[GNC] How to run GNUcash in portable fashion?

[Geert Janssens]

Op vrijdag 26 oktober 2018 22:27:51 CEST schreef aeneas:
> Very nice reply!
> 
> It looks like knowing about GNC_DATA_HOME goes a long way toward solving my
> problem.  From what I can see I'm not using AQBANKING.  Also, I'd speculate
> that my scheme may not be be completely fool-proof.  I did search the
> registry for "gnucash" and found some KEYS.  This causes me to think that
> there could be some interference if different instances (i.e., different
> thumb drives with different peoples versions) of GNUcash were run on the
> same computer.  While I might expect some behavioral irregularity I'd also
> be inclined to think that this should NOT risk contamination of the files
> used to store the actual accounting records.
> 
It will not affect your accounting records directly, but it may lead to some 
unpleasant surprises anyway.
Some examples:
- the keys in the registry affect  autosave behavior. If you disable it, it 
will equally be disabled for other users that may depend on it and that would 
lose data in the event of a crash.
- other keys determine for how long backup files should be kept. Again if you 
set this to a different value than other users expect, they may suddenly see 
their backups disappear.
- yet another key swaps the meaning of the num and action fields in account 
registers. An unsuspecting user my be entering data wrongly after this got 
changed behind the user's back.
- ...


> Just for the record I notice that the portableapps version of GNUcash (3.2)
> has a directory named GTKDataHome in addition to GNCDataHome.  In my case
> the GTKDataHome directory is still empty.  However, I am wondering if I
> could/should make some accommodation for whatever purpose that serves?

I have no idea as I don't know any details of the portableapps version of 
gnucash.

However this reminds me that the GNC_CONFIG_HOME on linux is derived from 
XDG_CONFIG_HOME. (as is GTK_CONFIG_HOME). I can't test whether the Windows 
version of GTK (which is the framework GnuCash is built on) also respects this 
variable. If so you could move both config directories by setting the 
XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable. It's worth a try.

> Also, there is another directory named settings which contains files that
> appear to be exported from the registry.  To the extent that portableapps
> handles registry keys properly it is a better solution than my home grown
> hack.  However, another feature my technique provides is the installation of
> a new version without making any change to an existing version that is
> working just fine.  There are many circumstances under which preserving the
> ability to revert to, or for that matter switch back and forth between, a
> prior version is quite helpful and this can extend across several versions.
> 
Agreed. And on several occasions I have been thinking about adjusting the 
gnucash code and its Windows installer to make this universally possible. It 
never really happened so far due to lack of time and other priorities.

Geert