Re: Menus

[Tom Vogt <tom lemuria org>]

JR Tipton <nails@maybe.net> wrote:
> but it got me thinking anyway =)  What if there was an ability on a
> machine to tell it, "Hey, GNOME/WM/Whatever, I'm going to start screwing
> around now and if I screw up, I'd like to return everything to here" that
> wasn't just in a simple dialog box?  I know you can do these things in a
> dialog box, i.e. change settings and cancel if you don't like them, but
> what about a more global protection?

actually, that is quite easy to do. all you need is a pseudo-user and the
ability to su to him. the technical procedure is:

- copy current user's settings to pseudo-user
- close current user's session
- su to pseudo-user
- re-open session (should be no changes)
- let's edit

if things go wrong, just exit and you're back at the old settings. if things
are ok, just copy the pseudo-user's settings back and over the current
user's settings. probably with making a backup of them first.

could be done easier, but this way you have a true, os-level protection of
your settings and don't even have to rely on an undo function - if things go
horribly wrong you can always just bail out, log in again and you'll have
your old settings back.


-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
		-- Henry Spencer