Easier reports with eguile-gnc

[Chris Dennis]

Hello folks

I have developed a method of combining an HTML template and Guile source
to make it easier to create GnuCash reports such as invoices.

I have filed an enhancement bug report for this -- see
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574582

These changes have not been included into the GnuCash system yet, but
they can easily be bolted on to your existing GnuCash installation --
further instructions are in the bug report.

I have used this templating system to create a flexible tax invoice
(taxinvoice.scm): sample output is available at
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=130661

I have tested it with the latest SVN 'trunk' version and 2.2.6 on Linux,
and also on 2.2.8 on Windows (with a bit of manual adjustment to file 
paths).  However, please note that this is still under development, so 
use it AT YOUR OWN RISK!  Please DOUBLE CHECK THE FIGURES if you use it 
to create customer invoices.

It's layout is more pleasing to my eye than the standard Gnucash invoice 
(obviously that's a matter of personal taste). It also automatically 
selects columns to display -- for example it only displays the discount 
columns if one or more of the entries involves discounts. Likewise for 
taxes (although the display of tax details requires a bug fix -- see
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=573645). All the column 
headings are customizable via options.

Reports created this way are still limited by GTKHTML's inability to
honour <font> tags or CSS stylesheets.  Hopefully GnuCash can get round
that limitation eventually -- I know this has been discussed in the past.

cheers

Chris


-- 
Chris Dennis                                  cgdennis at btinternet.com
Fordingbridge, Hampshire, UK