Requirements for 2.4.0

[Phil Longstaff]

Up until now, I've been acting as the release engineer for unstable 2.3.X releases leading to a stable 2.4.0 sometime in late August or September.  However, we have not really nailed down the functionality that will be available, so I want to try to do that.

New features:
1) SQL backend - default to sqlite3 file, but mysql and postgresql also supported
2) webkit HTML engine available instead of old gtkhtml.  Webkit is the basic HTML engine used by Google Chrome and Safari on MacOSX.
3) infrastructure for eguile-based reports and invoices now available.  This means that instead of a SCM file which generates the HTML and requires SCM programming knowledge to modify, reports and invoices can be generated from HTML which has some embedded SCM.  This would allow someone, for example, to modify the basic format of an invoice by editing HTML, as long as he/she kept the embedded SCM code which creates the invoice lines.

For #1 (SQL backend):
* I think the one thing I will do here is add a field to the books table to hold the default currency for the book.  I will modify gnc_book to subclass qof_book and make the default currency available.  Having it available through the book would simplify some stuff in the backend (it could ensure that the default currency was never deleted, meaning that when creating an account/transaction, it could always assume the default currency was in the db).
* I will continue to monitor performance, but don't want to make changes unless urgent.

For #2 (Webkit):
* I will make some SCM variables available to reports which contain font type, effects (bold/italics) and size for text classes "title", "account name", "value" and "total" (do we need "subtitle" as well?).  The reports will then use these to create embedded css to control font usage.  The values for these will come from gconf, but no UI will be provided to modify them (unless someone wants to come up with a UI for me).  This will allow a user to modify the values if desired.

For #3 (eguile):
* I'd like to see Chris Dennis' new invoice/template replace the current invoice.  I think this would give users better ability to modify the invoice format.  Note that there is a bug (can't find it right now) complaining that a new installation overwrites invoice customization, so if a way could be found to split the new invoice into a customization part which is not touched and a template part, that would be great.

Anything else new that we need to get into 2.3.3, before we concentrate on bug fixing?

Maybe 2.3.3 (late July/early August) can be our string freeze.  If so, any UI for #2 (fonts) would need to be done by then.

Phil