preferences

[Derek Atkins]

Phil Longstaff <plongstaff at rogers.com> writes:

>> One thing that would be helpful would be a list of every preference and
>> a way to categorize it as:
>> 
>> - user pref      (per user for every data file)
>> - data pref      (per data file for every user)
>> - user/data      (per user, per data file)
>> 
>> I believe there are lots of prefs in the first item that arguably should
>> live in the second or third category.  Note that File -> Properties
>> (instead of Edit -> Preferences) provides access to the second category.
>
> I wonder whether these are different sets of prefs that are mutually
> exclusive, or different levels of override, or maybe there are some of
> both.

I think the vast majority of them are mutually exclusive sets.  There
may be some that may be overridable, maybe.  I think we need to go
through the exercise of enumerating and documenting each preference and
see.

> A "preference" like "default currency for new accounts" would need to be
> a data pref and maybe should never be overridden.  However, others, like
> default register view, might have a data pref value which would be used
> unless also specified as a user pref or a user/data pref.  So, is there
> 1 set of prefs and the prefs code looks at user/data, user pref and data
> pref in that order until it finds a value, or does the UI (or whatever)
> code know which set of prefs will hold the particular value it wants?

That's a good question.  On the other hand, we might want to make the
register view sticky per account!

Again, I think we just need to take the time and run this exercise.

Note that this is something that does not need to be done by a developer
per se.  Just go through Edit -> Preferences and File -> Properties and
list each preference, say what it does (or what you think it does), and
then we can categorize it.  At this time we can think about what it
might mean to have it be "overridable".

Any volunteers to do this?

> Phil

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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