That's the right frame of mind IMO. Data entry on a phone is useful merely for temporary storage until you get to integrate it in your text file later on, usually only for cash transactions that won't show up in an import (e.g. from your credit card), ones that you might otherwise forget. I use little notes in Google Keep for that, but if I had (date + description + account + amount) tuples in an app that automatically spits it out in Ledger/Beancount format that could be a useful tool when on-the-go.
Keep in mind that the point of using a text file as input is in the first place to avoid having to build and update a GUI. Building a GUI for _input_ on top Ledger is sort of pointless (though it does make a lot of sense to build a GUI for outputs & reports). Another thing that would be useful is the ability to export one's portfolio and combine it with market values so that you can monitor your trading positions during the day. I use Google Finance for that at the moment, but I will migrate to exporting to a Google Spreadsheet. I'm not sure having a custom app would make sense, since you can do that with a simple CGI script on a server that your phone accesses. On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 4:09 PM, David Glasser <[email protected]> wrote: > Yeah, I find todo.txt to be a pretty good way to enter informal receipts > on my Android phone that I later convert into ledger. They get date stamped > automatically, which is nice. > > --dave > On Jul 17, 2015 4:16 PM, "ivstefn" <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I posted a reply over nntp from gmane gateway but it looks it didn't get >> here, so I'll post again from Google Groups interface (the interface... >> lord help me). I apologize to the group if you get two messages. >> >> On Thursday, July 16, 2015 at 4:32:06 PM UTC+2, Leonardo Melo wrote: >>> >>> Hi everyone, not sure this is the best way to post this. Please let me >>> know if I'm screwing this up. >>> >>> I've been meaning to develop a Ledger CLI front-end hybrid web/mobile >>> app to interact with some sort of backend web implementation but could >>> never find a Backend implementation for it. >>> >>> Looking through this Google groups I noticed that some, could I say, >>> sibling projects of Ledger seem to have some sort of web implementation to >>> them, eg Haskell Ledger or Beancount. >>> >>> So my questions to the group would be: Is Ledger not being actively >>> developed anymore? Should I instead choose one of the other projects and >>> develop my app using one of those? Is there something like this already in >>> the community that I could help improve? >>> >> >> A program doesn't need to be under heavy breakneck-speed development to >> be alive. Most reliable software I use (and like) is in maintenance mode. >> >> Any information regarding the matter would be great. My idea is to use >>> the Ionic Framework <http://ionicframework.com/> to create the app and >>> I was between using PHP or NodeJS as the backend (as PHP and Javascript are >>> my strongest skills). I can also try some Python or as a last resort Rails >>> implementation if that's all there is. >>> >>> The features for my app would initially include viewing balances and >>> recent postings as well as adding a new posting. >>> >> Why do you jump straight to complicated frameworks and technologies? >> >> Webapps, as popular as they are now in this day and age are not simple, >> nor they perform well, especially on low end android phones (I have one). I >> don't think they should be first choice. >> >> Also, I think there is some javascript webapp frontend for ledger, I >> think I found it on GitHub some time ago. The dependencies were _crazy_ I >> don't think I even got it to work locally. There was a demo online, and I >> really wasn't impressed. It was laggy, as most javascript stuff is, and >> also too underfeatured to be useful. >> >> >> My idea (for a normal computer running real OS) is: >> >> TCK/TK frontent might not be the most popular idea, but I think it would >> be very reasonable. It looks reasonably good to me, I really don't like >> overdesigned software. I like software that uses familiar looking >> widgets. >> >> For examples see gitk and git-gui, that are official git GUI clients that >> should be installed if you use git. You can see the code, just >> vi /usr/bin/gitk (or wherever). Also /usr/share/git-gui/lib/* (or >> wherever). >> >> From Tk wiki: "Bindings exist for several other languages, including >> Ada (called TASH), Haskell (called HTk), Perl, Python (called Tkinter), >> Ruby, Rexx, and Common Lisp. " So these languages could be used too. >> >> TCL and Tk are in all distro repos, and available for OS X and Windows >> and >> doing a ledger desktop GUI this way would be the most reasonable way. >> >> As for being able to enter/see stuff on the mobile... I can see there >> might be some >> value in that, but it's too much work just to be able to enter a >> transaction or two a day. I just enter a reminder in my todo app, and >> at the end of the day when I'm at my computer enter it into ledger file. >> It's not the end of the world, and it doesn't make ledger useless. >> >> As for mobile app implementation: >> You might want to check out http://todotxt.com/ >> It is a paid app in the Play Store but it's GPL'd software with source >> available on github. >> >> It's a todo app, stores notes in a plaintext file on dropbox. I think >> that >> might be what you're looking for. Dropbox would make it easy to get >> what you want, and not care about auth (Dropbox does that), >> collisions (dropbox 'should :) ' be doing that). >> >> Sources for the both android and ios apps are on Github and I think >> doing it that way would be a good start. And doing it that way you >> don't need a backend -- Dropbox does that. You only need frontend. >> >> I hope this was helpful. >> >> -- >> Ivan >> >> -- >> >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Ledger" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > -- > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ledger" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ledger" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
