############## WARNING ###################### ********** ALPHA DEVELOPMENT RELEASE ******** THIS IS VERSION 1.1, WHICH IS AN ALPHA RELEASE, AND IS OFTEN BROKEN. IT IS FOR DEVELOPERS AND A FEW BRAVE, SMART USERS!! IT MIGHT CORRUPT DATA!! IF YOU WANT TO USE XACC, USE VERSION 1.0.17 INSTEAD!! ############################################## GnuCash ------- gnucash is a program to keep track of your finances. It is similar in concept to Quicken(TM). Although GnuCash still lacks the advanced features of Quicken, it does have the basic functionality. Some of the features of GnuCash are: - Multiple Accounts - Each account keeps a running balance and a reconciled balance, so you can keep track of the checks that have clear your account. - A simple interface. If you can use the register in the back of your checkbook, you can use GnuCash. - QuickFill... if you begin typing a description in the description fields, and it matches an previous transaction, hitting will copy the previous transaction. Handy if you have similar transactions on a regular basis. (such as depositing your paycheck every week :) - Stock/Mutual Fund Portfolios. Track stocks individually (one per account) or in portfolio of accounts (a group of accounts that can be displayed together). - Multiple Currencies. Multiple currencies are supported, as well as currency trading accounts. Note this is still broken in many ways... - Quicken File Import. Import Quicken QIF files. Advanced Features ----------------- GnuCash offers some features not usually found in simpler accounting programs. - Sub-accounts: A master account can have a hierarchy of detail accounts underneath it. This allows similar account types (e.g. Cash, Bank, Stock) to be grouped into one master account (e.g. Assets). - Double Entry: Every transaction can appear in two accounts; one account is debited and the other is credited with exactly the same amount. With double-entry, a transaction edited in one window will be automatically updated in all other windows showing that transaction, and in both of the accounts. - Income/Expense Account Types (Categories). When used properly with the double-entry feature, these can be used to create both Balance Sheet and Profits & Losses reports. For example, savings account interest, stock dividends, or paychecks can be marked as both a deposit in a bank account, and as income in an Income account type, using the double-entry (transfer) feature. Similarly, credit card charges can be noted in the credit card account, as well as in a corresponding expense account. - General Ledger: Multiple accounts can be displayed in one register window at the same time. This can ease the trouble of tracking down typing/entry errors. It also provides a convenient way of viewing a portfolio of many stocks, by showing all transactions in that portfolio. Home Page: ---------- http://gnucash.org/ Origianl X-Accountant home page: http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~rclark/xacc Important Note: --------------- Numerous core dumps have been reported that occur with lesstif version 0.82. These core dumps do not occur with lesstif v 0.81, nor with RedHat Motif, and appear to be gone with lesstif 0.83. If it's crashing, please try using a different motif, or the statically-linked Motif version, as described below. Running: -------- The binary-only distribution includes two binary files: 'xacc.bin' and 'xacc-static.bin'. The former requires a Motif shared library; the latter has Motif statically linked in. If you have Motif, then just run xacc. If you do not have Motif, then copy 'xacc-static.bin' to 'xacc.bin'. Access to the on-line help documentation requires the that the environment variable XACC_HELP be set to the 'Docs' directory. The 'xacc' shell script sets this variable to the configured directory before running the main program, so you don't have to set this by hand. If you want to override the path to the Docs directory: For csh/tcsh % setenv XACC_HELP /usr/local/share/xacc/Docs or, for bash/bsh/ksh/sh % set XACC_HELP=/usr/local/share/xacc/Docs % export XACC_HELP You can then start GnuCash at the command-line, with "xacc" or "xacc ", where is a GnuCash account file. Sample accounts can be found in "data" subdirectory. *.dat files are GnuCash accounts that can opened with the "Open File" menu entry. *.qif files are Quicken Import Format files that can be opened with the "Import QIF" menu entry. Building & Installing: ---------------------- These steps does not apply to binary distributions; only to source distributions. Normally, to build and install GnuCash, all you have to do is: # ./configure # make # make install You can build Motif, Gnome, and Qt versions. Depending on your make target, you'll produce: gnucash.motif gnucash.motif.static gnucash.gnome gnucash.gnome.static gnucash.qt Whichever one you produce last ends up the target of a local gnucash.bin