[GNC] Fwd: about these account-summary reports...

[Christopher Lam]

Forwarding a post made in devel some time ago.

Some reports have an option 'Display / Parent account subtotals = textbook
style (experimental)' and has been untouched for 15 years; I plan to remove
this option because it's very buggy. Is anyone using it at all? The better
option is 'show subtoals'.

C

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Christopher Lam <christopher.lck at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2018 at 04:37
Subject: about these account-summary reports...
To: gnucash-devel at lists.gnucash.org <gnucash-devel at lists.gnucash.org>


I'll be aiming to replace and upgrade the following reports:

   - balance-sheet
   - income-statement
   - account-summary
   - budget-flow
   - cashflow

Basically all of above are using html-acct-table to create a 2D grid
(vertical = accountlist, horizontal = indented amounts). I think I can
upgrade to use a cleaner html-multicolumn-acct-table instead.

I will be merging their display/parent-balance-mode and
display/parent-total-mode options into one. As far as I can see, there are
only two valid combinations that will produce useful subtotal strategy:

   1. parent-account-balances = "Account balance", parent-account-subtotals
   = "Show subtotals" - this matches my 'multilevel subtotal strategy (i.e.
   each parent+children account family is followed by the parent+children
   subtotal)
   2. parent-account-balances = "Subtotal", parent-account-subtotals = "Do
   Not Show" - this matches my 'recursive-bal subtotal strategy (i.e. parent
   amount incorporates whole children amounts, and if parent has own amount,
   display it as a child account on the next line)

The other options are invalid - i.e. Parent-account-balances = 'Do not
show' will obligatorily lead to amounts missing whereby parent-account has
an amount. And the Parent-account-subtotal = "Text book-style
(experimental)" is internally known as 'canonically-tabbed', and the code
is peppered with comments that "The canonically-tabbed option is currently
broken."

Any other combination for subtotals will lead to duplication of amounts, or
missing amounts.

Conclusion:

I will merge these two options into the saner 2-option recursive-bal vs.
multilevel subtotal strategy. I'll try to maximise compatibility with saved
reports, as well as set up a transitioning report for users wishing to use
old reports (with another guid). But after 1 year I think it will be wise
to remove old code.

Any queries please ask!

C