hledger-1.52: embeddedfiles/hledger-ui.info
This is hledger-ui.info, produced by makeinfo version 7.3 from stdin.
INFO-DIR-SECTION User Applications
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* hledger-ui: (hledger-ui). Terminal UI for the hledger accounting tool.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: Top, Next: OPTIONS, Up: (dir)
hledger-ui(1)
*************
hledger-ui - terminal interface (TUI) for 'hledger', a robust, friendly
plain text accounting app.
'hledger-ui [OPTS] [QUERYARGS]'
or
'hledger ui [OPTS] [QUERYARGS]'
This manual is for hledger's terminal interface, version 1.52. See
also the hledger manual for common concepts and file formats.
hledger is a robust, user-friendly, cross-platform set of programs
for tracking money, time, or any other commodity, using double-entry
accounting and a simple, editable file format. hledger is inspired by
and largely compatible with ledger(1), and largely interconvertible with
beancount(1).
hledger-ui is hledger's terminal interface, providing an efficient
full-window text UI for viewing accounts and transactions, and some
limited data entry capability. It is easier than hledger's command-line
interface, and sometimes quicker and more convenient than the web
interface.
Like hledger, it reads from (and appends to) a journal file specified
by the 'LEDGER_FILE' environment variable (defaulting to
'$HOME/.hledger.journal'); or you can specify files with '-f' options.
It can also read timeclock files, timedot files, or any CSV/SSV/TSV file
with a date field. (See hledger(1) -> Input for details.)
Unlike hledger, hledger-ui hides all future-dated transactions by
default. They can be revealed, along with any rule-generated periodic
transactions, by pressing the F key (or starting with -forecast) to
enable "forecast mode".
* Menu:
* OPTIONS::
* MOUSE::
* KEYS::
* SCREENS::
* WATCH MODE::
* ENVIRONMENT::
* BUGS::
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: OPTIONS, Next: MOUSE, Prev: Top, Up: Top
1 OPTIONS
*********
Any arguments are interpreted as a hledger query which filters the data.
hledger-ui provides the following options:
Flags:
-w --watch watch for data and date changes and reload
automatically
--theme=THEME use this custom display theme (light,
dark, terminal, greenterm)
--cash start in the cash accounts screen
--bs start in the balance sheet accounts screen
--is start in the income statement accounts screen
--all start in the all accounts screen
--register=ACCTREGEX start in the (first matched) account's register
--change show period balances (changes) at startup instead
of historical balances
-l --flat show accounts as a flat list (default)
-t --tree show accounts as a tree
and also supports many of hledger's general options:
General input/data transformation flags:
-f --file=[FMT:]FILE Read data from FILE, or from stdin if FILE is -,
inferring format from extension or a FMT: prefix.
Can be specified more than once. If not specified,
reads from $LEDGER_FILE or $HOME/.hledger.journal.
--rules=RULESFILE Use rules defined in this rules file for
converting subsequent CSV/SSV/TSV files. If not
specified, uses FILE.csv.rules for each FILE.csv.
--alias=A=B|/RGX/=RPL transform account names from A to B, or by
replacing regular expression matches
--auto generate extra postings by applying auto posting
rules ("=") to all transactions
--forecast[=PERIOD] Generate extra transactions from periodic rules
("~"), from after the latest ordinary transaction
until 6 months from now. Or, during the specified
PERIOD (the equals is required). Auto posting rules
will also be applied to these transactions. In
hledger-ui, also make future-dated transactions
visible at startup.
