Schedule Transactions only auto run on startup

[John Ralls]

> On May 9, 2017, at 8:18 PM, Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> This might be by design, but it seems a bit counter-intuitive to me.
> 
> I have a handful of scheduled transactions.
> 
> I generally never close GnuCash as I use it too much.
> 
> Scheduled transactions do not get auto-created unless I either close and re-launch GnuCash, or use the not so obviously named menu entry Actions > Scheduled Transactions > Since Last Run…
> 
> (one would expect a report to display showing the transactions created since the auto-creator was last run, not for this to actually be the command to create said transactions, though I admit it is in the Actions menu and not the Reports menu. The term “since last run” is also a bit ambiguous as to last run of what? I thought it mean last run of the auto-creator for scheduled transactions, apparently it means since the last time GnuCash was launched)
> 
> Expected behavior is that if transactions are scheduled for a certain date, then they will be auto-generated on that date. If GnuCash is not running at the time that trigger is fired, then they will be created at the next launch of GnuCash.
> 
> Instead, it appears they are ONLY being created at program launch and not on their scheduled date while the program is running.
> 
> If I have to remember to manually fire the Since Last Run... menu entry, what’s the point of scheduled transactions?
> 
> GnuCash certainly has no issue auto-changing the date in the registers for new transactions or for new bills/invoices and payments. I don’t see why at say the flip of the date at midnight, it doesn’t fire the scheduled transaction routine for anything matching that new date. (maybe this could be user specified - end of day vs. beginning of day? or even a time?)

Why since the last run of the Since Last Run dialog, of course. Programmers *love* recursion. ;-) Yes, the Since Last Run dialog runs the auto creator. It can't be a report because some scheduled transactions require user input. Hmm, referring back to a previous message where you asked if SLR could run in a tab instead of a dialog I guess
it actually can't because it would be really weird to have "OK" and "Cancel" buttons on a tab.

We could create a timer on the event loop that fires off the SLR once a day. There isn't one now, largely because nobody's ever thought it was needed. Just in case someone decides to run with that ball, note that it would have to first see if there's an SLR dialog already active and cancel it so that if the computer is left unattended and running for a few days one doesn't wind up with a bunch of SLR dialogs cluttering up the desktop and stepping on each other.

Regards,
John Ralls