Re: [Evolution] systemwide mail settings

[Not Zed <notzed ximian com>]

On Fri, 2003-02-14 at 19:21, Lonnie Borntreger wrote:
> On Fri, 2003-02-14 at 02:10, Barbara Meurin wrote:
> > Hello, 
> >
> > I am looking for a way to preconfigure those mail settings which are the
> > same for every user in a company. 
>
> I assume that you mean the mail server settings?
>
>
> > I would like to do this using Evolution 1.2, KDE 3.1 and Debian Woody. 
> >
> > Things that would help: 
> >
> > - Where does Evolution write the settings to? 
>
> $HOME/evolution contains the file config.xmldb which contains the
> information you would need.  There are a couple of things that you would
> need to take care of for pre-populating information in that file.

Also note that 1.4 will use gconf rather than the config.xmldb file, so
things would need to be re-done.  The gconf setting for accounts is
actually an xml blob too, so it will probably get trickier :-/

> 1 - the strings in that file are encoded.  You would have to make a
> script to encode your server strings into the format that evolution
> reads.  (It's not a difficult mapping.)

It is utf8 octets encoded in hexadecimal.  Numbers and bools are just
integer strings.

> 2 - Those settings are a part of the account settings, so you would have
> to create an account with the settings, which users would have to be
> told to modify to include their account specific settings.

You could take a template of 1 account, and just modify the various bits
and pieces in your script, and install it in all accounts.

> 3 - The default directory structure for $HOME/evolution would have to be
> pre-populated (especially the "local" sub-directory) to keep Evolution
> happy when first started by the user.

This is simply a cp -a of "${prefix}/share/evolution/default_user" i
think, and could be automated.

> With some careful hacking, you could probably do this... and if made a
> script to be run by the user, could even put the login into the account
> information.
>
> But then again, starting Evolution for the first time will automatically
> prompt the user for the email settings, and they are 3-4 very
> straightforward dialogs - just like Outlook or any other mailer, that it
> would probably be easier to just create a web page showing the dialogs
> and the default server settings for users to refer to.  I think that
> this would probably be a safer bet than saying, "When you first start
> Evolution, you will not be asked for any information, but you must
> immediately go to Tools->Settings->Accounts->Edit->Receiving and add
> your account."  Or having them remember to run some script before
> running Evolution.

You should be able to add everything via a script without the user
having to do anything.

> > - Where is defined the path where Evolution looks for settings? 
>
> In the source.

 -- but for all intents is 'hardcoded' to ~/evolution, unless you have a
customised build.