Are There Plans For A GUI Overhaul?

Linux Luser linuxluser at gmail.com
Tue Oct 4 00:42:54 EDT 2016


I've been doing my personal finances using spreadsheets for many years now.
I've gotten things down where it's easy now. However, it's hard to get good
data out of it. I needed a real financial program so I turned to gnucash. I
am happy I did. It was challenging to have to learn good accounting
practices, terminology and approaches to finances. The learning experience
itself was worth it and I now feel I can utilize gnucash for my financial
needs.  Thanks a lot to all who've contributed!


Now I have concerns of a technical nature. I have run into so many
usability bugs in the application that I've lost track. I thought, "I'll
see if there's a bug open for this or maybe open a new one." I've even
thought "Well, time learn C again!" I looked through the bug queue and
noticed that lots of the GUI-related bugs were years old. Even things that
should be simple to fix.

In the code I found out about cutecash, a QT-based GUI for gnucash. I ran
into lots of build problems on my machine that I haven't resolved yet (does
it still build?), so I was unable to see it first hand.

However, all of this, taken together, has lead me to believe that gnucash
is due for a GUI transplant. It needs a makeover, if only for the
developer's sake so that it's easy to fix usability bugs qiuckly (which
appears not to be the current case).


What are the current discussions surrounding build a new, modern GUI for
gnucash? Has there been talk about using a different language, other than
C/C++ for the GUI? QT or GTK3?

And to expose my biases a little, my experience is mostly with Python.
Python + Glade has worked well in the past for to create a GUI in a
surprisingly small amount of time. I also use Python at work for mostly
data-related tasks so I know how easy it is do some very cool data work in
Python. Most meta-type of programming can be done well using dictionaries!


I'm wanted to get my feet wet and help, but I feel like trying to work out
all of the GUI problems with the current build of gnucash would be futile.
It seems to me that if a new language/toolkit combo could be found that
most current developers could agree upon, then it would re-ignite interest
in gnucash's usability.



Thanks,
Dave


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