GnuCash plugin system

[John Ralls]

On Feb 17, 2014, at 3:45 AM, David Cousens <davidcousens at bigpond.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> During the recent discussion on the possibility of a Payroll (and or
> Inventory) system interfacing with GnuCash
> 
> Geert mentioned that there is already in existence a plugin system for
> GnuCash. Is this documented and if so could someone pleas point to the
> documentation. If it is undocumented is there a specific entry point in the
> code or is the plugin interface  spread throughout the code.  If someone
> could give me some pointers re where to look I would be grateful.

There is, but it's ugly and more of an architectural quirk of GnuCash than something that would be useful to third-party developers. The sparse DOxygen docs are at http://code.gnucash.org/docs/HEAD/group__PluginManager.html.


>  I am possibly interested in development of a Payroll program (for
> Australia but hopefully general enough to be adaptable for other countries)
> and if there is a usable interface it would make the task easier. I like the
> idea of using an OFX ( or other suitable format) and keeping a Payroll
> program separate and simply importing an output file into GnuCash

I think you'd find that approach easier and more likely to succeed than to try to hook in to GnuCash directly. It would have the additional advantage of working with most other accounting programs as well.

Regards,
John Ralls