How to create a fund account

[Michael Wild]

hi all

i'm new to gnucash and just can't figure out how to create a fund 
account. what i tried, is creating a new account of the type "Mutual 
Fund". if i got things the right way, i have to enter something into 
"Security/currency", so i choose "Select...". this pops up a small 
window, from which i select FUND in the "Type" field. as there are no 
securities, i chose "New". this brings me to the "New security" dialog. 
here troubles start: the name is pretty clear, just type in something. 
but the "Symbol/abbreviaton" field is not obvious. the fund i want to 
enter does not have a ticker symbol, but a valor number. so i enter that 
one. in the CUSIP field, for safety, i enter just the same. "Fraction 
traded"? no idea, so i leave it at the default. i choose to get multiple 
online quotes (from europe). then i click OK everywhere.

great, so i got that account. lets enter the opening balance. 
double-click the account and enter the ledger. enter a date, number and 
description. choose "Equity:Opening Balances" as  "Transfer". enter the 
number of shares and their price, hit enter.
but then, the strange thing is, the balance shows the number of shares, 
not the value. is that the way it's supposed to be? the "Advanced 
Portfolio" report shows the correct figures though...

and then, what bugs me: in the prices editor, i add the two funds and 
try to get the online quotes. however, this fails. if i change the 
symbol of the security to CHF (it's a swiss fund), the online update 
works. but in that case, i can only have a single fund in my portfolio, 
because it seems that the "symbol" field must be unique. how to go about 
this?
to get the facts about the two funds:
http://fundlife.com/system/EN/index.cfm?m=m2_1_1&fundid=14926
http://fundlife.com/system/EN/index.cfm?m=m2_1_1&fundid=13952

thanks for any help

michael