COA Sort Order Not Preserved

[David T.]

John,

See below.

> On Aug 24, 2015, at 11:16 AM, John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Aug 24, 2015, at 3:41 PM, David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 
>> John,
>> 
>> A couple further questions:
>> 
>> 1) Can I edit the .gcm file directly and insert my preferred sort there?
>> 2) If I were to do so, what entry would I use or modify?
>> 
>> More generally, can I modify other entries in this file directly and change the behavior of the registers? (I would prefer the default register settings to have a slightly different geometry than I currently see) Finally, is there any documentation for the content and structure of this file? I’d hate to mess it up and break something.
> 
> David,
> 
> You could. You’d want to add e.g. sort_column=account-code to the [Account Hierarchy] section.
> 
> But in playing with it some more in an effort to understand what’s going on I discovered that the state-saving code is called only when shutting down GnuCash. Switching files doesn’t do it. So try making your changes to the sort order and then quitting and restarting.

I added a sort_column entry in my .gcm file using a text editor, and the sort order was preserved the next time I opened the file. However, once I changed the data file in GnuCash and re-saved it, GnuCash restored the name sorting. Indeed, whereas before my manual edits there was no sort_column entry, now there is an explicit sort_column=name entry at the bottom of the [Account Hierarchy] section. It would appear that the program has a strong desire for me to look at the COA in this order!  ;)

I will await future fixes for this anomaly.

David

> 
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>