Financier Forums

Talking about this stuff is starting to get the creative juices flowing again. I have been kicking around the idea of building a new budget app similar to YNAB4/Financier, using some of the newer C# technologies that have come out over the last few years. I work with that stuff at my job every day, so I would be very comfortable building something from scratch.

I have gone back and forth on whether it would be a simple, standalone desktop app, or a full blown web app (desktop & mobile) with full syncing capability. If I implement syncing, do I build it so it's self hosted for myself, and available for gurus to self host themselves, or set up a subscription service so anyone can sign up and pay for the syncing capability like Financier? If I didn't have to worry about hosting and securing data for other people, that would certainly keep things simple on my end. But if I build something new and useful, making it available and fully functional for everyone instead of just technology enthusiasts also sounds really attractive to me.

CouchDB provides really nice out-of-the-box syncing capability, but it also has some drawbacks when pushing the limits as we have encountered. It also makes it a little difficult to implement some features like scheduled transactions. I actually sat down and sketched out a plan for building a syncing algorithm a couple months ago that would solve some of those issues, but never got around to writing any code to test it out. I'm probably going to pull that sketch out again to see if I can put it into practice.

Financier has worked great for the last few years and I hate to reinvent the wheel, but it might be fun to build something new that solves some of the underlying issues and makes it possible to implement some of the features that have been requested like scheduled transactions, file import, search, etc.

@jat255, I was going to see if you were comfortable with sending me a copy of your budget to do that exact kind of test, and completely forgot (it's been a busy week). It looks like you came to the same conclusion I did. If @Alex can help you out, the process requires signing out and clearing data in all of the browsers/apps where you have your budget loaded, he creates a new database under the hood, and then you import a fresh backup.

I have not deleted/imported my budget since I bloated my last database, and have tried to be as efficient as possible when making changes. For example, If I need to change the flag color and the cleared status on a transaction, I will go into full edit mode so both changes are saved in a single update, instead of two separate revisions for the transaction.

Have you deleted your budget and re-imported it a few (or many) times? I ask because I did that with my main account when developing the mobile app, not realizing that a deleted budget isn't truly deleted in CouchDB. It gets flagged as deleted but is still included when the database is synced with the browser initially so other synced apps can delete it locally. This is especially a problem with the mobile web app since Safari on iOS limits database sizes to 50MB, and none of my budgets would load when the database exceeded that size. I had to coordinate with @Alex to delete my database so I could import a clean backup that significantly reduced the new database size. I'm not sure if that is the source of your problem, but it sounds similar. Although, 2GB seems really excessive for Financier. The app shouldn't be that heavy.

If you're still working with a single original budget and have an up-to-date backup, then I recommend going through the motions of clearing your browser cache and syncing from scratch again. You could also try a different browser to see if the same thing happens. If you have done all of that already, then @Alex will probably have to weigh in.

Out of curiosity, how big is the json backup file?

Update complete. Now to see if anyone yells...

It's been a while since I have done any server maintenance for the mobile site, and it's time to upgrade a few things. I will be taking the server down for a few hours to create a full backup and to update the operation system to a newer version of Ubuntu. If all goes well, the server will be back up and running again this evening. It's been really quiet lately, so I assume the update will be complete before anyone comes to pound on the door. But just in case... here's your 2 minute warning.

@dna0929, what issues are you having with over-budget feature?

And I really need to get the mobile app off "beta" status.

 I really need to get my hands on an Android phone so I can do some real debugging and testing.

I wouldn't say I'm doing a great job considering that I almost fell off the planet in 2019. The last year has been... interesting, partially due to the small human that has invaded our space, and mostly due to other work/family/other-odd issues. It's been tough to get my head into the mindset for writing code during the limited bits of free time that I have been able to scrape together.

However, I am still using Financier (web and mobile) heavily every day, and I am not going to switch to another budget management tool. In the unlikely event that Alex no longer wants to host it, I will. Financier works too well to let it go away.

With that said, I really want to dive back down the rabbit hole of code sooner than later. I do my best work in sprints over the course of a few weeks or months with some downtime between. The tough part is getting that programming spark ignited, so we'll see how the next few weeks go.

Welcome, again! 

It's been a little quiet lately, but Financier is still a solid option to replace YNAB4. I have been putting a lot of effort into wrapping up the mobile web app revamp. It's nearly there, although development has stalled over the last couple of weeks due to some work and family issues. I should be back on track after a short vacation this weekend.

I really want to take a crack at implementing scheduled transactions and file import at some point, which may require a main app rewrite using the same technologies that I used in the mobile web app. The flurry of summer activity is starting to subside, so it should be a little easier to find time to work on side projects in the next couple of months.

Quote from: ottyacat on August 06, 2019, 06:00:21 PM
Your welcome!

You're fired.

The last week has been a little bit of a mess. Work has been crazy, the small human inhabiting our living space has required some special attention, and a strong offer we made on a house over the weekend was crushed by two other offers that were $20k+ higher than the asking price (yikes). With all of that piling up, I have not had much time to work on the mobile app or the core library. There are a few small updates that are ready to deploy, but I want to finish a minor geo-location UI revamp first. If things calm down, I'm aiming to have that out by the end of the week. And since I haven't heard many complaints about beta app (other than you, @ottyacat), I think the app is nearly ready to push to stable.

Awesome, I'll have to check out that python code. Are you automating transaction import, or using for quick manual entries?

What happens if you use a PUT request to set "_deleted = true"?

@jat255

Was the split transaction entered using the mobile app? I remember having some issues with transfers in splits, and I'm almost certain the main app had the same issue. It's on my list of things to revisit. I remember that refreshing the browser sometimes would fix things after entering a split that contained a transfer. Have you tried that?

The app has been restored back to beta.10. If you have an Android device, you're just going to have to give up and get an iPhone. Sorry.