I can add global, system wide startup menu entries by adding desktop files under the directory /usr/share/applications/... so that they are visible and usable for all users. This is a freedesktop standard and works well. So far so good.

Now I want to add some applications globally, system wide and for all users to the kickoff favorites. Unfortunately, I did not find any way to do this.

I noticed that at least Dolphin, Systemsettings and Konqueror are automatically added to the kickoff favorites of all users after installation but I did not discover the mechanism behind it.

Is is somewhere documented how to add system wide kickoff favorites?

Thanks

Ronny

They are stored in ~/.kde4/share/config/kickoffrc I believe. For a system wide one, storing the file under /etc/kde4/share/config/ should be sufficient, or you can store a default version under /etc/skel/...

bcooksley wrote:For a system wide one, storing the file under /etc/kde4/share/config/ should be sufficient

I just tested this by creating /etc/kde4/share/config/kickoffrc with only Iceweasel and Dolphin as favorites and by removing the ~/.kde/share/config/kickoffrc of a test user.
Unfortunately, after logging in with this test user, the favorites are again Konqueror, Systemsettings and Dolphin. I really wonder where KDE takes these three entries from. Do you have any idea?

bcooksley wrote:or you can store a default version under /etc/skel/...

Unfortunately, this does not help at all with already existing users (this is the use case I have to take care of).

I don't think there is a way. User settings override global settings. You could, however, have a folder with links to or copies of a particular set of application .desktop files, and use folderview or a lancelot shelf to launch applications from there. You could also use a shell script to modify all the users' favorites.

TheBlackCat wrote:I don't think there is a way. User settings override global settings.

That's true, but when the user settings are deleted and the user logs in again, KDE re-creates the user's kickoffrc file with default values for the favorites (Dolphin, Systemsettings and Konqueror in my case).
Where are these favorite default values stored? How can I change them?

Some distributions change it... your best bet is to run the following, and post the output here. Make sure the file doesn't exist in the users home, so the fallback code initiates.

Code: Select all

strace kreadconfig --file kickoffrc --group Test --key Testing

bcooksley wrote:Some distributions change it... your best bet is to run the following, and post the output here. Make sure the file doesn't exist in the users home, so the fallback code initiates.

Code: Select all

strace kreadconfig --file kickoffrc --group Test --key Testing

Great! Thank you very much for this very helpful hint! I am creating a system with Debian Live (Squeeze, KDE4). I saw in the strace output that I can provide a system-wide kickoffrc file for this distribution at /etc/kde4/kickoffrc.

Users sometimes delete/destroy files in their home directories, sometimes just by crashing the machine right after booting up (which often leads to zero byte length config files) and this way lose the preconfigured stuff that was provided in /etc/skel/*. By providing this system-wide configuration file, even this situation can now be handled gracefully.

Thank you all very much.