AqBanking Import/Export (was: import/export bounty)

[Martin Preuss]

Hi,

On Mittwoch, 24. September 2008, Derek Atkins wrote:
> Martin Preuss <aquamaniac at gmx.de> writes:
[...]
> > Hmm, just a thought: GnuCash already uses the import framework of
> > AqBanking (in addition to GnuCash's own importers), maybe the CSV
> > importer of AqBanking could be usefull to you as well?
>
> It could be.  Does AqB support investment accounts, yet?
[...]

Partly. But at least for those users who only want to import their banking 
statements investment accounts aren't a killer feature (unless of course they 
have investment accounts only ;-)

So even if investment accounts were completely unsupported by the importer 
many users could benefit from the AqBanking CSV importer, because...

[...]
> Maybe.  One of the cool things about the raw CSV importer is that
> you can create a profile in real-time.  It will show you the raw
> text of the columns as it imports them and then you can choose
> (in real time) how to interpret the columns.
[...]

... while this is an elegant way to import CSV data occasionally, it is 
additional work for the user if he is to import CSV data on a regular basis. 
For that job predefined profiles might be a nice service.

Those profiles not only specify which column contains what field. They also 
specify date formats, amount formats etc. These are quite special for some 
banks, so having to specify those pecularities each and every time a CSV file 
is to be imported might be some work... Especially when there already *is* an 
importer which can take care of this automatically.

That's the reason why I proposed allowing for AqBanking's CSV to be used 
additionally (because AqBanking already uses some of the importers).

The only necessary addition I can think of is to add a dialog which allows for 
the user to choose one of the predefined profiles.

BTW: This addition would also help current users of the other AqBanking 
importers, namely SWIFT MT94x. Currently the profiles "SWIFT-MT940" 
and "SWIFT-MT942" are hardcoded into GnuCash. This caused a problem for a 
user who wrote me about his AMRO-MT940 files. There already is a profile for 
those files in AqBanking, but GnuCash doesn't use it (and doesn't allow to 
choose *that* profile).

If someone where to write a dialog which only presents a list of names and 
allows the user to choose among them I could provide the code to deliver 
those names...

The same code could also be used to allow for *all* AqBanking importers 
(future *and* present) to be used without the need to modify GnuCash at the 
arrival of new plugins.

AqBanking has code which allows for the format to be determined automatically 
(CSV, SWIFT, DTAUS). However, with some files the code can't be sure so it 
must present the user with a list of candidates (this would also be a dialog 
which presents a list of names among which the user needs to choose).

Summary: If someone could provide the code for a simple GTK dialog which 
presents a short description and a list of names to choose from I could 
provide the rest (my GTK skills are extremely bad, that's why I don't dare to 
write my own dialog).


Regards
Martin


-- 
"Things are only impossible until they're not"

Martin Preuss - http://www2.aquamaniac.de/
AqBanking - http://www.aqbanking.de/
LibChipcard - http://www.libchipcard.de/