Easier reports with eguile-gnc

[Chris Dennis]

My previous posting on this topic[1] got no response, but I've now 
completed work on this project, and created an enhancement bug on 
Bugzilla[2].

eguile-gnc is a modified version of Neale Pickett's eguile[3], improved 
and adapted for GnuCash.  It allows a GnuCash report to use an HTML 
template with embedded Guile code.  I find it much easier to create a 
GnuCash report that way than via the calls to routines such as 
gnc:make-html-table-cell.

I've also created a sample report called taxinvoice.scm, which has grown 
to become a fully-fledged invoice report that I am currently using 'in 
production' for my own business.  It's layout is more pleasing to my eye 
than the standard Gnucash invoice (obviously that's a matter of personal 
taste).  It also automatically selects columns to display -- for example 
it only displays the discount columns if one or more of the entries 
involves discounts.  Likewise for taxes.  All the column headings are 
customizable via options.

Reports created this way are still limited by GTKHTML's inability to 
honour <font> tags or CSS stylesheets.  Hopefully GnuCash can get round 
that limitation eventually -- I know this has been discussed in the past.

"How do I change the report format" has been a frequent question in the 
Gnucash mailing lists, so I hope eguile-gnc will go some way to 
providing an answer.  Please give it a go: you don't have to wait for it 
to be made part of the SVN tree or a public release.  Just download 
eguile-gnc and the sample report, and plug it in to your existing 
Gnucash installation -- further details are in the bug report[2].  I've 
tested it on Linux, with the SVN version and version 2.2.6; and it works 
on the latest Windows version with a bit of manual adjustment to file paths.

cheers

Chris

[1]
https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2009-February/024775.html
[2] http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574582
[3] http://woozle.org/~neale/src/eguile/
-- 
Chris Dennis                                  cgdennis at btinternet.com
Fordingbridge, Hampshire, UK