Books, files and windows

The books are a SQLite file (.kabacus) that the apps and kabacus-cli open directly. On a server they can also be a SQLite file or PostgreSQL. Both behave identically. Backing the database up is your job, or your host’s.

The File menu

• New Window (Ctrl+Shift+N), New Books…, Open Books… (Ctrl+O) and Open Recent.
• Save a Copy As… (Ctrl+Shift+S), Close Window (Ctrl+Shift+W) and Quit (Ctrl+Q).
• Connect to a Server… for books on a server. It has no shortcut and nothing else asks for a server address.

One set of books per window

Open Recent opens books in the current window; the arrow beside an entry opens them in a new one. Books already open in another window bring that window forward. When you start again, every window from last time reopens where you left it, or you can choose to see Welcome instead in Settings → When Kabacus Starts.

Money is exact

Amounts are whole numbers with a number of decimal places, never floating point. A write with more decimal places than its commodity takes is refused; only an import can raise a commodity’s places.

Descriptions and numbers

A description can’t contain a line break or a semicolon, so it can’t pose as postings or tags in the journal text. Every transaction gets a number when it is first written; it never changes, even when you edit the transaction.