-I --ignore-assertions don't check balance assertions by default
--txn-balancing=... how to check that transactions are balanced:
'old': use global display precision
'exact': use transaction precision (default)
--infer-costs infer conversion equity postings from costs
--infer-equity infer costs from conversion equity postings
--infer-market-prices infer market prices from costs
--pivot=TAGNAME use a different field or tag as account names
-s --strict do extra error checks (and override -I)
--verbose-tags add tags indicating generated/modified data
General output/reporting flags (supported by some commands):
-b --begin=DATE include postings/transactions on/after this date
-e --end=DATE include postings/transactions before this date
(with a report interval, will be adjusted to
following subperiod end)
-D --daily multiperiod report with 1 day interval
-W --weekly multiperiod report with 1 week interval
-M --monthly multiperiod report with 1 month interval
-Q --quarterly multiperiod report with 1 quarter interval
-Y --yearly multiperiod report with 1 year interval
-p --period=PERIODEXP set begin date, end date, and/or report interval,
with more flexibility
--today=DATE override today's date (affects relative dates)
--date2 match/use secondary dates instead (deprecated)
-U --unmarked include only unmarked postings/transactions
-P --pending include only pending postings/transactions
-C --cleared include only cleared postings/transactions
(-U/-P/-C can be combined)
-R --real include only non-virtual postings
-E --empty Show zero items, which are normally hidden.
In hledger-ui & hledger-web, do the opposite.
--depth=DEPTHEXP if a number (or -NUM): show only top NUM levels
of accounts. If REGEXP=NUM, only apply limiting to
accounts matching the regular expression.
-B --cost show amounts converted to their cost/sale amount
-V --market Show amounts converted to their value at period
end(s) in their default valuation commodity.
Equivalent to --value=end.
-X --exchange=COMM Show amounts converted to their value at period
end(s) in the specified commodity.
Equivalent to --value=end,COMM.
--value=WHEN[,COMM] show amounts converted to their value on the
specified date(s) in their default valuation
commodity or a specified commodity. WHEN can be:
'then': value on transaction dates
'end': value at period end(s)
'now': value today
YYYY-MM-DD: value on given date
-c --commodity-style=S Override a commodity's display style.
Eg: -c '.' or -c '1.000,00 EUR'
--pretty[=YN] Use box-drawing characters in text output? Can be
'y'/'yes' or 'n'/'no'.
If YN is specified, the equals is required.
General help flags:
-h --help show command line help
--tldr show command examples with tldr
--info show the manual with info
--man show the manual with man
--version show version information
--debug=[1-9] show this much debug output (default: 1)
--pager=YN use a pager when needed ? y/yes (default) or n/no
--color=YNA --colour use ANSI color ? y/yes, n/no, or auto (default)
With hledger-ui, the '--debug' option sends debug output to a
'hledger-ui.log' file in the current directory.
If you use the bash shell, you can auto-complete flags by pressing
TAB in the command line. If this is not working see Install > Shell
completions.
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: MOUSE, Next: KEYS, Prev: OPTIONS, Up: Top
2 MOUSE
*******
In most modern terminals, you can navigate through the screens with a
mouse or touchpad:
* Use mouse wheel or trackpad to scroll up and down
* Click on list items to go deeper
* Click on the left margin (column 0) to go back.
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: KEYS, Next: SCREENS, Prev: MOUSE, Up: Top
3 KEYS
******
Keyboard gives more control.
'?' shows a help dialog listing all keys. (Some of these also appear
in the quick help at the bottom of each screen.) Press '?' again (or
'ESCAPE', or 'LEFT', or 'q') to close it. The following keys work on
most screens:
The cursor keys navigate: 'RIGHT' or 'ENTER' goes deeper, 'LEFT'
returns to the previous screen, 'UP'/'DOWN'/'PGUP'/'PGDN'/'HOME'/'END'
move up and down through lists. 'J'/'K' jump down/up 10 items at a
time. Emacs-style ('CTRL-p'/'CTRL-n'/'CTRL-f'/'CTRL-b') and VI-style
('k','j','l','h') movement keys are also supported.
(Tip: movement speed is limited by your keyboard repeat rate, to move
faster you may want to adjust it. On a mac, the Karabiner app is one
way to do that.)
'/' lets you set a general filter query limiting the data shown,
using the same query terms as in hledger and hledger-web. While editing
the query, you can use CTRL-a/e/d/k, BS, cursor keys; press 'ENTER' to
set it, or 'ESCAPE'to cancel. There are also keys for quickly adjusting
some common filters like account depth and transaction status (see
below). 'BACKSPACE' or 'DELETE' removes all filters, showing all
transactions.
