[GNC] How to manage multiple accounts (as in separate gnucash databases)?

Chris Green cl at isbd.net
Tue Apr 26 13:36:13 EDT 2022


On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 12:24:32PM -0400, David T. wrote:
>    On April 26, 2022 11:25:02 AM EDT, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
> > I have several gnucash accounts files (sqlite databases in my case)
> > spread around my system.  When I go to a specific directory and run
> > GnuCash I just want it to see only the database[s] in that directory.
> > Is there a way I can tell gnucash to forget about all previous files
> > it has opened?  As it is I get presented with a 'memory' of other
> > accounts which can be very confusing unless I'm very careful with file
> > naming.
> > The --nofile option tells gnucash not to open the last accounts
> > database, it helps a little, but I really want it to forget more!
> 
>    I'm not certain what has you confused, but if you need each file to
>    have its own existence, you might have to create separate OS logins for
>    each.
> 
Seriously?!  Do you really mean that I should create a different user
for each GnuCash account?  That seems a very clumsy way to handle more
than one account.

What 'has me confused' is the way that GnuCash by default opens the
last account I was looking at.  In nine cases out of ten that's just
what I don't want it to do, why else would I have exited GnuCash and
moved to another directory?

My ideal would be for GnuCash to look for account files in the current
directory, if there is only one then open that one, if there are more
then offer me a list to choose from. I can write myself a little
wrapper script to do this but I don't find other programs need this.
Many other programs do have a 'recently opened' option but they don't
automatically open the last opened file.  ... and, as I pointed out,
using the --nofile option prevents GnuCash from opening any file, you
have to select the file after starting GnuCash.


-- 
Chris Green


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