Last week we started testing the new accounting software with our own company data.
It took a few days to fix all the bugs caused by rewriting the money and text classes. Most of the problems happened while moving data from the screen (text) into record storage (64-bit money values).
Oddly, the C++ standard library does not have good ways to convert text to numbers. Stack Overflow gives some work-arounds, but all have risks. We tried them anyhow, then gave up and rewrote the current Goldenseal code. It’s ugly and old-fashioned, but it works. The most recent C++ update adds better number formatting, so we can switch over to that when Qt supports it.
Next on the agenda was getting buttons and the rest of the interface to work. That means connecting Qt code to existing Goldenseal classes. The new app already showed records and saved changes. Now it also can add, duplicate, revert and delete records. Our staff is gradually working on the rest of the interface.
We also tried updating to the newest version of Qt (6.2). Version 6 is a major rewrite for them, but it’s still in beta. The conversion mostly worked OK, but it had a few mystery problems. So, we will stick with Qt 5.15 for a while. We can switch over when TurtleSoft Pro is ready to ship. With luck, their code will be more stable by then. Hopefully it also will run native on Mac M1 chips.
The new TurtleSoft interface is gradually coming into focus.
Last week we added a block at upper left, with room for 4 buttons. Still deciding what else to put there. All the commands in Goldenseal pull-down menus will be somewhere in the main window: either in the green bar across the top, or in the outline view on the left. It’s just a question of how best to organize everything.
Besides the main window, you also can use separate windows as in the current Goldenseal.
Still plenty left to do. Many small details to finish.
Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
TurtleSoft.com
