[GNC-dev] Sample Report with Examples

[Geert Janssens]

All good suggestions.

Let's see how many are reasonable for flywire to pick up and fix. (flywire, I have no idea 
of your skill level and willingness to work on this...)
I would already take partial fixes as a step in the good direction.

Regards,

Geert

Op zaterdag 14 januari 2023 16:58:09 CET schreef john:
> Geert,
> 
> Roger. The problem with that argument is that someone with that little
> programming experience isn't going to be able to write a custom report
> anyway. Even someone with enough programming experience to agree that
> default option values aren't significant to the structure of the code isn't
> going to be able to write a custom report unless at least some of that
> experience is in one of  the Lispish languages. The Lispish paradigms of
> car, cdr, lambda, map, and so on are utterly foreign to most procedural
> language programmers, but required for writing GnuCash reports.
> 
> Yes, the use of Hello, World is a bit flippant, and yes, hello-world.scm
> isn't a minimal Scheme program. It's also not a sample report because it
> doesn't demonstrate querying the GnuCash data performing analysis, or
> presenting results. So if someone feels motivated to make it less flippant
> and better described then I suggest:
> 
> * Change the filename to options-example.scm, and the menu-name to "Options
> Example". * Add a report title option. Most of the real reports have one.
> Set its default to "Example Title". * Fix the comment describing the value
> of `name from "This will be used, among other things for making its menu
> item in the main menu.". It doesn't do that, it sets the name on the
> options dialog's title bar and the default value for the General section's
> Report Name option. "menu-name", which is part of the report-registration
> block at the bottom, sets the menu name. The comment should also explain
> that changing the report name option will change the value of the report's
> window or tab title but not its options dialog title. * Change the name
> value to "Options Example Report".
> * Change the two Hello… section names to something like Tab A and Tab B to
> make clear that "Sections" in the option block map to tabs on the dialog
> box. * Change the string option default to "String Option Default".
> * Speaking of the General section, there should be a comment explaining that
> a skeleton General section gets added by gnc:report-template-new-options
> that provides the name (but not the title, reports must add that
> themselves) and stylesheet options.
> 
> Regards,
> John Ralls
> 
> > On Jan 14, 2023, at 2:02 AM, Geert Janssens <geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be>
> > wrote:
> > 
> > Ok, I tend to agree partially with flywire on this one.
> > 
> > John, you and I have years of programming experience and to us the default
> > value of an option is a minor detail.
> > 
> > However I can imagine someone with hardly any development experience at
> > all will have a much harder time to map the same string used multiple
> > times in the report code to the output visible on screen. And I
> > sympathize with those that try to create their own custom reports. So
> > yes, using different sample strings in code (even for default values)
> > makes it easier to relate output on the report with what's written in the
> > code - before - any option is changed.
> > 
> > To us this may look like bikeshedding, I think for someone trying to wrap
> > their head around the gnucash code this may actually help.
> > 
> > And while bikeshedding was mentioned, I'd rather use values like
> > "Sample string", "Sample Document Title" and "Sample Report" than the
> > half-baked "Hello String" and "Hello Example".