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More documentation updates, including a "What's New" document.

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git-svn-id: svn+ssh://svn.gnucash.org/repo/gnucash/trunk@4253 57a11ea4-9604-0410-9ed3-97b8803252fd
This commit is contained in:
Robert Graham Merkel
2001-05-21 08:24:42 +00:00
parent 7225185885
commit bbf08d7340
6 changed files with 287 additions and 34 deletions
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2
ChangeLog
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@@ -5,6 +5,8 @@
2001-05-21 Robert Graham Merkel <rgmerk@mira.net>
* doc/sgml/C/xacc-whats-new.sgml: New file.
* doc/sgml/C/xacc-multicolumn-view-reports.sgml: preliminary
description.

1
doc/sgml/C/Makefile.am
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@@ -56,6 +56,7 @@ GNUCASH_SGML_FILES = \
xacc-txf-export.sgml \
xacc-txf-export-anomalies.sgml \
xacc-userdocs.sgml \
xacc-whats-new.sgml \
xacc-y2k.sgml
gnucash_html_dir = $(top_srcdir)/doc/html/C

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doc/sgml/C/gnucash.sgml
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@@ -48,6 +48,7 @@
<!entity xacctxfexport system "xacc-txf-export.sgml">
<!entity xaccdochack system "xacc-dochack.sgml">
<!entity xaccscheme system "xacc-scheme.sgml">
<!entity xaccwhatsnew system "xacc-whats-new.sgml">
<!entity xaccy2k system "xacc-y2k.sgml">
<!entity xaccgpl system "xacc-gpl.sgml">
<!entity bofamym system "bofa-mym.sgml">
@@ -104,6 +105,7 @@
&xaccscheme;
&xaccstockpricereport;
&xaccrepdev;
&xaccwhatsnew;
&xaccy2k;
&xaccgpl;
&bofamym;

66
doc/sgml/C/xacc-balancesheet.sgml
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@@ -1,43 +1,43 @@
<ARTICLE ID="XACC-BALANCESHEET">
<ARTHEADER>
<TITLE>Balance Sheet</TITLE>
</ARTHEADER>
<SECT1>
<TITLE> Balance Sheet</TITLE>
<PARA> <INLINEMEDIAOBJECT>
<IMAGEOBJECT>
<IMAGEDATA FILEREF="image/report-baln.png">
</IMAGEOBJECT>
</INLINEMEDIAOBJECT>
</PARA>
<PARA>This report summarizes your assets, liabilities, and
equity. When your books are properly maintained, your assets
should equal the sum of your liabilities and equity. If that
is not the case, there is some kind of internal imbalance in
your accounts.
<para>Options available for this report include:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para><emphasis><link linkend="xacc-options-accounts">
<ARTICLE ID="XACC-BALANCESHEET">
<ARTHEADER>
<TITLE>Balance Sheet</TITLE>
</ARTHEADER>
<SECT1>
<TITLE> Balance Sheet</TITLE>
<PARA> <INLINEMEDIAOBJECT>
<IMAGEOBJECT>
<IMAGEDATA FILEREF="image/report-baln.png">
</IMAGEOBJECT>
</INLINEMEDIAOBJECT>
</PARA>
<PARA>This report summarizes your assets, liabilities, and
equity. When your books are properly maintained, your assets
should equal the sum of your liabilities and equity. If that
is not the case, there is some kind of internal imbalance in
your accounts.
<para>Options available for this report include:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para><emphasis><link linkend="xacc-options-accounts">
Accounts</link></emphasis></para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para><emphasis><link linkend="xacc-options-depth">
Depth</link></emphasis></para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para><emphasis><link linkend="xacc-options-report-title">
Report Title</link></emphasis></para></listitem>
<listitem><para><emphasis><link linkend="xacc-options-date">
<listitem><para><emphasis><link linkend="xacc-options-report-title">
Report Title</link></emphasis></para></listitem>
<listitem><para><emphasis><link linkend="xacc-options-date">
Date</link></emphasis></para></listitem>
<listitem><para><emphasis><link linkend="xacc-options-style-sheet">
Style Sheet</link></emphasis></para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para><emphasis><link linkend="xacc-options-price-source">
Price Source</link></emphasis></para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Add More!!!
<listitem><para><emphasis><link linkend="xacc-options-style-sheet">
Style Sheet</link></emphasis></para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para><emphasis><link linkend="xacc-options-price-source">
Price Source</link></emphasis></para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Add More!!!
</emphasis></para>
</listitem>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<PARA>Note that while you <EMPHASIS>can</EMPHASIS> select specific
accounts for this report, unless you know exactly what you are
doing it is unwise and highly likely to give you misleading and

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doc/sgml/C/xacc-reports.sgml
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@@ -113,7 +113,7 @@ Multicolumn View</link> special report.</para></sect1>
<title>Web Pages as reports</title>
<para>You can view web pages as a special sort of report - very convenient
for keeping all the financial information you need, including from external
sources, in the one place. Use the <link linkend="xacc-frame-urlreport">
sources, in the one place. Use the <link linkend="xacc-gnucash-web-browser">
Frame URL Report</link> to do so.
</para></sect1>

