[GNC] Documentation changes needed

Sat Apr 23 14:04:48 EDT 2022

Phillip, 

Good to hear that someone is interested in working on the documentation! 

Gnucash uses Bugzilla (bugs.gnucash.org) to suggest enhancements and fix bugs, and the documentation has its own section there. You will find that there are numerous documentation bugs and enhancements outstanding there. 

There is also a good bit of information on the wiki on how changes to the documentation are created, edited, submitted, and approved. See, for example, https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Documentation_Improvement. Any rewrites you do will of necessity follow those guidelines. 

I'll note that the Gnucash documentation also includes the Help Manual-- and that information about Gnucash's use can also reside there. There has been a longstanding difference of opinion about what information should go into the Guide versus the Help, and there are areas that duplicate information. 

As for the bifurcation between the Tutorial and Concepts within the Guide, I think that early writers focused on the Tutorial side of things, whereas later authors (myself included) have focused more on the concepts side. How that all turns out is certainly open for discussion. 

As for specifics, updates from a fresh perspective are welcome. I'll admit I haven't given the Guide a close read for a while now.

Your comments about Finance::Quote, however, I'd suggest fit better as wiki material. Getting stock quotes, while certainly a useful proposition in a financial system, are technically outside of the formal accounting. Also, there are plenty of ways to get valuations without F::Q. Furthermore, Macos users constitute only a portion of the Gnucash user base, and OS-specific instructions like yours have been addressed in the wiki much more effectively. So, on the whole, I'd put those on the wiki. You might have a look at https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Online_Quotes

Let me know if you have questions. 

Best, 
David T.

On April 22, 2022 3:51:37 AM EDT, Phillip Duff <phil.duff7 at gmail.com> wrote:
>Hi,
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>Issue 1:
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>For whoever is responsible for your documentation.
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>I spent 40 years in IT companies in a variety of roles and now retired , I will offer to rewrite and assist in your documentation. In reviewing your documentation I think there are a number of improvements that I can offer, and my first experience with your software is positive, but the documentation can be a bit frustrating, hence my offer. Don’t get me wrong, there is some good stuff here , but I believe I can help you improve it a lot. I am looking for a project in my retirement and this is certainly one which would be fun.
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>Here a couple of examples:
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>There is a Tutorial and Concepts guide and also a Contents section. Firstly, split the Tutorial and Concepts Guide into the two pieces as they have different purposes (or at a minimum change the name to Concepts and Tutorial as the Concepts ALWAYS come first.
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>If we look at this guide currently, we see for example it is pretty well laid out and explained but it does present some problems. Here is a simple example.
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>In Chapter 2.3 we have a section that is in the intro section, but then immediately launches into how to do things. So it describes how to enter new accounts in detail, and talks about panels etc (which if it is going to, it should show examples). The problem is this is supposed to be an intro section and only gives some of the info, not all the info you need if you are actually going to do this. On the next page we go into all sorts of detail about storage, yet this is supposed to be an intro section, so I have gone from detailed description of setting up accounts to tech detail on how to store. Then in 2.2.2 we have again detailed instructions on doing things. Then in 2.7 we have a tutorial, great, so this tells how to set up accounts for example, but it does not deal with the fact that Opening balances can also be set up by editing an account. Then in 2.8 we start the introduction to what accounts are when we have already told the user how to set them up in 2.3 and then again in the tutorial 2.7. The intro to accounts should be before any explanation of how to set them up, and it must only be in one place to ensure that you don’t get documentation synch issues.
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>So here is an example of the impact and a much bigger issue, which is that documentation should reflect the recommenced workflow of how to achieve a goal, not a description of what the system can do. Whilst an attempt has been made to do this, it isn’t quite right and here is what happens.
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>I read this intro and thought , OK, I get it. Then I went to set up my accounts. Now when you set up accounts you are focused on setting them up, NOT adding opening balances, which is a different act. So I set them up according to the documentation , but which 2.2, 2.7 or as I did, I went to Section 5 as this is the section called Common Usage and there is a section on accounts, BUT it does not tell the user the critical thing, which is that you can edit an account and add the opening balance, so therefore, I wasted lots of time trying to find how to do it. Also section 5 is wrong by not telling this, and suggesting you can do an opening transaction with a transfer against opening balances  (this actually is not possible at all, as when you try it, the equity accounts are not shown in the dropdown list, so the documentation is not correct.
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>So all in all this very simple thing was really annoying, but only due to the documentation, not the software.
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>So I would rewrite this for you as follows.
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>Move section 2.3 Running GNUcash. You are in the middle of explaining the basics so don’t dive into how to use the system and dive out again to concepts in 2.8, as previously described. All the instructions on HOW to do things should be in the tutorial.
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>Combine 2.3.2 New Account Hierarchy Setup with 2.7 tutorial and Section 5, and only cover everything once in in one place. Ensure that ALL the information regarding Opening Balances is covered.
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>More critically the tutorial will show that you set up your account hierarchy first and THEN you load your opening balances (and mention in passing that you can add the opening balances if you like when setting ups the accounts (but I have never seen an accountant do that !).
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>So the above is a simple example. I completely understand how open source works with multiple contributors but if we cleaned up a lot of this as a good starting point it would be far easier. (And of course my next example is that getting Finance::Quote going relies of technical knowledge which a lot of people may not have and may not need. The instructions can be dramatically improved.
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>Note that some of the other later sections looks pretty good, and may not need this level of change.
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>I suggest the following.
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>If you agree I will rewrite the introduction sections to show you an example of what I believe would be significant improvement, easier to read and find the information, include workflow in the tutorials and ensure that everything is only covered once.  You can then assess whether you think my efforts are worth it, as I would be prepared to devote time to getting these manuals much improved based on my experience. 
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>If you are not interested in this, then please fix the following.
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>a) There is no reference to being able to edit an account and add the opening balance after you have create the account hierarchy. This should be in the documentation, and shown in the tutorial, and de -prioritze adding opening balances on account creation as this isn’t how the real world works.
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>b) Either fix the software or the documentation, as you cannot create an opening balance transaction transferring from the opening balance account in equity as the equity accounts are not shown in the dropdown for transfers.
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>c) If you try to create a stock, you may immediately see the message Finance:: Quote is not installed. The process for adding Finance::Quote for Mac does not detail the actions necessary and assumes technical knowledge. It should never assume that knowledge.
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>So the section in Chapter 11 should read something like this for the Mac.
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>You need to install Finance::Quote as this is the piece of software which gets stock quotes automatically for GNUCash. This is not part of GNUCash but we use it as a well known tool for getting these quotes reliably.
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>There are two steps.
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>a) Install Finance::Quote
>b) Setup a scheduler to regularly go and get the quotes for your stocks.
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>Installing Finance::Quote
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>Step 1. You must have a tool called Xcode installed. Go to the App Store and download it. It will automatically install. 
>Step 2: Go to GNUCash in your Applications folder. Right click and select ‘Show Package Contents’ (as we have include a tool to help you set it up). Go to /Contents/Resources/bin and locate gnc-fq-update.
>Step 4. Check that you have administrator rights to install this. Go to the Apple menu, select System Preferences, select Users and Groups and ensure that you have admin under your name as a user, or get your administrator to do this.
>Step 5. Go to your Applications folder and find Utilities/Terminal
>Step 6 Type sudo then a space, and then drag gnc-fq-update from step 3 into the terminal window. Hit return.
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>The Finance::Quote utility will now be installed.
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>I look forward to hearing from you and in the meantime I will assume you would like some extra help and start re-writing Section 2 etc. 
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>Cheers Phil
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