Bug 101456 - 'Find' dialog cumbersome for Business functions

[Geert Janssens]

Hi,

I have just added a patch to this bug
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=101456

It may still be improved, but the current implementation works quite well 
already.

I spent way more time than I should on getting this done (and thanks Derek for 
your patience with me on IRC :)

Although I have done some coding in the past, this was my first experience 
with autotools, gnome, gtk, gobject and GnuCash. So my learning curve was 
steep :)

Anyway, the patch is there, feedback is appreciated.

What it does:
It allows one to enter a Vendor/Job/Employee/Invoice/... directly into the 
appropriate text entry widget, optionally selecting an autocompletion value 
when they pop up. This way you can in many cases avoid to use the search 
dialog for the same thing.

Things that could still be improved:
* Limit the autocompletion list to active objects only
* For invoices/bills: only show the relevant ones. Currently both bills and 
invoices are listed at all times. At first glance this can only be done with 
some major refactoring of the invoice qof object, so it would definitly be 
something for a later revision.
* Dynamic autocompletion list generation. This can be considered if there are 
performance issues with generating the list statically beforehand. I don't 
notice significant performance problems on my books, but that could be 
different for others.
* Autocomplete the value in the text entry widget while typing.

I do not intend to implement these extras right away, unless the devs consider 
this patch incomplete without one of them. The patch works fairly ok as it is 
right now.

Considering this is an outstanding annoyance since 2002, I hope it can get 
included as is in the 2.4 release.

Regards,

Geert