On Tue, May 03, 2022 at 12:01:47PM -0500, Adrien Monteleone wrote: > So you've chosen an organization method that creates the problem but then > ask for how to avoid it? The answer seems pretty obvious to me: > It's the organisation that I use for just about everything else and it's the way many other people work. From my point of view GnuCash is a latecomer to an existing set up.
> Don't start a new file each year. > Auditors prefer it that way, plus it means that I don't have to change report options when I want 'this year' rather than 'last year'. Yes, I know this (never closing the data file) is the normal way of doing it in GnuCash but it really doesn't fit in well with the rest of my existing system organisation and I was hoping GnuCash would be flexible enough to work the way I'd prefer. > But before that, to your original question, what files exactly in > ~/.local/... are you concerned about? One rarely needs to mess with them. > I'm not messing with them directly. > Concerning the configuration settings, particularly reporting period, that > problem too goes away with a single file rather than one for each year. > No it doesn't! :-) If I set the reporting period to, for example, 01/01/2020 to 31/12/2020 then every report is for that period. If I then want a report for 2021 I have to go and change the reporting period. If I have a data file that is for 2020 only then I never have to change the reporting period. Yes, I could save the reports but then one would end up with a huge number of them after a few years. > > What is an example of what you'd expect/like to see instead? > Keep the information like reporting period in the data file to which it relates. > And is something like 'building20.gnucash' really that clumsy? > > How about 'building_20.gnucash' or 'building-20.gnucash'? > > Are 2 or 3 characters really that much longer? (4 or 5 if whole year is > used) > > How is adding the year to the name 'redundant'—because it is already in a > directory name? How often do you look at directory/file lists anyway? > My organisation depends on directory structure. For example I store documentation in a directory called (surprise!) doc, it has sub-directories:- apexLodge dia family houseHome maxCovid pcc shareCertificates boating diy garden hsbc maxmum photography telecoms car doors gov labels motorcycle plumbing travel chrisCovid electrical health letters nationwide postEtc. computer electronics hmrc materials paypal recipes There are further sub-directories to sum of these. It makes it very easy for me find documents such as instruction manuals, copies of passports, bank details, etc. The documents can be in all sorts of formats, text, PDF, word processor, etc. > This isn't a 'GnuCash' problem. You could encounter this with *any* file > type and app. > Tell me *any* other program that stores information about a file in the way that GnuCash does. To store information about a file in a generic directory the way that GnuCash does is very rare. Storing universal settings like this makes sense, it provides defaults for the way one wants an application to work, but settings like the dates applying to a particular file should be stored with (or in) that file. -- Chris Green _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.