[GNC] Getting security prices - Funnies

[Eric Coates]

I am running GnuCash 2.9.16 (with Finance Quote 1.47) on Ubuntu 16.04.

In the course of some fairly standard (for me) work I have come across a 
couple of "funnies" and I'm wondering whether they are deliberate, 
"features" (from Microsoft's vocabulary meaning a bug that won't be 
fixed), bugs or me doing something wrong.

On the last day of the month I need to revalue my share portfolio. Like 
others, I have been a victim of Alphvantage's throttling of their 
service but unlike others I have not (yet) screwed up my courage and 
updated the the related file to incorporate the delays suggested.

I open the Securities Editor, make sure that the Get Quote column is 
shown (and, for simplicity at this stage, I'll assume no securities are 
ticked) and then, by double clicking on a security I get to the Security 
Information window and select Get Online Quotes, click Unknown and 
select Alphavantage from the drop down. I do this for five securities 
(no point in doing it for more because of the Alphavantage limitation). 
In the Price Editor I click Get Quotes and, after a wait, I get the 
prices for the five securities I selected.

Having got those five prices I need to select a second batch of 
securities. But (*first funny*) I cannot deselect the previously 
selected securities by clicking on the tick - I have to go back to the 
Security Information to do that. Is that intended?

Having deselected the Get Quote for a security, I have noted that if, in 
the same session of working with GnuCash, I return to the same security 
the Get Online Quotes option is not selected but the associated options 
are still intact. However (*second funny*), if I exit GnuCash (after 
saving of course) and then restart it and re-enter the Security Editor 
only those securities that were left ticked as Get Quotes retain the 
option information, all others are reset to the defaults.

These two funnies make getting security prices (using this method) 
somewhat tedious and may mean that I have to really screw up my courage 
and make the changes to the file.

Anticipating that one day I will screw up enough courage I have been 
investigating the file Alphavantage.pm. On my system I have five of 
them; in the directory ~/.cpan/build I have five directories three of 
the form

    Finance-Quote-1.44-0 (they are 1.44-0, 1.45-0 and 1.47-0)

and two of the form

    Finance-Quote-1.47-iGUjLI (both are for 1.47 but with different
    tails, one of them has a closed padlock superimposed on the folder icon)

Is this a *third funny*? Do I need all of them? If not, how do I 
determine which one I do need?

The *fourth **(or is it only the third?) **funny* I've noticed is that 
if I rename a data file the Get Quote column is no longer visible in the 
Security Editor window. It's easy to get back so this funny is trivial 
but, out of interest, as the data file has not changed, why does it happen?

Best wishes

Eric