Re: Kiosk mode

[Piers Cornwell <piers myrealbox com>]

Christopher James Lahey wrote:
> I've been looking at epiphany and thinking about what sort of things
> we'll need for a kiosk mode.  I reread the thread from a couple of
> months ago and have started to quantify what I think we need.  I've come
> up with a few keys I think we should implement.  Please comment on
> these.  Especially comment if you've thought of any other keys that I
> haven't commented on.

Nice to see someone looking into this :) Just a couple of comments which 
i hope are helpful:

> url_allow
> default: ""
> Usage: If non-empty, all urls will be checked against this regexp.  If
> they don't match, then they won't be displayed.  If possible, I'd like
> to make it so that this regexp must match the beginning of the url so
> that people can't view urls like 'javascript: whatever(); "print
> http:";'
> Possible suggested values: "http:", "http:|ftp:", "http:|ftp:|file:",
> "http://mylocalwebsite/";

Yep, sounds ok, but is there any reason for it not to just be a normal 
(grep style) regexp? (so i can do something like "http://*.google.com"; 
or whatever - i might not actually know what all the servers inside 
google.com are called, but I might want to trust them all).

> url_deny
> default: ""
> Usage: If non-empty, all urls will be checked against this regexp.  If
> they match, then they won't be displayed.  No ^ will be prepended.
> Possible suggested values: "^about:", "^file:"

So unlike the above, this is a proper regexp? (like "^about:" means all 
urls beginning with "about:")


> enable_save_to_disk (Perhaps this should be a global gnome setting?)
> default: true
> Usage: If false, the user will not be able to save data to disk.  This
> will disable Save As, Save Background As, and Download Link, as well as
> the download option for unknown urls.

Maybe this should actually remove those items altogether?

> enable_execute_arbitrary_commands (This should probably be a global
> gnome setting?)
> default: true
> Usage: If false, the user will not be able to execute arbitrary
> commands.  The main place that I know of that this would currently
> affect things is the print dialog.  The print dialog shouldn't contain a
> command line anyway, but until that's fixed, this key should disable
> printing.
>
> enable_printing
> default: true
> Usage: If false, the user should not be able to print at all.
>
> enable_print_setup
> default: true
> Usage: If false, the user will not be able to set any print settings. 
> File->Print and javascript printing will just cause the default settings
> to be used.

Print Preview is currently accessed from print setup -- with this, the 
user wouldn't be able to print preview either...

> enable_bookmark_editing
> default: true
> Usage: If false the user will not be able to edit bookmarks.  I would
> prefer not to have this key and simply have the ability to lock down the
> tree of gconf keys for bookmarks and have epiphany notice that said tree
> is locked down, but I'm not sure if that's possible.  This would cause
> all menus involved in bookmark editing to disappear.
>
> enable_toolbar_editing
> default: true
> Usage: If false the user will not be able to edit the toolbars.  I would
> prefer not to have this key and simply have the ability to lock down the
> tree of gconf keys for toolbars and have epiphany notice that said tree
> is locked down, but I'm not sure if that's possible.  This would cause
> all menus involved in toolbar editing to disappear.

Would the user still be able to show/hide the toolbar? Also, would this 
affect the bookmarks bar?

> enable_tabs
> default: true
> Usage: If false, epiphany would not have the ability to use tabbed
> browsing.
>
> At least one of the following two.
>
> enable_new_window
> default: true
> Usage: If false, epiphany would not have the ability to open a new
> window.
>
> max_window_count:
> default: 0
> Usage: If non-zero, the maximum number of open windows allowed.  Set to
> 1 to disallow new windows.
>
> enable_quit
> default: true
> Usage: If false, the user would not be able to quit epiphany.
>
> enable_menus
> default: true
> Usage: If false, there would be no menus.
>
> enable_arbitrary_url
> default: true
> Usage: If false, the user would not be able to browse to an arbitrary
> URL.  This would include making the location bar disappear and disabling
> C-l.
>
> enable_navigation
> default: false
> Usage: If false, no navigation other than clicking on links would be
> allowed.
>
> <snip>

Maybe a "enable_history_ui" key defaulting to true which removes all 
references to history in the UI (history would still be tracked as normal)?

Perhaps we need a key "enable_help" too defaulting to true, which when 
false would remove the Help Manual menu entry and all Help buttons in 
dialogs (since the admin may not want the users opening Yelp).

Thanks,

-spark