Re: Major problem with gconf mandatory settings.

[Jay Camp <jayc CLEMSON EDU>]

Mandatory means just that--it's required, can't be changed.  It's
mandated.

If you want to provide defaults to users but allow them to change you
want defaults.

So instead of
    
     xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory/

you want

     xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults/

Jay

On Tue, 2004-11-30 at 15:52 +0100, Marcin Antczak wrote:
> Recently I was learning about gconf and found information about 
> mandatory settings.
> 
> This is very important GConf feature - very usable for administrators 
> etc. But this implies a major bug in almost all gnome applications with 
> gconf support.
> 
> 
> My english is poor so simple CLI example:
> 
> gconftool-2 --direct --config-source 
> xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory/ --type string --set 
> /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename /home/marcin/ncube-1600.jpg
> 
> And now every user has wallpaper set to /home/marcin/ncube-1600.jpg - 
> just because root wants to.
> 
> This is nice but then user can run application called 
> gnome-background-properties and can try to change wallpaper.
> 
> But wallpaper will not change because user settings are overriden with 
> mandatory settings - while user _will not have an idea about this_.
> And propably will think that gnome-background-properties is just broken.
> 
> 
> The problem is that this scenario can be applied in any application - 
> for example in eog we can in mandatory settings turn off toolbar - and 
> user can try to turn on toolbar in "view" menu to the end of time...
> 
> In my opinion this is a serious "structural" bug in gnome preferences 
> system.
> 
> And I'am writing about this here because I don't know where exactly 
> report this as a bug - gconf bug? Or maybe prepare a hundred of bug 
> reports for each application that uses gconf?
> 
> I think that this has to be resolved - and I suppose that solution 
> should be "centralized" - some kind of notification system, but I'm not 
> C developer only system administrator and user.
> And I'm asking for an advise - what do you think what to do with this?
> 
> 
> Marcin Antczak
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Jay Camp <jayc clemson edu>