GSOC Idea: Charts in CuteCash

[Christian Stimming]

Dear Cong,

your idea sounds very interesting. Especially the "user scenario" as explained 
by the mockup is a very nice goal. With your further explanations about your 
existing knowledge and experience, it seems to be quite realistic that you 
will also be able to achieve that goal within the GSoC timeframe. And nice 
charts are always a good way to improve the user experience in some piece of 
software. I don't recall 3D charts from trolltech - I only knew their 2D 
piechart example (used as Model-View example there) which offered plenty of 
interactivity.

I'd only like to ask for a minor priority shift: Could you *first* try to port 
your existing code into cutecash (#3 in your list), so that the 
gnucash/cutecash project already gets to know how your feature might 
eventually look like, and after that do your chart improvements and better 
labeling (your #1 and #2)? After all, you apply for the GnuCash project to be 
your mentor. Of course it is fine to see your results bringing benefits to 
other projects as well, but we should make sure you will have some deliverable 
inside the GnuCash project right from the beginning, whereas all your MyMoney 
improvements will not show up as benefit for the gnucash project until after 
the code has been integrated into cutecash. Do you think this change in 
planning is possible?

Best Regards,

Christian


Am Sonntag, 3. April 2011 schrieb Cong Chen:
> Hi GnuCash folks,
> 
> My name is Cong Chen. I'm very interested in CuteCash project.
> Years ago, I made a simple personal budgeting software MyMoney
> (http://www.utdallas.edu/~congchen/Projects/Money/money.html) My wife and
> I (and perhaps a few others) use it on daily basis. As a personal money
> management tool, I feel its functionality is satisfiable. Yet, there are a
> lot need to be done on its charts. As you can see from my website, MyMoney
> supports pie chart, line chart, and bar chart. They look nice, but the
> layout and labeling algorithm is lack of consideration when I wrote it. In
> current implementation of labeling, labels are easily covered by other
> labels. A modified force directed layout algorithm (Fruchterman, T. M. J.
> and Reingold, E. M. (1991). Graph drawing by force-directed placement.
> Software Practice and Experience, 21(11), 1129-1164. ) would solve this
> problem. Qt example "elasticnodes" demonstrates this concept.
> 
> I'd like to improve MyMoney's charts, and port them to CuteCash.
> I've compiled and read through the code of CuteCash, and I think it is
> possible to finish below tasks within the time limit:
> 
> 1. Fix existing bugs in MyMoney's charts
> 2. Improve its labeling algorithm.
> 3. Port them to CuteCash
> 4. Design a user scenario in which charts work with SplitListView, as show
> in such a mockup example: Suppose user Carole started a new check book in
> gnucash. She adds income and expense items everyday. Now she wants to know
> how her expenses grow through months, and how different types of expense
> distribute. A bar chart and a pie chart would vividly show her this
> information. Another bar chart comparing income and expense could also
> reminder her of her balance.