plans for xfconf, lockdown

[walking2go]

Hi,
I'm not a developer but I wanted to know something about your (the developers) plans about the lockdown/kiosk-mode problem.

As far as I saw there are still two different ways of locking: the "old" kiosrc method and the new xfconf method (editing the xml files in /etc/xdg/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/ as superuser).
First, the editing method is a little annoying (edit those files as superuser, then log in as the 'restricted' user to test if the changes effect anything, go back to superuser, etc...) - are the plannings for developing a "better" backend to easily edit those files?
Then, it would be great if other components (like thunar, xfce4-panel, etc.) could be accessable through xfconf, too. What are your plannings about that?
And last (maybe it should be first): The documentations for xfconf are very "lousy". When will them be fixed?


My last question (has nothing to do with your developing-plans, but myabe you know it): what's the difference in xubuntu between the files in /etc/xdg/xfce4 and /etc/xdg/xubuntu/xfce4 ? Which files does xfce under xubuntu use for what purpose?

Thanks.
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[Brian J. Tarricone-3]

On 2009/07/08 13:40, walking2go@... wrote:
> Hi, I'm not a developer but I wanted to know something about your
> (the developers) plans about the lockdown/kiosk-mode problem.
>
> As far as I saw there are still two different ways of locking: the
> "old" kiosrc method and the new xfconf method

The new xfconf method can't be the whole picture for lockdown.
XfceKiosk works on a level of "actions" (for example, "is the user
allowed to save the session?"), while the xfconf model only handles "can
the user change this setting?"

I'd look at these as somewhat complementary.  You'd want to use both to
get a full kiosk experience.  Perhaps to make things more unified, the
XfceKiosk settings could/should be stored in xfconf, but that requires
someone knowledgeable to take up the work.

Another option would be to replace XfceKiosk with something based on
PolicyKit -- in the long run this might be a better idea, since you
automatically get the benefit of being able to override the policy
system on the spot.

> (editing the xml files
> in /etc/xdg/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/ as superuser). First,
> the editing method is a little annoying (edit those files as
> superuser, then log in as the 'restricted' user to test if the
> changes effect anything, go back to superuser, etc...)

No, you can simply run the desktop as the restricted user, edit the
files as superuser (using sudo or su or whatever), and then kill xfconfd
to allow the settings to take effect.

> - are the
> plannings for developing a "better" backend to easily edit those
> files?

Not to my knowledge, no.  Personally, I don't have much interest in the
kiosk/lockdown systems.  If others want to work on this, there's nothing
stopping them, but it's not really on my priority list at all.

> Then, it would be great if other components (like thunar,
> xfce4-panel, etc.) could be accessable through xfconf, too. What are
> your plannings about that?

I'm not sure what you mean by this.  Just that thunar and the panel
don't store their settings in xfconf?  If that's the case, Nick's
experimental panel in git already has some support for xfconf (though
I'm not sure how much; he can chime in if he wants).

Thunar support is uncertain: no one is actively maintaining Thunar right
now (Jannis is porting it to gio/gvfs, but I don't know that he cares to
do much more than that).

> And last (maybe it should be first): The
> documentations for xfconf are very "lousy". When will them be fixed?

That's a rather un-constructive statement.  Please be more specific.
What are you lacking?  The API documentation is complete and available
from our website.

> My last question (has nothing to do with your developing-plans, but
> myabe you know it): what's the difference in xubuntu between the
> files in /etc/xdg/xfce4 and /etc/xdg/xubuntu/xfce4 ? Which files does
> xfce under xubuntu use for what purpose?

I have no idea.  Ask on an ubuntu/xubuntu-related list or forum.

        -brian
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[Jannis Pohlmann-3]

On Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:23:30 -0700
"Brian J. Tarricone" <brian@...> wrote:

> On 2009/07/08 13:40, walking2go@... wrote:
> > Then, it would be great if other components (like thunar,
> > xfce4-panel, etc.) could be accessable through xfconf, too. What are
> > your plannings about that?
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by this.  Just that thunar and the panel
> don't store their settings in xfconf?  If that's the case, Nick's
> experimental panel in git already has some support for xfconf (though
> I'm not sure how much; he can chime in if he wants).
>
> Thunar support is uncertain: no one is actively maintaining Thunar
> right now (Jannis is porting it to gio/gvfs, but I don't know that he
> cares to do much more than that).

Oh, in fact I am ;)

I don't do anything in trunk at the moment because the main target is
to get Thunar working on top of GIO. Once that's merged, Thunar will be
actively maintained again.

Using xfconf to store the Thunar settings is on my TODO list, with
lower priority than the migration to GIO though.

  - Jannis


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