[GNC] Use of "dash" as a Separator Character

[Michael Hendry]

> On 23 Jul 2019, at 16:42, Derek Atkins <derek at ihtfp.com> wrote:
> 
> I don't think that would work.

I’d already tried that, and it didn’t work.

To be clear, I had an unbalanced transaction which had caused the creation of Imbalance-GBP.

I saved the file, closed GC and then reopened it - generating the warning message about the use of the separator character in an account name.

I edited the name of the account (Imbalance-GBP —> Imbalance_GBP), saved, closed and opened again and got no warning.

I then created a further unbalanced transaction, which resulted in my having two Imbalance Accounts - Imbalance_GBP and Imbalance-GBP.

My conclusion is that the creation of the Imbalance and Orphan account names is hard-wired into the code.

Michael

> If you change a name of the created accounts, GnuCash will just create a
> new one.  I think it specifically looks for the name.
> I also don't think you can *move* those accounts, either.
> -derek
> 
> On Tue, July 23, 2019 11:38 am, Adrien Monteleone wrote:
>> While the creation of those accounts on the fly is probably hard coded to
>> use a dash, what if you created them yourself and used a different spacer
>> in the name, then change your separator character of choice?
>> 
>> Options might be ‘Imbalance_GBP’ or 'Imbalance–GBP’ or ‘Imbalance—GBP’.
>> 
>> Those last two might look exactly like ‘Imbalance-GBP’ depending on your
>> e-mail client’s text settings, but they are an en-dash and em-dash
>> respectively, not hyphens. If your keyboard layout is set to ‘Macintosh’
>> you should be able to generate those by using OPT- and SHIFT+OPT-
>> respectively.
>> 
>> First change the account separator back to the default, then edit the
>> names of those accounts, then change the separator to what you want.
>> 
>> Then create a test transaction that should attempt to create the Imbalance
>> or Orphan accounts and see if it uses the ones you renamed, or creates new
>> ones with dashes instead.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Adrien
>> 
>>> On Jul 23, 2019, at 6:19 AM, Michael Hendry <hendry.michael at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I’ve tried using “dash” as account separator, as it’s easily accessible
>>> with my left little finger without the need for me to press the shift
>>> key (as is the case with the colon).
>>> 
>>> Unfortunately, when I create and unbalanced or orphan transaction,
>>> GnuCash creates a new account (Imbalance-GBP or Orphan-GBP) which breaks
>>> the rule that the separator can’t be used as part of an account name.
>>> 
>>> This is OK until the account is closed and re-opened, when GnuCash
>>> appears to have hung, with the Gnucash title-bar bereft of any menu
>>> options, and the Main Window unresponsive.
>>> 
>>> I discovered accidentally that the GnuCash splash screen and a dialogue
>>> box warning of the use of the separator character had been obscured by
>>> the Main GnuCash window.
>>> 
>>> The latter may be a Mac OS issue (I’m using GC version 3.5 on an iMac
>>> with OS X High Sierra.
>>> 
>>> I haven’t found reference to these issues in the bug list - are they
>>> sufficient to warrant notification?
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> 
>>> Michael
>> 
>> 
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