Reg Run Balance for Subaccount view

[Tim M]

OK, IMO the updated patch attached to this mail is ready for testing.  This
patch does the following:

1. When opening an account register and it's subaccounts by right clicking
it in the Accounts tab and selecting "Open Subaccounts," there is now a
Balance column as there normally is in a single account register.

2. This new RBALN balance column tallies the balance of the splits for the
account and all subaccounts at runtime.

3. Because the balance is calculated at runtime, this also means that the
balance column always reflects an accurate running balance regardless of
sort order.  This is a big benefit and could certainly be modified to work
for single account view as well.  With the current single account register,
when the sort order is changed the Balance displayed will only reflect the
balance of the account associated with each split - not a running balance in
relation to the sort order of the register, so that the 'Balance' displayed
for each split when the sort order is not the default causes the 'Balance'
column to be more or less unusable.

I believe this should also resolve the following issue:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=107929

I resolved issue #1 in my original mailing list post.  Issue #2 remains a
matter of testing by other users to ensure the patch doesn't have any
unintended consequences.

I've tested this patch locally by opening an account and it's subaccounts
using the "Open Subaccounts" option.  The newly added balance column tallies
the balance properly at runtime, and sets the balance color properly as well
(red for negative, black positive).  I also tested different sort orders,
and the running balance was spot on regardless.  Since this affects only the
"Open Subaccounts" register (and possibly other similar registers?), this
does not affect single account registers so those still do not tally Balance
properly when using a non-default sort order.

This patch is against an older version of the SVN repository (I think a
trunk snapshot of version 3.1), so it may or may not work OK with the latest
trunk.  Let me know if I need to make a new patch with the current trunk.


As a side note and as matter of cleanup, it would be useful to functionalize
the part of the new gnc_split_register_get_rbaln_entry() function which does
the actual calculations to get the running balance of the register at a
specific split, because the running balance also has to be calculated for
the gnc_split_register_get_balance_fg_color() function to set the text color
properly when the RBALN cell type is used.  Currently I've just copied the
code from the rbaln function to the fg_color function, so it would be
helpful to put this in a function that returns a gnu_numeric value of the
split's running balance for the register which could then be called by both
functions.  However, I'm not an experienced C programmer so I was having
some trouble figuring out just where to put such a function and how to get
it working.  I did try!

Also, this is my first FOSS patch, so let me know if there is anything I can
do differently or improve on, thanks!

-Tim M.


On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 10:53 AM, Tim M <tim at filmchicago.org> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I've attached a BETA svn diff patch against HEAD which creates a new cell
> type, RBALN_CELL.  I could use some help tweaking this patch if someone is
> able to provide answers to my questions below.
>
> This cell calculates the balance of all transactions in a register at
> runtime, allowing a running balance to be displayed when using the "Open
> Subaccounts" feature.  The cell currently calculates the running balance of
> all splits that are going to/from the lead account and all of its
> subaccounts, therefore it is not appropriate (currently) to use this cell
> type in a non-subaccount register view.
>
> My Questions:
>
> 1. There is an outstanding issue with this patch where it appears the
> return value of the gnc_split_register_get_rbaln_entry() function is printed
> in the Balance column of the split rows.  The running Balance is correctly
> printed on the Transaction rows, but the cells in the Balance column on the
> lines of the split should be blank.  Instead, they display 1 (for all
> transactions where a balance is printed) or 0 (for the blank split at the
> bottom because the function returns NULL since we don't print the balance
> for that txn).  How can I fix this so that the balance cell of the split
> lines is blank?
>
> 2. The RBALN_CELL was added to the CURSOR_SINGLE_JOURNAL cursor of the
> INCOME_LEDGER/GENERAL_LEDGER/SEARCH_LEDGER cases in
> split-register-layout.c.  Will this affect other register views besides the
> subaccount view?  I have only tested this with asset accounts (bank,
> checking) so I'm not sure if it might cause problems with different account
> types.
>
>
> Please take a look and let me know how I can further improve it!
>
> Thanks,
> -Tim M.
>
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