As mentioned above, by default hledger-ui hides future transactions -
both ordinary transactions recorded in the journal, and periodic
transactions generated by rule. 'F' toggles forecast mode, in which
future/forecasted transactions are shown.
Pressing 'SHIFT-DOWN' narrows the report period, and pressing
'SHIFT-UP' expands it again. When narrowed, the current report period
is displayed in the header line, pressing 'SHIFT-LEFT' or 'SHIFT-RIGHT'
moves to the previous or next period, and pressing 'T' sets the period
to "today". If you are using '-w/--watch' and viewing a narrowed period
containing today, the view will follow any changes in system date
(moving to the period containing the new date). (These keys work only
with the standard Julian calendar year/quarter/month/week/day periods;
they are not affected by a custom report interval specified at the
command line.)
You can also specify a non-standard period with '/' and a 'date:'
query; in this case, the period is not movable with the arrow keys.
(Tip: arrow keys with Shift do not work out of the box in all
terminal software. Eg in Apple's Terminal, the SHIFT-DOWN and SHIFT-UP
keys must be configured as follows: in Terminal's preferences, click
Profiles, select your current profile on the left, click Keyboard on the
right, click + and add this for SHIFT-DOWN: '\033[1;2B', click + and add
this for SHIFT-UP: '\033[1;2A'. In other terminals (Windows Terminal ?)
you might need to configure SHIFT-RIGHT and SHIFT-LEFT to emit
'\033[1;2C' and '\033[1;2D' respectively.)
'ESCAPE' resets the UI state and jumps back to the top screen,
restoring the app's initial state at startup. Or, it cancels minibuffer
data entry or the help dialog.
'CTRL-l' redraws the screen and centers the selection if possible
(selections near the top won't be centered, since we don't scroll above
the top).
'g' reloads from the data file(s) and updates the current screen and
any previous screens. (With large files, this could cause a noticeable
pause.)
'I' toggles balance assertion checking. Disabling balance assertions
temporarily can be useful for troubleshooting. (If hledger-ui was
started with a '--pivot' option, re-enabling balance assertions with the
'I' key also reloads the journal, like 'g'.)
'a' runs command-line hledger's add command, and reloads the updated
file. This allows some basic data entry.
'A' is like 'a', but runs the hledger-iadd tool, which provides a
terminal interface. This key will be available if 'hledger-iadd' is
installed in $path.
'E' runs $HLEDGER_UI_EDITOR, or $EDITOR, or a default ('emacsclient
-a "" -nw') on the journal file. With some editors (emacs, vi), the
cursor will be positioned at the current transaction when invoked from
the register and transaction screens, and at the error location (if
possible) when invoked from the error screen.
'B' toggles cost mode, showing amounts converted to their cost's
commodity (see hledger manual > Cost reporting.
'V' toggles value mode, showing amounts converted to their market
value (see hledger manual > Valuation flag). More specifically,
1. By default, the 'V' key toggles showing end value ('--value=end')
on or off. The valuation date will be the report end date if
specified, otherwise today.
2. If you started hledger-ui with some other valuation (such as
'--value=then,EUR'), the 'V' key toggles that off or on.
Cost/value tips: - When showing end value, you can change the report
end date without restarting, by pressing '/' and adding a query like
'date:..YYYY-MM-DD'. - Either cost mode, or value mode, can be active,
but not both at once. Cost mode takes precedence. - There's not yet
any visual indicator that cost or value mode is active, other than the
amount values.
'q' quits the application.
Additional screen-specific keys are described below.
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: SCREENS, Next: WATCH MODE, Prev: KEYS, Up: Top
4 SCREENS
*********
At startup, hledger-ui shows a menu screen by default. From here you
can navigate to other screens using the cursor keys: 'UP'/'DOWN' to
select, 'RIGHT' to move to the selected screen, 'LEFT' to return to the
previous screen. Or you can use 'ESC' to return directly to the top
menu screen.
