[GNC-dev] GnuCash 3 on Linux

[David T.]

Adrien,
Using configuration files as a mechanism for working around the significant shortcomings of the reports ecosystem in Gnucash is tortured logic, at best. To be clear, I understand the challenges facing the team-- as well as accept that I am unable to effect change in these areas.  Nevertheless, I am disinclined to paper over these shortcomings by accepting such workarounds.

Furthermore, as I understand it, saved reports use the GUID of an account to refer to them, so any attempts at using a saved report from one file in another is likely doomed to fail. 


Or perhaps you're talking about settings associated with the standard reports? I profess I do not know how settings for these are stored-- although the fact that they are not stored with the actual saved reports (like the saved reports themselves) simply underscores the piecemeal mechanisms used for the reports. 

Your points about multiple user access are a red herring.  Since Gnucash doesn't support multiple users, there's no point in speculating on how we might circumvent this limitation.  

Gnucash does, however, support one user having multiple data files, and in this case, a user opening file B will see all the (useless) saved reports for file A.

Finally, the points originally raised regarding the scattershot storage of data that are integral to a set of books (whether reports, settings, or other data) remain.  

David T. 

 
 
  On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 9:14, Adrien Monteleone<adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net> wrote:   One might want the same configuration in many respects and the same options on various reports to be ’saved’ (since there is no other way to accomplish this task) as user configured defaults to be useful across various books.

Some people have separate files for many entities and they shouldn’t have to re-create all of that work for each one. You might always want to roll up child totals to the parent or not show zero balance accounts for example, regardless of the entity you are running reports for. Your accountant might always want to see reports following a certain format, different from the GnuCash defaults, regardless of the entity.

But I also see the case where multiple users might access the same data file and you’d want them all to have the same configuration for the book options and a standard set of reports to be able to run.

Certainly, there is room for improvement for a multi-user environment. (which GnuCash does not officially support at present from my understanding)

Perhaps the user environment itself should be an option which would determine where the various configurations are stored. (or more likely, how they are stored, as they should probably all be located *with* the data file, though not necessarily a part of it.)

Another option, specific to reports would be the ability to create a ‘custom default’ set of options. This would allow the creation of new books without having to 'remake the wheel’. (I understand ‘custom default’ may sound absurd to some, but think of this more like a ’template’.)

Regards,
Adrien

> On Feb 23, 2019, at 8:53 PM, David T. via gnucash-devel <gnucash-devel at gnucash.org> wrote:
> 
> Storing configuration data separately from the financial data and on a user (as opposed to a book) basis is questionable.
> 
> Storing saved reports separately from the financial data and on a user basis makes no sense at all. A saved report for one file will be meaningless in another. This issue has come up many times on the lists. 
> 
> The fact that we even need a wiki page dedicated to file and configuration locations-- let alone one as long and convoluted as the one we have (and which needs additional diagramming)-- only underscores this problem. 
> 
> I want to be clear that I am truly grateful that Chris has decided to work on reports, and I have great respect for his ability to work with Scheme. I've yet to succeed in either editing an existing report or getting a third party report installed on my Mac. 13 years of futility on that front!
> 
> David T. 
> 

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