In short. NO. I'm not going to code that. To be more explicit:
No, *I* am not going to change gnucash so radically just because a few wacko's can't cope with regular currencies. From historical perspecitive, people get confused when accounts are denoted in arbitrary currencies. It's like this way FOR A REASON. Stock/mutual are different because Quicken made them different. Internally they are exactly the same. They are useful SPECIFICALLY because the price (i.e. exchange rate) is VISIBLE. I don't care a rats ass about a potato farmer -- they aren't going to use gnucash to keep track of how many potatoes they've got, and frankly I don't care if they do. They are not the target audience. Anyways, I've lost personal interest in this conversation, so I'm dropping out. I'll look into adding a new currency type and I still plan to go down that route. I have absolutely no intention of allowing arbitrary commodities. -derek PS: People who keep gold nuggets in their pocket are probably already insane, and probably DO NOT use gnucash to keep track of it -- they wouldn't trust the computer any more than they would trust a bank. So, honestly, I don't care about them. Sorry. Gnucash is not all things to all people. "C. Gatzemeier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Gnucash has gained much with the new support for multi currencies. Currencies > can now be handled in an uncomplicated and consistent way throughout Gnucash. > > From what ever currency the user chooses as POV (report currency) other > currencies are not different from other commodities he can earn trade or > loose etc. > > But the very good job gnucash does with the currency subset of commodities > seems to be limited only to currencies unnecessary. > > All commodities should be handled like currencies are handled now, but at the > moment if one wants to account for another type of commody he is forced to > use a special stock/mutual (what's the difference?) account and define an > arbitrary commodity for it. > > Those stock/mutual accounts seem to be older than the currency support and > can't be used in many ways. Just like the old not-to-be-used-anymore > "currency account" type. Some aspects: > > o A silly example: You work in your garden and earn potatos. (Well, maybe it > isn't silly at all sounds like a decent farming job.) The old GC way does > not allow you to earn other commodities than your current (and assumed to > be static) home currency. (Now, GC works fine with all commodies of type > ISO-Currency) > > o With the current way of stock/mutual accounts it is not possible to > transfer stocks from one booker to another without "selling" them in GC. > (Just like it had to be done with currencies before) > > > I would think the solution is to allow other commodity types than just > currencies in general accounts. > > As Derek pointed out if one wants to see the value of a commodity (i.e stocks) > in another commodity (i.e. USD/HKD) a report could be generated right away. > > Another possibility is a new "view in report currency option" for registers > (like the old stock/mutual accounts) with both denominated commodity numbers > and values in report commodity. > > > I had this backwards before and on 19/01/2004 16:20 Derek Atkins wrote: >> Registers are already denominated >> in the account-currency. The only exception is stock/mutual accounts >> which don't have a currency (so the "value" is denoted in whatever the >> transaction is denoted). > > The accounts have a commodity! "Value" is always relative to another > commodity. > > I don't think stocks are an exception of commodities. They don't need to be > treated differnently. However no doubt that for some users reporting needs > for stocks may be higher than for other commodities or vs. versa. Those are > reporting needs on a level below the account-balance, based on transactions > (buy/sell) and time. This ties in with the proposed support for "lots" in > accounts and more complex transaction reports. > http://linuxwiki.de/GnuCash/DevelTexts > > > >> This is because gnucash _does not support inventory_. >> >> FWIW, inventory accounts SHOULD be more similar to stock/mutual than >> to Asset. You want to keep track of the number of widgets in your >> inventory, and AT THE SAME TIME you want to keep track of how much you >> PAID for those widgets. Stock/mutual accounts are exactly the right >> abstraction. > > I think you always want your accounting program to keep track of those things > for any commodity, even or especially for currencies. And it is done by > recording the transactions (in the future optionally with lots in some > accounts). However in some cases you might not want to always see how much > you paid for each transaction "AT THE SAME TIME". Which is now the default > behaviour. > > > >> We specifically limit it because we do NOT want to have (certain) >> account types denominated in FooWidgets. The fact that certain >> accounts are limited to currencies is NOT a bug. > > Ok, as I propose the old stock/mutual account types should go too, along with > the currency type. > > If I take gold as an example for an arbitrary commodity: > Some people do keep their gold nuggets in their pockets as cash, others prefer > to bring them to the bank, or loan them out for a while (to a dentist maybe). > Of course one could earn and spend gold and have a lot of gold from past > accounting periods it is just a convention that we use USD gold or any other > commodity. > > > Christian > > > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-devel mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.gnucash.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel > > -- Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board (SIPB) URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/ PP-ASEL-IA N1NWH [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP key available _______________________________________________ gnucash-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.gnucash.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
