Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: virgin.root and user.root

Author:Kurt J. Egger
Posted:1/26/1999; 11:26:00 AM
Topic:Documenting The ODB
Msg #:2493 (In response to 2484)
Prev/Next:2492 / 2494

This is crazy. At the same time as Dave wrote this posting, I thought of virgin roots, too:

- What does it take to get a virgin root, which stays virgin?

- Is there a way to support multiple frontier-users on one machine?

- How does this work out on a LAN or WAN (No difference if XML-RPC)?

Over time, every root gets used (machine stuff, user stuff, etc.). I use my personal Frontier on 2 machines (office and home). Anyone who has a similar setup knows that synchronising means hassle, even in the days of webedit.

As Frontier 6 matures, we will get a server and a client part. It would be great to get a login feature into the client, which checks against the server and the downloads the user.root into the machine (or if existent, synchronizes it via xml-rpc). So every user gets his enviroment on a virgin frontier anywhere in the world. Including the preferences, webedit servers, notepads, slideshows, etc.

I tested it and it worked almost perfect (BACKUP FIRST!):

- Create a new database named "user.root" in the main Frontier folder

- Copy the user table from frontier.root and paste it into the new "user.root" (Addressing works through the top-level registration of tables in the GDB)

- Rename the existing user table in the frontier.root to "defaultuser"

- At the beginning of system.startup.startupscript put:

table.rename(@user,"defaultuser");
filemenu.open (file.folderFromPath (frontier.getFilePath ()) + "user.root")

- At the end of system.shutdown.shutdownscript put:

table.rename(@defaultuser,"user");
filemenu.save()

ATTENTION: If the shutdownscript does not execute, your frontier.root will be unusable (BACKUP!). The Frontier kernel checks the existence of a user table in the frontier.root. There are some other kernel calls which refer to the frontier.root/user table (callbacks).

If we add an login to check which user.root frontier should use, we get multiple users on a shared machine (offices, labs, etc.)

The conceptual change would mean:

- A frontier.root db which stays generic, updates via Userland

- A machine.root gdb has all the machine related stuff

- A user.root gdb has all the personal stuff

This is for experienced frontier-users only.

Kurt


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