You can also use a command line flag to specific a different startup
screen ('--cs', '--bs', '--is', '--all', or '--register=ACCT').
* Menu:
* Menu screen::
* Cash accounts screen::
* Balance sheet accounts screen::
* Income statement accounts screen::
* All accounts screen::
* Register screen::
* Transaction screen::
* Error screen::
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: Menu screen, Next: Cash accounts screen, Up: SCREENS
4.1 Menu screen
===============
This is the top-most screen. From here you can navigate to several
screens listing accounts of various types. Note some of these may not
show anything until you have configured account types.
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: Cash accounts screen, Next: Balance sheet accounts screen, Prev: Menu screen, Up: SCREENS
4.2 Cash accounts screen
========================
This screen shows "cash" (ie, liquid asset) accounts (like 'hledger
balancesheet type:c'). It always shows balances (historical ending
balances on the date shown in the title line).
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: Balance sheet accounts screen, Next: Income statement accounts screen, Prev: Cash accounts screen, Up: SCREENS
4.3 Balance sheet accounts screen
=================================
This screen shows asset, liability and equity accounts (like 'hledger
balancesheetequity'). It always shows balances.
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: Income statement accounts screen, Next: All accounts screen, Prev: Balance sheet accounts screen, Up: SCREENS
4.4 Income statement accounts screen
====================================
This screen shows revenue and expense accounts (like 'hledger
incomestatement'). It always shows changes (balance changes in the
period shown in the title line).
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: All accounts screen, Next: Register screen, Prev: Income statement accounts screen, Up: SCREENS
4.5 All accounts screen
=======================
This screen shows all accounts in your journal (unless filtered by a
query; like 'hledger balance'). It shows balances by default; you can
toggle showing changes with the 'H' key.
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: Register screen, Next: Transaction screen, Prev: All accounts screen, Up: SCREENS
4.6 Register screen
===================
This screen shows the transactions affecting a particular account. Each
line represents one transaction, and shows:
* the other account(s) involved, in abbreviated form. (If there are
both real and virtual postings, it shows only the accounts affected
by real postings.)
* the overall change to the current account's balance; positive for
an inflow to this account, negative for an outflow.
* the running total after the transaction. With the 'H' key you can
toggle between
* the period total, which is from just the transactions
displayed
* or the historical total, which includes any undisplayed
transactions before the start of the report period (and
matching the filter query if any). This will be the running
historical balance (what you would see on a bank's website,
eg) if not disturbed by a query.
Note, this screen combines each transaction's in-period postings to a
single line item, dated with the earliest in-period transaction or
posting date (like hledger's 'aregister'). So custom posting dates can
cause the running balance to be temporarily inaccurate. (See hledger
manual > aregister and posting dates.)
Transactions affecting this account's subaccounts will be included in
the register if the accounts screen is in tree mode, or if it's in list
mode but this account has subaccounts which are not shown due to a depth
limit. In other words, the register always shows the transactions
contributing to the balance shown on the accounts screen. Tree
mode/list mode can be toggled with 't' here also.
'U' toggles filtering by unmarked status, showing or hiding unmarked
transactions. Similarly, 'P' toggles pending transactions, and 'C'
toggles cleared transactions. (By default, transactions with all
statuses are shown; if you activate one or two status filters, only
those transactions are shown; and if you activate all three, the filter
is removed.)
'R' toggles real mode, in which virtual postings are ignored.
'z' toggles nonzero mode, in which only transactions posting a
nonzero change are shown (hledger-ui shows zero items by default, unlike
command-line hledger).
Press 'RIGHT' to view the selected transaction in detail.
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: Transaction screen, Next: Error screen, Prev: Register screen, Up: SCREENS
4.7 Transaction screen
======================
This screen shows a single transaction, as a general journal entry,
similar to hledger's print command and journal format
(hledger_journal(5)).
