Comment 3 for bug 1019590

@marmuta

> sudo -u lightdm dbus-launch gsettings set apps.onboard theme Droid
> or for Onboard trunk
> sudo -u lightdm dbus-launch gsettings set org.onboard theme Droid

Yesterday, I had the intention to write about these commands above; but they do not seem to work anymore. However, their counter part to read the keys (sudo -u lightdm dbus-launch gsettings get org.onboard theme) are still working.

A little research with google confirmed the problem writing gsettings keys, and there were indications about other approaches like switching to the lightdm user or like using xhost...

> Mark, if Onboard in lightdm tried to read preferences from a different
> user, we had the problem to decide from which one. There may be multiple
> users set up on the system, each with different settings for Onboard.
>
> Francesco's suggestion has the advantage that it's clear whose
> preferences are to be copied. So, I tend to think having some "apply to
> login screen" button isn't a bad idea. We would need to copy more than
> gsettings values though, as there might be user modified/created themes
> in the home directory.

An idea would be to add a copy of the custom files of the user into a subfolder with the user's name; this subfolder could be located in the same folder where Onboard stores the layout or theme files it is shipping. The main idea here is to create a folder with the user's login name in order to be able to tell whom the custom files belong to.

> Some alternatives that came to mind:
> - Provide a simplified GUI in lightdm, just a list of system themes to chose from.

And who would be allowed to change settings? Everybody?

By doing it from the desktop session, it would be automatically restricted to users with the ability to require root privileges (in other words to administrators), as root privileges will be required to do things as the lightdm user. (What about gdm, kdm,.. ?)

> - In the user session, provide a way to launch the whole preferences dialog as user lightdm.

There are quite a few settings that do not make sense under the display manager (application indicator, show on every workspace, resize protection,.. I don't think this to be a good idea unless there is a way for the user to tell what settings do make sense under the display manager. Considering this, I suppose that adding the "Also apply to login screen" is a simpler approach.