[GNC-dev] Multi-account actions

[jean laroche]

Note we're talking about multi-*account* actions, not transactions.
Multi-transaction actions would be great, but at the moment, the GC code 
does not make that easy to implement.

@John, I agree that changing currency on an account that has splits does 
not make sense.
Changing parent, if the parent is compatible, I'm not sure why that 
would be disallowed: Say I've decided to change the way I organize my 
expenses, and expenses that used to be in account A:B I now want to put 
into account A:C:D ... I don't see what the harm is even if there are 
splits in them.
Note that this is *already* possible in GC: you delete account A:B and 
ask for transactions to be moved to a new account A:C:D.

Jean


On 8/31/2020 4:38 AM, Fross, Michael wrote:
> Hi John. If I can go to 10 transactions and change them 1 by 1, what’s 
> the difference if can be iterated through, making the same change in 
> each? I must be missing something.
>
> I’m not a gnucash dev, but thought I would ask as I like Jean’s idea.
>
> Michael
>
> On Sun, Aug 30, 2020 at 10:40 PM John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us 
> <mailto:jralls at ceridwen.us>> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>     > On Aug 30, 2020, at 10:32 AM, jean laroche <ripngo at gmail.com
>     <mailto:ripngo at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     >
>
>     > Devs,
>
>     >
>
>     > I have 2 PRs that I submitted for multi-account actions.
>
>     > With these PRs, the user can select multiple accounts in the
>     main account view, then:
>
>     > - Delete multiple accounts in one shot,
>
>     > - Edit multiple accounts in one shot (change the notes, the
>     flags, the color, the currency, or move them to a different parent).
>
>     >
>
>     > I also want to add a "duplicate" action where the user can
>     duplicate the selected account(s).
>
>     >
>
>     > All this of course isn't very useful if you already have your
>     account tree and you never change it. But it's very useful, in my
>     view if you need to setup your account tree or if you regularly
>     need to add accounts.
>
>     > Also, it's part of an effort to make GC more user friendly,
>     offering features that are common in nearly all software (select
>     multiple, then do something).
>
>     >
>
>     > I'm afraid that these PR will just be ignored, because some of
>     the devs just don't look favorably upon them (John for example).
>
>     >
>
>     > I'd like to ask devs to chime in on that. My argument is that
>
>     > - It makes the user's life easier.
>
>     > - It adds a feature to GC that is expected in most software (of
>     any kind), select multiple then do something.
>
>     >
>
>
>
>     I don't have a problem with cosmetic changes like colors, notes,
>     or names. Anything like currency or parents that can affect the
>     accounting logic shouldn't be permitted unless all of the accounts
>     have no splits. IOW the use case you proposed on the PR, shuffling
>     things around when setting up a book, is fine. Doing any of that
>     after creating splits can change the meaning of the splits and
>     can't be permitted.
>
>
>
>     GnuCash is not like "all other software". Just because
>     spreadsheets let you jump off the bridge doesn't mean that GnuCash
>     should. ;-)
>
>
>
>     Regards,
>
>     John Ralls
>
>
>
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