symlink, so that you can always run the local ./gnucash script to see the last flavor that you built. The ./gnucash script also handles making sure that you're using files from the source dir rather than an install tree just like the old ./xacc script did. You'll use "make install" when you want to do a normal FSSTND /usr/ or /usr/local style install where everything scatters across the filesystem in foo/gnucash/* directories. You'll use "make install-opt" when you want a /usr/local/opt/gnucash style install where everything just installs into local bin, doc, share, etc dirs. I couldn't think of a better way to handle this, or I would have used it. So the two most likely sets of build instructions would be as follows: For a full system install (gnucash is installed as part of the system): ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc make motif make install For an /opt style install ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/opt/gnucash make motif make install-opt Status: ------- As of version 1.0.18: GnuCash is known to work in the following configs: Linux 2.x.x -- Intel w/ RedHat Motif Slackware 3.4 -- Intel w/ Mootif (OSF Motif 2.0.1) Linux 2.x.x -- Intel w/ Lesstif v0.81 SGI IRIX -- MIPS IBM AIX 4.1.5 -- RS/6000 http://www-frec.bull.com/ Unixware 7 -- Intel SCO OpenServer 5.0.4 -- Intel See http://linas.org/linux/xacc for precompiled binaries for these platforms GnuCash seems to be having problems with: Solaris -- Sparc -- won't compile due to va-args in XmHTML Linux 2.x.x -- Intel w/ Lesstif v0.82 Download Sites: --------------- All of the precompiled binaries & the latest source versions can be found at http://linas.org/linux/xacc However, it is recommended that the master sites for each particular binary be used instead, for two reasons: 1) bandwidth 2) OS-specific info & support IBM AIX 4.1.5 -- SMIT-installable images http://www.bull.de/pub/ see also http://www-frec.bull.com/ SCO OpenServer 5.0.4 http://www.sco.com/skunkware/osr5/x11/apps/xacc/VOLS.tar Unixware 7 -- use pkgadd to install http://www.sco.com/skunkware/uw7/x11/apps/xacc/xacc.pkg.gz SGI Irix -- in SGI install format -- warning, this is a very down-level version http://linas.org/linux/xacc/xacc-1.0b7-sgi-irix.inst.tar Linux Debian -- use debian tools to install http://linas.org/linux/xacc/xacc_1.0.15-1_i386.deb That's all folks! Getting Source with CVS ----------------------- A read-only version of the cvs tree is available on the net. To access it, first, login, as so: cvs -d :pserver:cvs@linas.org:/home/cvs/cvsroot login The password is "guest" To get a copy of the source, do a cvs -d :pserver:cvs@linas.org:/home/cvs/cvsroot checkout xacc Main Developers: ---------------- Robin Clark wrote the original X-Accountant in Motif as a school project, taking it to version 0.9 by October 1997. Linas Vepstas liked what he saw: the GUI was slick, the code was documented and well structured, and it was all GPL'ed. And so he re-wrote it: adding cell-widgets to XbaeMatrix, so that the combobox and arrows would make an even slicker GUI, rewrote the X-Accountant internals to add double-entry, an account heirarchy, split out a transaction mini-engine, add support for stocks, and spiff up the help menus. This was version 1.0 as of January 1998. Since then, for version 1.1, the engine was expanded & refined, and the register window code completely redesigned and made mostly Motif-(and GUI-)independent. Did some prototype OFX work. Jeremy Collins publicized the GnoMoney project widely and broadly, and then changed its name to GnuCash. Jeremy created the gnucash.org web site, registered the domain, got the initial GTK/gnome code working. Rob Browning abused everyone for not using perl, and then added guile/scheme support. Rob maintains the build infrastructure, is handling the whole guile/perl extension language thing, and is dealing with configuration & configurability. Fixes & Patches: ---------------- Fred Baube for attempted Java port/MoneyDance Christopher B. Browne for perl stock scripts George Chen for MS-Money QIF's & fixes Jeremey Collins for GnoMoney & GTK port Ciaran Deignan for AIX binary version Tyson Dowd for configure/makefile patches Koen D'Hondt for Solaris patches to XmHTML Bob Drzyzgula for budgeting design notes Dave Freese for leap-year fix Otto Hammersmith for RedHat RPM version Jon K}re Hellan misc core dump fixes Tom Kludy for SGI Irix port Ted Lemon for NetBSD port G. Allen Morris III for QIF core dump Peter Norton for a valiant attempt at a GTK port OmNiBuS web site graphics & content Gavin Porter for euro style dates Ron Record for SCO Unixware & OpenServer binaries Dirk Schoenberger for Qt/KDE port Christopher Seawood for XbaeMatrix core dump Richard Skelton for Solaris cleanup Henning Spruth for German text & euro date rework Ken Yamaguchi QIF import fixes ... and I am sure that I have missed many others ...