[GNC-dev] GnuCash Portable is no longer portable as of 3.x

[Wm]

On 09/07/2018 04:03, John Ralls wrote:

Notice: Subject may be wrong at time of writing as I see there is a new 
PA version, I haven't tested it yet.

>> On Jul 8, 2018, at 7:35 PM, Wm via gnucash-devel <gnucash-devel at gnucash.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 08/07/2018 15:52, John Ralls wrote:
>>
>>> Wm,
>>> Portable Apps is just another downstream distro.  We have no ability to enforce anything against any distro. Either they maintain a usable GnuCash in their package manager or they don’t and there’s not a darn thing we can do about it unless they have a technical reason for not doing so (like the recent dropping of the WebKit1 API by Fedora) and inform us of it. AFAIK we’ve never had any such contact from the Portable team.
>>
>> That isn’t how PA present their re-packaging and use of GnuCash.
> 
> Oh? Please explain.

PA actively moves files and directories about and writes to and from the 
Registry so that an App can be picked up and put down on more than one 
PC, conceptually the person takes all their applications with them on a 
usb stick and plugs it in at work, home and school.  The PA folk take 
Applications that aren't portable from one system to another (many 
Windows programmes, GnuCash for example) and makes them Portable.

NB: my paraphrase in explanation, PortableApps.com explains it better.

This was working fine until PA didn't notice the changes between 2.x and 
3.x and didn't get clue when things were pointed out to them by myself 
via e-mail and by reports from users of the portable version (I think 
distro may not fit, depending on how we define a distro).

There are considerable advantages and conveniences to the PA way when it 
comes to backups, networked drives, people needing to take GnuCash with 
them when they go to a conference and so on that GnuCash doesn't 
natively support because it does stuff that is illogical to me; why 
would an invoice format or budget that takes hours to build (and almost 
any other well constructed report of general and regular use) be stored 
*per_user* and even if it is the same user why store it uniquely 
*per_a_user's_different_computers* rather than associated closely with 
the book itself ... but this probably isn't the message for visiting 
that again.  Clearly someone at GnuCash towers thinks MicroSoft got 
AppData storage right :(

Hint: Putting something in \AppData\Roaming doesn't mean you take it 
with you from one PC to another as you roam about.

>>> A question for you: Why did you choose to use GnuCash Portable instead of the GnuCash Windows bundle from www.gnucash.org <http://www.gnucash.org/>?
>>
>> I don't use it myself, I use it on other people's behalf.
>>
>> Reasons?
>>
>> Convenience. I can say "don't update to GnuCash 3.x until it is working right for you" rather than having them try early versions that I know won't do what they expect.
>>
>> Backups. PortableApps puts data in more sensible places by default than GnuCash does, or used to.  <--- See the circle here?
> 
> GnuCash puts data wherever you tell it to. It has defaults, but they’re easily overridden with environment variables.

OK, update the wiki so users understand what to change so all the bits 
in the weird Windows file space can be put conveniently next to the 
books they belong to.  <-- that isn't going to happen, is it?  Someone 
bought into the Windows model of where things go and Reports (and other 
.gnucash elements) have ended up in very personal space rather than 
being closely associated with the data (book) they belong to and are 
completely fucking useless in isolation of said file.  Who in their 
right mind would want anyone else's
..\AppData\Roaming\GnuCash
without the matching book?

What I think you should have done was put .gnucash in the same dir as 
the data.  Not hard.  All that is then needed is for Fred and Mary to 
add their name to their chosen versions of the Balance Sheet rather than 
this increasing separation of items that belong together.

I mean, if you ran a restaurant would you store the menu a mile away 
from the people dealing with the food and the customers? <-- I'm not 
sure that analogy really works but in the interests of self deprecation 
I'll leave it.  Anything is allowed anywhere in the USA after Trump, 
right? :)

-- 
Wm