We have shown the application to a potential user, and they told us that
it would be very useful to have a total in the table’s footer, so that
they can verify the amount with the bank’s extracts.
It would be very unusual to have an expense from a customer, and we do
not have (yet) a name for supplier or whatever it should be here, so i
used the same name we use for the column in the table.
Had to add an `unsafe` function to be able to translate text with HTML
fragments in it, although the fragments are added back with printf
because the login link is actually not translatable.
I tried to have a log line that uses the “common” format from Apache,
because i thought that it would help me reuse regexps i have defined for
fail2ban filters and such.
However, it makes no much sense.
For once, i was repeating the date and time: log.Printf already does
that for me.
And, second, i do not need that data in Numerus’ log because i always
run it behind a proxy that _has_ a “common”-formatted log file, so
there is no need for me to repeat all that data again.
What i need is the IP, to know whether remotedAdd() function works as
expected; the method, to check that the override does its job; the path,
to know what resource the browser requested; the response status code,
so that i do not need to open the browser console for that; the response
size, to keep on eye that i do not return a lot of data; and the
total response time, to realize how long my unoptimized SQL queries
slows the application down.
The rest, Apache should do its job and record it in its log file for
fail2ban and whatever i need the logs for in the future.
I need the actual remote address to add fail2ban rules for it, but i
also to not want everyone to be able to fake X-Forward-For HTTP headers.
Which can contain multiple ip addresses, by the way, so i have to get
only the first one, as the others will be the proxies that the request
has been (re)forwarded to.
The same as for invoices: to allow people to have their own numbering
scheme, and for these that start using the program in the middle of the
current year.
I have to use a value to be used as “none” for payment method and
contact. In PL/pgSQL add_quote and edit_quote functions, that value is
NULL, while in forms it is the empty string. I can not simply pass the
empty string for either of these fields because PL/pgSQL expects
(nullable) integers, and "" is not a valid integer and is not NULL
either. A conversion is necessary.
Apparently, Go’s nil is not a valid representation for SQL’s NULL with
pgx, and had to use sql.NullString instead.
I also needed to coalesce contact’s VATIN and phone, because null values
can not be scanned to *string. I did not do that before because
`coalesce(vatin, '')` throws an error that '' is not a valid VATIN and
just left as is, wrongly expecting that pgx would do the job of leaving
the string blank for me. It does not.
Lastly, i can not blindly write Quotee’s tax details in the quote’s view
page, or we would see the (), characters for the empty address info.
This is for new users that do not start using the application from the
beginning of the current fiscal year and, therefore, need to create
invoices starting from a specific number.
I had to change the constraint on the currval to allow zero, otherwise
it would not be possible to set 1 as the next number, because users
can also not delete the row.
It is better that way because it works without JavaScript; if HTMx is
not available, it will just use regulars forms.
The problem is that most of the submit buttons where using formaction
to send the request to a different action, and only one button was the
“real” action. Since i could not pass the formaction to
invoice-product-form template, i have changed the “default” action to
the one with “ancillary” functions.
I have to use a different action to remove for each product because i
can not pass the index to the backend without JavaScript: it only
depends on the button click, that already has a name for the action.
Thus, in a way, i have “merged” the action and the index in a single
name.
There is no point in creating a new invoice without products, thus we
were forcing users to always use the “Add product” button for no reason
other than it was easier for me….
I wanted to add the product inside ServeInvoice, when the slug is “new”,
but then it tried to compute the invoice total without price or quantity
and it failed. Thus, i add that product after it has done the
computation query.
For some reason, i assumed that if the invoice product has and ID, that
is it comes from the database, it must also have a product ID, which is
incorrect, because we allow invoice lines with products not added to the
product relation.
I am using zero to mean “no product ID”, so now that validation has to
include the zero as well.
Otherwise, pgx (rightfully) tries to convert a "" into a integer, as
this is the field’s type, cannot, and panics with an error.
Added a IntegerOrNull method to FormField because this is exactly the
same that happens with the invoiceProductId, and made no sense to have
to do the logic twice, or in a function inside form.
Oriol told me what he actually wants: a way to see the current month,
quarter, and year for both double-check that the taxes form are filled
in correct and to see whether the business is doing well. This is
specially important for the quarter period, as he has to fill taxes
each quarter. Thus, the “last 90 days” thing i did was easier for me,
but completely useless for him.
We also decided to add previous month and previous quarter options
because it would be unfair to expect users check that data exactly the
last day or “lose access” to it.
I had to change MethodOverrider to check whether the form is encoded as
multipart/form-data or i would not be able to get the method field from
forms with files.
For now i add the file manually, i.e., outside add_expense and
edit_expense PL/pgSQL functions, because it was faster for me, but i
will probably add an attach_to_expense function, or something like that,
to avoid having the whole ON CONFLICT logic inside Golang—this belongs
to the database.
By chance, i found out that sometimes Go returned a Content-Type header
of text/plain for some responses to HTMx request. Go’s documentation
for http.ResponseWriter.Write sheds some light to this issue:
> If the Header does not contain a Content-Type line, Write adds a
> Content-Type set to the result of passing the initial 512 bytes of
> written data to DetectContentType.
http.DetectContentType has “sniff signatures” for the most common HTML
elements, such as `<BODY`, `<P`, or even `<!--`, but when the template
only has elements not in that list, the text “text sniff signature”
kicks in because the content does not contain binary data bytes, as
specified in [0], §7.1, step 9.
I can not change mustRenderTemplate’s wr parameter, and its callers’,
to be of type http.ResponseWriter because mustWriteInvoicePdf writes
the template to a pipe object, which is not of this type. Thus, i have
to resort to type assertion inside the method.
[0]: https://mimesniff.spec.whatwg.org/#identifying-a-resource-with-an-unknown-mime-type
The product search returns a list of products using its slug as the
“external key”, because i do not want people seeing the id in links,
and the search product list is just a different rendering of the product
index table.
However, now i had two almost identical select queries for product,
one using the product_id and the other its slug, the former intended for
the form to select products using checkboxes—the one non-JavaScript
users see—and the latter for the product search.
Using the slug in both forms i can now simplify the code and have a
single query.
With Oriol agreed that adding or editing invoices, products, and
contacts is not just a “user interruption” but the main flow of the
program, and, as such, it is not correct to use dialogs for these.
More importantly, it was harder to concentrate, specially with the more
involved form of invoices, because of all the “noise” behind the dialog.
This is for “free products”, where the user adds an invoice row, does
not select a product from the search, and clicks the update button.
Numerus should select “appropriate” values for those that are left
unspecified.
I also no longer require the product_id to be an integer; if it is
empty, then it is assumed to be a “free product”.