Gnucash Mobile

So I was accepted into the Google Summer of Code (GSOC) 2012 program under the GNOME Foundation. I will be working on extending Gnucash to the Android platform through the development of a mobile application for expense tracking. Thanks to the Gnucash folks and my mentor (Muslim Chochov) for guidance through the application phase . Much appreciation also goes to the GNOME foundation for enabling this opportunity.

The mobile application codenamed ‘Gnucash Mobile’ will enable users to be able to record financial expenses which are made on-the-go. A lot of expenditure happens in cash and can amount to much over time. Therefore, being able to track how and where expenses are made is important to building a complete picture of one’s finances. The expenses can later be exported to an Open Financial Exchange (OFX) file and can be imported into the Gnucash for the desktop. 

The GSOC program is currently in the community bonding and preparatory phase for the actual coding which begins on the 21st May 2012. Accordingly, I have created a Google document outlying my design proposal for both the data model and the user experience of Gnucash Mobile. The application seeks to support the modern Android design guidelines, while maintaining compatibility with Android devices from API level 7 and above. The photo on the left is a mockup of how the main accounts page of Gnucash mobile should look like.

The application will make use of the ActionBar pattern in Android pervasively. Since the ActionBar is only available from Honeycomb upwards, backwards compatibility will be maintained through the use of the Android compatibility library and the ActionBarSherlock library. ActionBarSherlock enables the use of modern Android design paradigms on older Anrdroid API levels (7+).

Going forward, I will be writing about my experiences with developing Gnucash Mobile. Join me for the ride! You can follow Gnucash on Google+ and my Google+ account for updates .