[GNC] GnuCash 3.7 and Reports

[Adrien Monteleone]

> On Sep 10, 2019 w37d253, at 10:02 AM, John Morris <johnjeff at editide.us> wrote:
> 
> Hi Adrien,
>> For starters, maybe give the default stylesheet a try and see if it gets you close (or exactly) to what you want. The default now lets you include an image, so you don’t *have* to use Fancy Invoice. Also, maybe play with the banner size. If you don’t need it to be full-width, and more like a logo, that might help.
> 
>  Yes, I have given the default stylesheet a try. The results are identical. As I said, the changes I made to the default to create my own are inconsequential.

Very well, *your* changes weren’t my concern. You’ve upgraded to 3.7 from 2.6.x. There were changes to the stylesheets in that time period. *Those* were the changes I was thinking about. And since my invoices using the default in 3.7 look normal, that is why I suggested it. But if you get the same results regardless of stylesheet, there is some other issue, unless your modifications aren’t that inconsequential after all, what are they exactly? Have you made *any* changes with respect to widths anywhere?

> 
>> Second, pay careful attention to the settings for Rows 1-3 and Left-Right. I noticed that your current settings show ‘Our Details’ as Right, but the 2.6.x version had them as Left.  Try the following:
>> 
>> Row 1 Left: Picture
>> Row 1 Right: (empty)
>> Row 2 Left: Our Details
>> Row 2 Right: Invoice Details
>> Row 3 Left: Their Details
>> 
>> This would considerably clean up the display and get you closer to what you had with 2.6.x (though not perfectly)
> 
>  Yes, I’m aware that the original invoice has some differences with the new one, but they are orthogonal to the problems I am having. I expected anyone viewing the to be able to see past those differences. Placing “Our Details” on the left does nothing to address the problem I’m having. All the HTML tables are still only taking up about half of the page width.

I thought you were concerned with trying to copy your original layout. That was the whole point of my above text. I understand the table wasn’t quite right. I was addressing things one at a time. I’m sorry I wasted my time and yours.

> 
>> Also setting:
>> 
>> .invoice-title { float: right; }
>> 
>> Should place the invoice # right above the other invoice detail so it looks like it is all together.
> 
>  As I mentioned in my previous message, I have already included that line in the CSS. It places the invoice number above the right side of the tables, but does not change the position of the right side of the tables to be the right side of the page. With the other modifications I made to the table sizes, the invoice number ends up looking centered with the other table elements taking up the full width of the page.

I can’t duplicate this effect. When I put invoice details on the right, they are all the way to the right of the page. When I float the title to the right, it lines up on top of them.

> 
>> Of course, there might be cleaner layouts based on the info you have. Note as well, that if the section ‘Our Details’ takes up too much vertical space to balance out the header, consider placing that info in the ‘Contact’ or ‘Payment to’ sections in Options > Display, and then removing it from File > Properties > Business. If you need them in Properties > Business for some other reason, you can still include them in the "Contact/Payment to" sections and just suppress the output at the top with one or all of the following in Options > Layout > CSS
> 
>  I don’t see any point in quibbling about the aesthetic design of the invoice when the basic report is not yet working.

I’m not quibbling about it. I was offering help to make it look like the original screenshot.

> 
>> I’m not sure why that second screenshot is so narrow. There were some stylesheet changes between 2.6.x and now, so that may be the issue. Try exporting the report as an .html file and then opening it with a web browser to see if it looks normal. (and then you can print from there) If that works, maybe file a bug on Fancy Invoice, but double check any customizations first. However, I see your later screenshots seem to be full width, so I’m not sure what is going on there.
> 
>  I get the same results in Safari, Chrome, Opera and Firefox using the Default stylesheet.

Good to know, thanks for testing. So it is not a rendering problem with GnuCash then. The fault lies in the stylesheet. But since mine looks proper, something is wrong with *your* stylesheet.

> 
>> Finally, I wouldn't mess with the table sizes. You need all 3 to be 100% so it always fills the whole width and things don’t look messy or cut off as you found with screenshot #7.
> 
>  Yes, obviously, messing around with the table sizes is less than ideal. I would like to find a solution that allows the tables to be set at 100%. However, this is currently the only change I have been able to make that brings the invoice even remotely looking good.

How did you get to screenshot #3? Is that not with 3.7?  If not, I misunderstood as your message appeared to indicate only #1 was from 2.6.x. Screenshot #3 shows 100% table widths as it should. Other than the header you don’t want to quibble about, (where the invoice # lines up correctly) there is nothing significantly different about it from screenshot #1. (or am I missing something?)

Changing the widths, especially the entire table width, to more than 100% is going to cause problems.

As a test, I’d rename your file stylesheets-2.0 to say ’stylesheets-2.0.bak’ or something to keep GnuCash from loading it. (exit and then re-start GnuCash) Then check your invoice. Does the table take the full width? If so, recreate your customizations and test each change with a Report Version of the invoice, one at a time. If after all the changes are made, the invoice looks like expected (with full width tables) then there must have been something wrong with your original customizations or the stylesheet file itself. If suddenly you get half-width tables again when testing a change, at least you can isolate the cause and for now, don’t implement it and report it as a bug.

Don’t use ‘Fancy Invoice’ Report or anything but the Default stylesheet for these tests. Just click the print icon when viewing the (editable) invoice.

Regards,
Adrien