Financier frontend repository is now open sourced!

[Alex]

Please see here:

https://gitlab.com/financier/financier/

I have decided to use the MIT license with Financier. This is very permissive to the point that you could (if you wanted to) use Financier on a commercial basis!

In any case, please enjoy. I'll answer some basic questions, but it should be self explanatory.

One cool thing - docs for Financier are available here: https://app.financier.io/docs/ HOWEVER - Please note that you need to go a hard refresh (hold COMMAND on Mac and click refresh) - otherwise the Service Worker for app.financier.io will supersede it.

Blog post to follow once the dust settles!

[Alex]

Also - I'd like to note that I do understand people are disappointed with the progress of Financier. (It's been months since the last update!) This is totally understandable, and I could've had better communication about it. That being said, I would like to note that I still stand behind Financier in maintaining it in the future. If you're using it today, don't worry about it going anywhere anytime soon.

[cracksys]

Great to hear @Alex

I'm still using it religiously but lack of payee management and basic report dampen my excitement to monitor my budget.

[JamJam]

Thank you for open sourcing the front end! Hopefully this will lead to some nice progress on the implementation.

[ramblinwreck]

I would like to note that I still stand behind Financier in maintaining it in the future. If you're using it today, don't worry about it going anywhere anytime soon.

This part is good to hear.

However, can someone explain the practical implications for folks like me who are end users (only), and are not software developers / don't plan to contribute to open source development? I just paid my $12 bucks and want to use the program as a replacement for YNAB4. Does it being open sourced mean that the look/feel/functionality is likely to change at the will of arbitrary software developers who decide to contributing to the project? Or will there be someone providing 'direction' for development?

To be clear, I'm not against new (sought after) features being implemented -- far from it. I'm just curious how the open source flow works in practice. I'd imagine different folks have different ideas about what should be changed..

[jat255]

Does it being open sourced mean that the look/feel/functionality is likely to change at the will of arbitrary software developers who decide to contributing to the project? Or will there be someone providing 'direction' for development?
...
I'm just curious how the open source flow works in practice. I'd imagine different folks have different ideas about what should be changed..

From a user perspective, nothing should change unless @Alex decides he wants it to. He controls the "authoritative" copy of the software, which is called the "upstream" version. Basically, the open-sourcing enables everyone to make a full copy of the program (offline-only, since he only released the front-end part). A developer (or enterprising user) can then make changes to their personal copy however they wish, changing things, adding functionality, etc. however they like. They can then submit a "pull request" to the upstream version, and Alex can decide whether or not to incorporate that change into the primary version that everyone uses when they go to app.financier.io.

Hope that makes sense!

[Alex]

Exactly. I'll be thoroughly reviewing any changes before customers see them.

[Billy_McSkintos]

Exactly. I'll be thoroughly reviewing any changes before customers see them.

in a timely manner?

[ramblinwreck]

From a user perspective, nothing should change unless @Alex decides he wants it to. He controls the "authoritative" copy of the software, which is called the "upstream" version. Basically, the open-sourcing enables everyone to make a full copy of the program (offline-only, since he only released the front-end part). A developer (or enterprising user) can then make changes to their personal copy however they wish, changing things, adding functionality, etc. however they like. They can then submit a "pull request" to the upstream version, and Alex can decide whether or not to incorporate that change into the primary version that everyone uses when they go to app.financier.io.

Hope that makes sense!

Crystal clear. Thanks!

[asromzek]

Exactly. I'll be thoroughly reviewing any changes before customers see them.

in a timely manner?

🔥

Edit. I forgot the , as usual.

[Saryon]

Awesome!

As soon as I have the time, I'm going to dive into the code and make some pull requests ;-)

[Whatsup]

Anyone able to give some rough steps on how to get started with this?

I've installed git and npm but can't seem to get things working. So some rough steps would be good. I've tried on windows 7 and ubuntu.

[asromzek]

I forgot (again) that I was going to put that together. These are the current specs for my machine.

• Windows 10
• node.js v8.5.0
• npm v5.3.0

After cloning the project and running npm install, the app won't build when you run npm start. This is due to missing dependency angular-legacy-sortablejs. There appears to be a direct link in the package.json file for that dependency, so I did the following steps to hack it into working. I'm not sure if it's a good solution, but the app built and seemed to run without crashing.

• Run the command: npm install angular-legacy-sortablejs --save-dev.
• Navigate to the "node_modules" directory.
• Rename "angular-legacy-sortablejs-maintained" directory to "angular-legacy-sortablejs".
• Try running npm start again.

That should get the app up and running, but logging in and syncing likely won't work. You may need to set up some proxy stuff to connect to the central authentication and syncing server. i didn't quite get that far...

[Whatsup]

I forgot (again) that I was going to put that together. These are the current specs for my machine.

• Windows 10
• node.js v8.5.0
• npm v5.3.0

No problem about forgetting  thanks for putting something together, I'll see how that goes when I get a chance.

Thanks again

[JamJam]

Pull request to solve the SortableJS issue:

https://gitlab.com/financier/financier/merge_requests/55