Re: Improving user interaction with gconf

[Nils Pedersen <n p sun com>]

Hi Mark,

I'd probably prefer one tool that work appropriately whether the user 
was root
or some other user. I guess the tool would have to know about system 
settings
versus root's personal settings :)

Nils

MArk Finlay wrote:

> Recently i have been involved in a lot of discussion of how users
> interact with the gconf system, and I've been thinking about it a lot. 
>
> I was recently quite surprised to find out how easy it is to lock down
> parts of the user's desktop using the manditory gconf folder. As havoc
> pointed out more work needs to be done to make this complete, but  as I
> see it the gconf system has brought us more than 3/4 of the way there.
> We just have to present these features to the user in a more gooey way.
>
> My idea for how to do that is this: create a gconf-administrator program
> which is almost identicle to gconf-editor except that it can only be run
> by root and that it does not allow for the editing of any single user's
> keys. It would be used to edit manditory keys and schemas/defaults.
>
> 1. Manditory keys: The way i envisaged this working is that every key in
> the system schemas is presented but they are all blank. If the user sets
> a key it is then enforced. if they unset it, it is not enforced.
>
> 2. Schemas: I cannot see why this is currently in gconf-editor, it is
> not possible to edit them, and i cannot see any reason to want to browse
> them. So i would move these out of the gconf-editor and into the
> gconf-administrator and make them editable.
>
> ---
>
> Also the gconf-editor needs some brushing up. ATM it reminds people of
> regedit, which is something i usually tell them to get used to. But I do
> agree that the tree view is less than efficient navigation could be
> handled in a much more intuitive manner.
>
> One way i thought of would be to have side pane instead of a tree view -
> with a view for each top level folder: apps, desktop and system. This
> would make browsing a lot more structured.
>
> Also it would be far superior to be able to browse the apps folder using
> application icons.
>
> My ideas for the gconf-administrator are more concrete, but I think that
> we should also do something major to improve the gconf-editor 
>
> Later
>
> MArk