Specify columview as default for all Finderwindows.

[proximity]

I’ve been digging a lot for a solution that forces Finder to use columview as the default viewstyle for all windows, unless something else is specified for that exact folder.

With leopard, there is a option that’s close, but only affects your current window (open a window/folder, Command + J -> “Always use xxxx view for this folder”). But what I would like to do is to get this system wide and on all accounts.

Anybody got an idea to start me of with?

[Patrick Fergus]

Don’t know if this will work, but it might. There [i]was[/i] a key in com.apple.finder.plist that purported to do this in earlier versions of OS X:

[url]http://www.askdavetaylor.com/0-blog-pics/mac-finder-preferences-general.png[/url]

You can invoke it in Leopard with the following:[code]defaults write com.apple.finder AlwaysOpenInColumnView True[/code]You’re going to probably collide with existing .DS_Store files if you try this on anything but a freshly-built machine. If the key works, it would be best handled by WorkGroup Manager (MCX).

– Patrick

[proximity]

That’s good advice, but like you said, it doesn’t work on Leopard.

I’ve decided to test a less sexy approach. Leopard let’s me speficy speficic folders that allways are suppose to open in a specific viewstyle. And when I thinkabout it. Most users access Finder from just a few folders anyway. So if I set this parameter on the boot volume, users homefolder, users first level subfolders, applications folder and the utilities folder – I think It may be good enough for us. This will set a default parametere for our users, that we prefer, but at the same time allow users to make their own modifications.

I think this information is stored in com.apple.com.finder.plist – So it should be account-independent if I distribute this in User Template.

Stay tuned.

[Patrick Fergus]

I’d guess the settings would be saved in the .DS_Store file in the folder in question. I don’t know how particular those files are (could you use the same .DS_Store file for every directory on the hard drive?).

You could put the .DS_Store files in the User Template and the various directories of interest (/Applications for example). I don’t think there’s a method that could use MCX.

– Patrick

[proximity]

I cant make any sense of this :-/

I decided to test with building a .pkg that has a sourcefolder for items to install. And the one item in question is the .DS_Store file. So I decided to configure the sourcefolder to behave such as I want a specified /User Template folder to act. But when I did this, I opened the sourcefolder – pressed command J, configured the folder, closed, and reopened it, and it behaved like I expected. But when I copied it into my local hard drive, where it also behaved like I expected – it did NOT contain a .DS_store file. I got really uncertian about if I missed it, so to double check, I used the terminal, went in as root to this folder, and did [code]ls -la[/code] but there where no .DS_store file. Which tells me that this information is not stored here. I do maby similar info, but not the folders viewstyle.

So I’m stuck again trying to make sense of com.apple.finder.plist which has lots of references to such info, without it making that much more sense.

APPLE! Why wount you just document something as central as this!?

[knowmad]

There is most definitely an MCX record setting for this, I saw it when last I was playing around in work group manager……
its under the finder section.
You can set it as apply Once and then let the user change it if they so choose, or apply always and let them fume (not suggested) when they can’t change the view….
Your choice really.
May I suggest becoming close friends with WorkGroup Manger and then using iceberg (or your favorite software) to package the resulting MCX records?
Or you could always use DSCL to write out the MCX records long hand style…..
Anyway, I hope that helps… I have a screen shot but can’t post it here.
knowmad

[Patrick Fergus]

knowmad–good call. It’s in WGM for me as well. Thought it Apple pulled it from the client that they would pull it from MCX as well.

– Patrick

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