248
doc/sgml/C/xacc-whats-new.sgml Normal file
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@@ -0,0 +1,248 @@
<article id="xacc-whats-new">
<artheader>
<title>
What's New?
</title>
</artheader>
<sect1>
<title>
What's new in GnuCash 1.5 (soon to be 1.6)?
</title>
<para>
Hello to all our existing GnuCash users! A lot has changed since 1.4.x,
and we believe that our new version is a major improvement on the old
version. Virtually every aspect of the program has changed, and
lots of new capabilities have been added.
</para>
<sect2>
<title>
New File Format
</title>
<para>
We have switched to an XML-based text file format. GnuCash will read
your existing 1.4 files without conversion. However, 1.6 will
always save your files in the new format.</para>
<para>The new format is much, much more flexible than the old,
and was required for all the other new features, as well as
many other features to be added in the future. In addition,
because it is based on XML, it makes it much easier for
external tools to manipulate GnuCash files.
</para>
<para>
We have tested the
new format extensively, but, as always, it pays to keep a
backup of your old data handy, just in case.
</para>
<para>
As a small example of the improvements made possible by the
new file format, GnuCash 1.4 uses "floating-point" numbers
for its internal calculations, just like a calculator.
Unfortunately, floating-point numbers are (rarely)
susceptible to rounding errors. Therefore, GnuCash has
changed to fixed-point number representation stored to
exactly the accuracy required. Even some expensive
proprietary "enterprise" accounting
packages do not support this vital feature.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>
New Interface
</title>
<para>The interface has been massively revamped to make it
faster and easier to use.</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>The register has been totally
revamped. The confusing auto-balancing has been
reworked, the multi-line modes are much improved -
making it much easier to handle split transactions,
and you can now display a report of the transactions
in a register, making it easy to export or print them.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para>The QIF importer's interface is now much
simpler to use</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The main window has been totally revamped.
You now have the choice of displaying the account window
and one or more reports in a tabbed-notebook style view,
as multiple top-level windows, or all in the one
window.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem><para>
The help window is now fully indexed and searchable.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
The financial calculator, available from the "Tools"
menu, lets you calculate loan repayments and compound
interest easily.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>
Reports
</title>
<para>The reporting architecture has changed radically for
this release - and so reports are now more informative,
flexible, and attractive than ever before. Some of the
improvements and new features include:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
The new gtkhtml "widget" is used for report display.
The new display engine is faster, and produces
better-looking output.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Reports are now saved from session to session.
To make this more useful, "rolling reports" with
date ranges specified using symbolic dates such
as "today" or "beginning of this year" are now
available.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis>Stylesheets</emphasis> control report
formatting, allowing you to customize the look
of your report.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Reports now display useful information when
multiple currencies are involved.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Virtually every individual report has been
radically improved, with nicer layout,
closer correspondence with standard accounting
procedures, and radically improved flexibility
and configurability.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Multiple reports can be packed together
into the one window for convenient display
of all the financial information you want,
using the multicolumn view, a special
"container" report.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Last, but certainly not least, reports can now
be printed. Yay!
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>
Graphs
</title>
<para>
One of our most long-awaited features, GnuCash can now
display your financial data in attractive bar, pie, and
scatter plots. This feature is provided through the
use of the GUPPI plotting tool.
</para>
<para>
We could talk about the graphs all day, but it's probably
more interesting to show you just how good they look:
</para>
<para><emphasis>PICTURES NEEDED!</emphasis></para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>
The Online World
</title>
<para>GnuCash can get price quotes online, with the
aid of Paul Fenwick's Finance::Quote module.
Finance::Quote continues to add more price sources,
allowing more international users to have more
convenient access to stock prices online.</para>
<para>A major improvement of the new version is the
ability to get price quotes from within the program
itself, without having to run a helper application.
The ability to update price quotes from the command
line remains, however.
</para>
<para>
Mozilla not stable enough for you yet? Don't like
Galeon? Don't have the libraries installed for
Konqueror? Well, then, wait until you try GnuCash,
the only web browser that also tracks your finances.
Seriously, GnuCash can be used to display simple
web pages using the "Frame URL" report -
handy for displaying web-based financial
information, and particularly in combination with
the multicolumn view.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>
A taste of the Future
</title>
<para>GnuCash now supports using Postgres as a backend
data store. While perhaps not so important in a personal
finance package, as GnuCash is extended to support
business accounting features database support will
be needed to handle massive datasets.</para>
<para>Similarly, an RPC backend exists, which allows you
to seperate the engine and interface and have them
running on totally seperate machines. Developments
using this facility to build independent, specific-function
clients have already commenced.
</para>
<para>Budgeting and scheduled transactions are perhaps
GnuCash's most requested features. Unfortunately,
they didn't make it this time around, but developers
are already working hard towards adding this support,
to go into the main development verison soon after the
1.6 release, for inclusion in the next stable version
(which will probably be 2.0).
</para>
<para>Similarly, more sophisticated automatic handling
of dividend and brokerages for stock tracking began,
but didn't make the feature cut this time around.
Expect this to be sorted out in the next major release.
</para>
<para>This is just a taste of what's coming in the future.
However, with GnuCash, <emphasis>you</emphasis> are in
a position to get what you want. The GnuCash developers
are easy to contact (see the webpage for more details),
and love to hear how GnuCash can be improved. If you are
a programmer, consider contributing to GnuCash development
and helping to turn GnuCash into the program that you want
it to be.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
</article>
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