Source directory restructuring

[Derek Atkins]

Sounds like a great plan to me!!!

-derek

Geert Janssens <geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be> writes:

> So after my houskeeping message in which I have announced the changes to src/
> business and src/libqof, I'd like to bring up my eventual goal for the source 
> tree.
>
> My main motivation to do all this restructuring is to simplify. There are 
> currently plenty of directories and I often have to guess where to expect a 
> file. The qof vs engine story was one example. Is gnc-date something for qof 
> or for engine ? I find myself regularly searching for a file in the wrong 
> directory.
>
> So here follows a first proposal for the directory structure I'm targetting:
>
> * data (for things like art, checks, account hierarchy templates,...)
> * doc (for all documenation)
> * lib (for all source required to build "libgnucash", see below)
> * ui (for all the user interfaces the project currently supports)
>
> I am omitting some smaller directories here, such as util and macros. They 
> will probably stay on the current top level for now.
>
> I'm envisioning "libgnucash" as the core library that encapsulates all gnucash 
> related concepts (the accounting concepts such as transaction, split, as well 
> as the data backends). This library is what all applications in the gnucash 
> sphere should depend on to implement the "gnucash" experience. The most 
> obvious is of course the current gnucash as we know it. However at some point 
> this library should ideally also become the core of the Android app and *who 
> knows* one day an IOS app. And closer to the current state, it should also be 
> the library that the guile and python bindings depend on. So all functionality 
> encapsulated in one single library, the API. In practice I think the following 
> directories belong in this libgnucash: core-utils, gnc-module, engine, the 
> backends, app-utils. (Note I would like to get rid of gnc-module still, but 
> that's a whole other discussion and task).
>
> The ui directory will have a subdirectory for each user interface we support. 
> This is not necessarily a *graphical* user interface though. At this point 
> there are already a number of them:
> gnucash
> cutecash
> bindings (with subdirectories for python and guile)
>
> The bulk of the other directories are support directories for one of the ui's 
> and I propose to make them subdirectories of each respective ui.
>
> For example gtkmm is only used by cutecash, so let's store it there (until 
> another ui would also require it, which I consider unlikely to happen still).
>
> The other directories (gnome-utils, gnome-search, gnome, register, html, 
> report, import-export,...) are all used only in the gnucash application and 
> hence should be moved there. In the move I'd like to try and reduce the 3 
> gnome* directories to one and call it gtk as we're not using any gnome 
> specific technology any more.
>
> In a later phase I think it would be nice if the core libgnucash could also 
> spit out html reports, but that would require us to refactor the report 
> modules, which I consider too much work to be done at the same time. When this 
> eventually gets done the non-ui part of the report system can then be added in 
> libgnucash to the benefit of all consumers (gnucash/cutecash/Gnc4Android/...).
>
> Feedback or questions ?
>
> Geert
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>
>

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available