On Tuesday 12 July 2005 6:17 pm, Derek Atkins wrote: > If it's really targetting at gnucash users, to provide a CLI > to adding new items, then it might well deserve to be part of > gnucash.
This will be 100% targetted at GnuCash users - yet how many users will use it regularly? Also, it can be more than *just* a data entry point for GnuCash - it's built around queries and data manipulation - a basis for data mining and customised data handling / reporting. There are plenty of packages that have "recommended" or "optional" add-on utilities. There aren't many that I can think of that have BOTH GUI and CLI programs within one package - beyond config and help switches. > However the part of me that thinks "no" is the fact > that it's not modifying the gnucash backend directly, but rather > it's creating a QSF file that you later have to import. My main problems with accessing the backend directly are, upon reflection, potential user issues: 1. Direct manipulation of existing data files significantly increases the testing burden for this CLI. It is far easier to spot simple errors in a GUI display than to create a CLI display that can do the same. 2. Some users' data files get v.large - loading in a CLI is not going to be a whole lot faster than a GUI (once the GUI is started), that may defeat the purpose of the CLI. Having the output as a separate file under user control is a less risky proposition, IMHO, as it can use the checks and balances of importing to catch errors that CLI users may not spot. Provided CashUtil simply adds incrementally to a single file, it shouldn't be much hassle to import the file when there is time. Packages can readily suggest related packages, it's just a case of asking each package maintainer to mention that cashutil is a CLI for GnuCash. The more I think about it, the more I think it will work best as a separate unit. I'll setup an SF project for cashutil at the weekend and bug reports / queries can be handled on the QOF-devel mailing list and SF pages, as with Pilot-QOF. It should be available as a package in time for G2. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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