeat from #4

In this case, "exiting" gnucash really doens't exit, it just
"hides" the app, just like pidgin.

Wouldn't this do what you want?  Basically, it would imply adding
gnome-session support to gnucash and handling the graceful
shutdown/restart properly.

-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