[GNC-dev] Update Wiki Custom Report

[flywire]

I do:
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/index.php?title=Custom_Reports&action=history
but docs need some level of overview by Subject Matter Experts or they
become social media.

There are breaking changes in
https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash/releases/tag/5.0

Report and Book Options
>
>    - This major change will affect everyone who has written custom
>    reports in Guile Scheme.
>    - The report and book options code has been completely rewritten in
>    C++ with SWIG providing Guile Scheme access for reports. The new design
>    requires directly registering options with for example
>    gnc-optiondb-register-string-option instead of calling
>    gnc:make-string-option to create an option followed by gnc:register-option
>    to insert it in the report's options.
>    - Value access is also changed: Instead of retrieving an option and
>    then querying or setting its value with gnc:option-value one will query the
>    optiondb with gnc-option-value, the arguments to which are the optiondb,
>    the section, and the option name.
>    - Supporting the new options backend the options dialog code in
>    gnc-dialog-options, gnc-business-options, and the new gnc-option-gtk-ui
>    have also been rewritten in C++.
>
> Reflecting on the changes I made to
https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash/blob/5.0/gnucash/report/reports/example/sample-report.scm
to incorporate these changes, despite being checked by John Ralls, I don't
understand them in the context of the release comments. I very much
followed the approach in the wiki of finding something similar in an
existing report and copy/adapt it. Why is there still a lot of "gnc:" in
reports? Is sample-report still using code that is to be depreciated?

As I see it the page needs (note 2 & 3 highlighted, might only require a
paragraph in each to explain the changes):

   1. all content prior to V5 removed with an introductory comment for
   previous version linking to
   https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/index.php?title=Custom_Reports&oldid=21469
   (I'll do this after 24hrs if there are no objections)
   2. * update
   https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Custom_Reports#The_Options-Generator *
   3. * update
   https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Custom_Reports#The_Report-Renderer *
   4. fix reports example prototype bug: gnc:optname-reportname - I have no
   idea why it doesn't work
   5. points 2 & 3 should allow anyone to fix the rest of
   https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Custom_Reports#Designing_new_Reports

Other comments:

The guide is so Linux-focused that most of it is non-functional in Windows
(debugging, API, adding menu items):

   1. I'm not clear on using
   https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Custom_Reports#The_GnuCash_API but
   clearly, that saves the need for an existing report example. I'd like to
   see the API demonstrated as an MWE (eg point 4 above), preferably using the
   V5 breaking changes.
   2. particularly
   https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Custom_Reports#Technique_to_reload_reports_without_restarting_GnuCash
   and all of https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Custom_Reports#The_GnuCash_API

btw, Maybe the menu item Help, About GnuCash Needs a link directly to the
reports folder.


On Sun, 9 Apr 2023 at 08:06, Frank H. Ellenberger <
frank.h.ellenberger at gmail.com> wrote:

> Do you have no wiki account?
>
> Am 03.04.23 um 05:04 schrieb flywire:
> > Can someone update https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Custom_Reports to
> provide
> > for the changes in V5?
> > _______________________________________________
> > gnucash-devel mailing list
> > gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
> > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
>