Where do we go for help?

[ecbaldwin]

I just read the announcement about OFX Home sunsetting. I'm just entering into this struggle of trying to make automatic downloads of OFX data into my finance software work and finding it overwhelming.

This is a bigger issue than simply deprecating --ofxhome from ofxget which is why I chose to file a new issue. I'm trying to make this work for institutions like Citi, Chase, and First Tech FCU but it doesn't seem possible due to what appears to be institution-specific issues. The help from the forum is read-only and quickly growing out of date and stale. For example, I went through all of the help from the Chase forum and continue to run into issues. I ran into what seems to be new problems that are not mentioned and it isn't possible to post new content. So, where do we go for help from the community?

At the least, the documentation for ofxget should reflect the fact that OFX Home is unmaintained and quickly becoming defunct. It still reads like it is the place to go. Other than that, I think this community needs a new lifeline to connect us together and get help and a new place to maintain the data that was provided by it. Could it be as simple as a GitHub repo containing the data?

[csingley]

First, would you please be so kind as to not open up tickets along these lines in the bug tracker? I'd feel rude just closing your ticket with "NOTABUG", which is the appropriate response.

I feel sympathy for your plight, which you have expressed clearly. I hope you'll allow me to express mine.

I am not the slightest bit interested in downloading OFX data, much less importing that data into other pieces of financial software. These are just not needs that I have. What I am interested in is parsing OFX data, and developing pieces of financial software. If your interests are aligned with those, we're going to get along with other just great - although, again, the bug tracker is not the right place to kick off that relationship.

I published the ofxget client pretty much just because, well, I'm a nice guy, and it wasn't too much work for me to do - another 5%, perhaps, on top of the vastly larger effort of developing a parser and object model for most of the OFX spec, which is not a small document.

It hadn't really occurred to me that there's almost nobody who shares my interest in actually developing software that uses OFX data, but there's a pretty hefty population of people who want to use an OFX client to download data so it can be parsed by Gnucash or Moneydance or what have you... and a high percentage of those people either can't or don't want to modify the ofxtools source to suit their needs.

That use case is kind of a nightmare to support and keep running, as you're finding out. Nobody really wants to do it - I certainly don't. It's kind of a lost cause anyway, since the OFX consortium has thrown in their lot with a bunch of wankers who won't let you download your data at all. It's just a matter of time before OFX download clients are obsolete.

If we accept the premise that what you're looking for is in fact a good use of resources - which it may be, or may not - I think you'll find that what's lacking here is manpower & brainpower, not really leadership.

Again, I think I'm a nice guy, but I believe I can make a strong case that I have in fact already done my part, for more than a decade now. I'm pretty busy these days.

If it's getting under your skin that the ofxtools docs are getting stale... by all means, fix them up... nothing I like better than a pull request... or else do please be patient until I get around to doing it myself.

If you'd like to keep ofxhome going, or get the data and do something with it... talk to him about it, he's also a nice guy, and I'm sure would be willing to work with you.

Sorry to unburden myself... but you know, there are other actual bugs sitting on this tracker... even if they are bugs filed against the OFX client I don't use. Cause, you know, @aclindsa does indeed make contributions to ofxtools, and that tends to get my attention.