search

nextcloud / desktop

💻 Desktop sync client for Nextcloud
https://nextcloud.com/install/#install-clients
GNU General Public License v2.0
3.06k stars 804 forks source link

option to force end users to actively select a suitable local directory #7497

Open rwalke opened 1 week ago

rwalke commented 1 week ago

Feature description (see #7454)

When a user installs Nextcloud, the wizard uses a default directory that works. Often, administrators do not recommend this folder as a local directory, e.g. in the Windows OS user's roaming profile. The user should be required to actively select a local directory.

If the automatic software distribution could distribute an option like proposeLocalDir=FALSE to the nextcloud.cfg file, the Nextcloud wizard would wait until the users themselves selected a suitable directory.

This would help administrators in organizations to promote a certain style of Nextcloud usage. Nothing would change for individual Nextcloud users.

This is a first step to illustrate the idea. The next step would be to read the nextcloud.cfg file and evaluate an additional option.

camilasan commented 1 week ago

Thanks for trying to implement your feature request! ❤️

When a user installs Nextcloud, the wizard uses a default directory that works. Often, administrators do not recommend this folder as a local directory, e.g. in the Windows OS user's roaming profile. The user should be required to actively select a local directory.

I am not sure if I follow your proposal. There is an install folder and there is a sync folder. In both cases Qt uses default system paths, each platform has one. Your PR is trying to change the sync folder setting dialog.

the Nextcloud wizard would wait until the users themselves selected a suitable directory.

I am not sure this is a good idea unless the user knows what they are doing. For the sync folder and for the install folder the client already lets the user pick a location. Your idea could easily be workaround by instructing the users to install in a different location.

rwalke commented 1 week ago

I plan to add a few more lines of code so that the general user gets the default folder as usual. Only in special cases do I want to force the user to manually select a folder without a default (or an institution-specific default).

-- This mail has been sent through the MPI for Demographic Research. Should you receive a mail that is apparently from a MPI user without this text displayed, then the address has most likely been faked. If you are uncertain about the validity of this message, please check the mail header or ask your system administrator for assistance.

rwalke commented 1 week ago

In both cases Qt uses default system paths, each platform has one.

In our institution, we don't agree with the Qt default system paths (Windows OS). Of course, we try to teach our users to carefully select the local folder. But it would be helpful to have an option to turn off the defaults or change them to something else via an option.

-- This mail has been sent through the MPI for Demographic Research. Should you receive a mail that is apparently from a MPI user without this text displayed, then the address has most likely been faked. If you are uncertain about the validity of this message, please check the mail header or ask your system administrator for assistance.