gnucash clutters file system

[Rolf Leggewie]

Binary package hint: gnucash

For every "real gnucash file", the program creates dozens of xac-files,
log-files and whatnot. The good intentions are understood, but right now, it
is a bit much and clearly hinders usability. It would be nice if gnucash
aggregated all files in a tar for example or moved the extra files out of sight
by other means (~/.gnucash/backup ?)

My expectations of gnucash fixing this are rather low, so I report it here for my favourite distribution which I know does indeed care about usability and aesthetics.

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

Thanks for your bug report. Even if the idea is not bad at all, the implementation of such ideas completely depends on gnucash developers. In this case, as you can read in gnome-bug 537605, gnucash developers can't implement this functionality because of security reasons. Having log files is absolutely necessary for a money program like gnucash and putting these files in a static folder without telling the user is a very bad idea while having a .tar would most of time make the logs unreadable in case of computer failures (while logs are supposed to be emergency options). According to this, I set the status of this bug to Won't fix. Don't hesitate to report new bugs in the future and thanks again for your contribution.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

Saivann, your agreement with "wontfix" from upstream is duly noted.

I still believe that hundreds of files cluttering up my system in a default installation is not the best solution. Having backups is a good thing, saving frequently is also a good thing. The problems you mentioned can be dealt with.

I understand the motivation of upstream to work on this is currently low to non-existent. That does not mean it is not a bug and does not need to be improved/fixed (and given time and skill I might even do it myself).

Ubuntu cares about usability and is not at the mercy of upstream.

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

I do not agree or disagree with upstream decision, but I accept it. There's no problem to keep that bug report open, however, I doubt that this problem can realistically be fixed by ubuntu only since it requires to modify source code. Working with upstream is probably the best solution here if you want it well done. I commented on upstream bug about it.

[RJ Clay (rjclay)]

Thank you for your bug report. This bug has been reported to the developers of the software. You can track it and make comments here: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=537605

[Einar Jón Gunnarsson (tolvupostur)]

This is also a pet peeve of mine. I have crashed GnuCash, ruining my working copy with 6 months worth of data so I like this feature - but not the location.
I store my current year in a Dropbox folder, so having tens or hundreds of redundant files there is silly.

May I suggest having the default behavior as is (cluttering working directory), but adding an option of choosing the backup directory in the settings.
Preferences -> Files would be a nice place for it, although it's a bit crowded already.

It's all about choice, right?