New demo content

Introduced in Finzytrack v0.2.0.

Finzytrack ships with demo content — example dashboards and a demo ledger — so a new install has something to look at. When you update to a version that adds or improves that demo content, Finzytrack offers to bring it to your install. It handles the two kinds differently: demo dashboards you’ve customized are never overwritten, while the demo ledger is refreshed to the latest version (it’s sample data Finzytrack provides). Your own ledger is never demo content, so it’s never touched.

What you’ll see

After updating, if new or updated demo content is available you’ll see a dismissible “New demo content available” notice. It’s not a gate — the app runs normally either way. The notice tells you how many demo files would be added or updated, and you can:

• Add now — apply the update. A timestamped backup of every replaced file is saved first. A short summary then shows what was added, refreshed, or kept.
• Dismiss — skip it. The notice won’t nag you again for this update; it only returns when a later version ships different demo content.

What gets added or updated

Demo dashboards (in config/recipes/) are yours to edit, so Finzytrack is careful with them:

• New dashboards you don’t have yet (e.g. new budget dashboards) are added.
• Unchanged dashboards — ones you haven’t edited since they were installed — are refreshed to the latest version.
• Dashboards you’ve edited are kept exactly as they are. Finzytrack can tell an untouched dashboard from an edited one, so your changes are never clobbered. (The trade-off: once you edit a demo dashboard it stops receiving updates — Finzytrack has no way to know your version is safe to replace. See Restoring an original demo if you want the shipped copy back.)
• Dashboards you deleted are not brought back.

The dashboard color theme (in config/dashboard-themes/) is delivered the same careful way as dashboards: the theme file is added if you don’t have it, refreshed while it’s untouched, and kept as-is once you’ve edited it — so a palette you’ve customized is never overwritten. See Dashboard Colors & Themes for what’s in it and how to edit it.

The demo ledger (in data/ledgers/, including the multi-file demo) is sample data Finzytrack provides — not your own records — so it’s refreshed to the latest version whenever a newer one ships, even if you poked at it while exploring. A backup is saved first. This is what keeps the demo dates current. Finzytrack only replaces it when it genuinely has a newer version, so your exploration isn’t wiped every time you open the app. Your own ledger is never demo content and is never touched.

Getting the new colors on a dashboard you’ve edited

This release introduces a color theme for dashboards — consistent chart, budget, and category colors across every dashboard. Demo dashboards you haven’t customized pick it up automatically when you apply the update. This includes any dashboard Finzytrack upgraded to a new internal format during the update: that automatic upgrade doesn’t count as your edit, so those dashboards still get the new colors on their own. Only a demo dashboard you deliberately changed is left as-is (never overwritten), so it won’t switch to the improved, fully-themed version by itself.

A demo dashboard you’ve customized has two ways to get the new theme, with a trade-off between them:

• Keep your version and theme it yourself. To preserve your edits, leave your dashboard in place and change its color fields to use theme tokens like {{theme.brand}} instead of fixed color values. This adopts the theme without discarding anything you changed. See Dashboard Colors & Themes for the available tokens. (This is also how you theme a dashboard you built yourself — it keeps whatever colors you gave it until you swap in tokens.)
• Replace it with the shipped version. The simplest way to get the current, fully-themed dashboard — but it replaces your customizations with the shipped copy. Finzytrack saves a timestamped backup of your version first, so you can refer to it or roll back, but it does not merge your edits into the new version; you’d re-apply any changes you want to keep by hand. Steps are the same as Restoring an original demo: open the shipped copy from the repository’s backend/resources/seed_config/recipes/dashboards/, paste it into Settings → Dashboards, and Save.

Backups — nothing is lost

Before replacing any file, Finzytrack saves a timestamped copy beside it, e.g. config/recipes/dashboards/budget-overview.json.20260709_141103_512847.backup. To roll back, quit Finzytrack, delete the updated file, and rename its .backup copy back.

Bring a notice back after dismissing it

Dismissed a notice by mistake, or want to re-check later? Settings → General → Show dismissed notices re-opens any startup notice you’ve dismissed so you can review it again and click Add now. If nothing new is waiting, it simply tells you you’re up to date. (It only re-shows notices; it never applies anything on its own, and it can’t touch your edits.)

Restoring an original demo

Because Finzytrack never overwrites a demo dashboard you’ve changed, there is no button that could wipe your edits — a deliberate choice. If you edited (or broke) a demo dashboard and want the shipped original back, restore it by hand:

1. Open the original recipe from the bundled demo dashboards — the canonical copies live in the Finzytrack repository under backend/resources/seed_config/recipes/dashboards/.
2. In Finzytrack, go to Settings → Dashboards, select the file you want to restore (or click New Recipe), paste the original JSON, and Save. Your edited version is backed up on save.

The demo ledger works the other way round: because it’s sample data Finzytrack keeps current, an update refreshes it to the latest version even if you’d changed it — so you don’t need to restore it by hand. If you had poked at it and want your version back, it’s in the timestamped .backup saved beside it right before the refresh (see Backups).

Why demo dates stay current

Each release’s demo ledger is generated at build time with dates ending around the release month (plus a small buffer), so the demo dashboards — which default to the current month and year — aren’t empty when you open them. Applying a demo-content update also brings you the fresher demo ledger.