The transaction's date(s) and any cleared flag, transaction code,
description, comments, along with all of its account postings are shown.
Simple transactions have two postings, but there can be more (or in
certain cases, fewer).
'UP' and 'DOWN' will step through all transactions listed in the
previous account register screen. In the title bar, the numbers in
parentheses show your position within that account register. They will
vary depending on which account register you came from (remember most
transactions appear in multiple account registers). The #N number
preceding them is the transaction's position within the complete
unfiltered journal, which is a more stable id (at least until the next
reload).
On this screen (and the register screen), the 'E' key will open your
text editor with the cursor positioned at the current transaction if
possible.
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: Error screen, Prev: Transaction screen, Up: SCREENS
4.8 Error screen
================
This screen will appear if there is a problem, such as a parse error,
when you press g to reload. Once you have fixed the problem, press g
again to reload and resume normal operation. (Or, you can press escape
to cancel the reload attempt.)
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: WATCH MODE, Next: ENVIRONMENT, Prev: SCREENS, Up: Top
5 WATCH MODE
************
One of hledger-ui's best features is the auto-reloading '-w/--watch'
mode. With this flag, it will update the display automatically whenever
changes are saved to the data files.
This is very useful when reconciling. A good workflow is to have
your bank's online register open in a browser window, for reference; the
journal file open in an editor window; and hledger-ui in watch mode in a
terminal window, eg:
$ hledger-ui --watch --register checking -C
As you mark things cleared in the editor, you can see the effect
immediately without having to context switch. This leaves more mental
bandwidth for your accounting. Of course you can still interact with
hledger-ui when needed, eg to toggle cleared mode, or to explore the
history.
* Menu:
* --watch problems::
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: --watch problems, Up: WATCH MODE
5.1 -watch problems
===================
_However._ There are limitations/unresolved bugs with '--watch':
* It may not work at all for you, depending on platform or system
configuration. On some unix systems, increasing
fs.inotify.max_user_watches or fs.file-max parameters in
/etc/sysctl.conf might help. (#836)
* It may not detect changes made from outside a virtual machine, ie
by an editor running on the host system.
* It may not detect file changes on certain less common filesystems.
* It may use increasing CPU and RAM over time, especially with large
files. (This is probably not -watch specific, you may be able to
reproduce it by pressing 'g' repeatedly.) (#1825)
Tips/workarounds:
* If -watch won't work for you, press 'g' to reload data manually
instead.
* If -watch is leaking resources over time, quit and restart (or
suspend and resume) hledger-ui when you're not using it.
* When running hledger-ui inside a VM, also make file changes inside
the VM.
* When working with files mounted from another machine, make sure the
system clocks on both machines are roughly in agreement.
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: ENVIRONMENT, Next: BUGS, Prev: WATCH MODE, Up: Top
6 ENVIRONMENT
*************
*LEDGER_FILE* The main journal file to use when not specified with
'-f/--file'. Default: '$HOME/.hledger.journal'.
File: hledger-ui.info, Node: BUGS, Prev: ENVIRONMENT, Up: Top
7 BUGS
******
We welcome bug reports in the hledger issue tracker
(https://bugs.hledger.org), or on the hledger chat or mail list
(https://hledger.org/support).
Some known issues:
'-f-' doesn't work (hledger-ui can't read from stdin).
'--watch' is not robust, especially with large files (see WATCH MODE
above).
If you press 'g' with large files, there could be a noticeable pause
with the UI unresponsive.
Tag Table:
Node: Top221
Node: OPTIONS1867
Node: MOUSE8751
Node: KEYS9083
Node: SCREENS14267
Node: Menu screen15007
Node: Cash accounts screen15323
Node: Balance sheet accounts screen15684
Node: Income statement accounts screen16020
Node: All accounts screen16405
Node: Register screen16768
Node: Transaction screen19211
Node: Error screen20391
Node: WATCH MODE20757
Node: --watch problems21655
Node: ENVIRONMENT22902
Node: BUGS23135
End Tag Table
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