[GNC-dev] Multi-account actions

[John Ralls]

Right, changing the stock/fund account's parent changes its pricing currency in the pricedb so accounts of that type need at least an additional check to ensure that the new parent has the same currency.

Regards,
John Ralls

> On Aug 31, 2020, at 8:53 AM, Derek Atkins <derek at ihtfp.com> wrote:
> 
> I agree that mass-reparenting of accounts should be allowed, even if the
> accounts have splits, so that that all the selected accounts are allowed
> under the new parent (by type).
> 
> The only corner-case I can think of is for Stock/Mutual fund accounts,
> where GnuCash makes an assumption that the trading occurs in the currency
> of its parent account, so if you move a stock/mutual account, the currency
> of the new parent matters.  If you change to a parent with a different
> currency, and there are already splits in the stock/mutual account, then
> there might be an interpretation problem.
> 
> But for pretty much everything else, just checking the type validity is
> sufficient.
> 
> -derek
> 
> On Mon, August 31, 2020 11:40 am, jean laroche wrote:
>> 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
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>    _______________________________________________
>>> 
>>>    gnucash-devel mailing list
>>> 
>>>    gnucash-devel at gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-devel at gnucash.org>
>>> 
>>>    https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
>>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
>       Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
>       derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com
>       Computer and Internet Security Consultant