|
Mac GeekeryGet your geek on. |
|
|
Mac GeekeryGet your geek on. |
Safari "glitch"I’m a mac “admin” and my job is to set up lab machines such that each user sees the same set-up when they first log into the machine with their network account. I use a local account to set-up the settings for the network users. Once I have things set-up the way that I want, I copy all files and folders from the local account to the User Template/English.lproj folder so that my settings become the default for new users. The issue is that Safari has somehow “locked” it’s download location to the desktop of the local account instead of setting itself to the new user’s desktop folder. While it is perfectly possible to change the download location to the network user’s desktop after they have logged onto the machine, most of the users are fairly ignorant about macs in general, and, those that are familiar with macs might not realize that the desktop folder that Safari is trying to save to isn’t their desktop folder. Also, going behind each user to change the setting is an impractical option. Any suggestions that can be provided would be appriciated. Thank you. About dolpfyn![Syndicate content](/misc/feed.png "Comments for \"Safari "glitch"\""){kind=small} |
|
||||
Safari is saving its preferred download location in its preferences as an absolute path. As long as you do things this way you’ll run into this. What you could do is find the preference file that controls this and omit that file in the template folder. You lose other defaults, but you won’t have this problem.
Other solutions include a self-removing AppleScript that runs once on the first login that starts Safari and changes it, but that’s clearly in the “too much work for the reward” category.
—
cp
I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to lose the other settings for Safari in order to correct this annoying bug, but, if that’s how it has to be for the easy solution…
I wouldn’t call it a bug. Safari’s preference file wasn’t designed to be portable, nor was the template folder designed to be user-editable (there’s no facility, even in Server, to do that outside of manually munging it).
But it doesn’t mean it can’t be done, just that it’s going to be harder.
—
cp
Actually, given I didn’t have this problem with the previous version of Safari (I’m running 2.0, now), I’ld argue the point about it being a “bug”.
Either way, bug or not, it is annoying. :S
I’ve been struggling with this little ‘bug’ as well (Apple should have thought about mass deployment of their operating system) and I came up with the reference you need to delete. One of the files you need to copy to the User Template Preferences is com.apple.internetconfigpriv.plist
convert it to xml
plutil -convert xml1 com.apple.internetconfigpriv.plist
open the file and take out all of the junk except the stuff under WWWHomePage (in between the dict commands)
Leave the XML identifiers at the top though.
convert back to binary
plutil -convert binary1 com.apple.internetconfigpriv.plist
It seems that this file only handles the Save location and Home page… by removing the save location it makes Safari save to it’s default location, which is the current user’s Desktop.
Mike
thank you! your solution solved the “problem”; I am definitely going to have to remember that trick for how to edit plist files for future problems.
Just an update to this solution. I found that I also had to update the com.apple.internetconfig.plist in addition to the com.apple.internetconfigpriv.plist in the same manner described.
Post new comment