Managed Client: managed Dock folders have incorrect behavior on Leopard
Folders added to the Dock on Leopard machines do not behave as stacks or folders.
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open Workgroup Manager.
2. Select a user object to manage.
3. Click the Preferences icon.
4. Click the Dock item in the Preferences management view.
5. Select Manage: Once
6. Add some folders to the User’s dock. (For example, /Applications and /Applications/Utilities)
7. Click Apply Now and Done
8. On a managed Leopard machine, log in as the user.
9. Note that the folders now appear in the user’s dock, but…
The newly added dock folder items should behave as Stacks or Folders. Instead, they behave like documents – clicking on them opens them in the Finder, but there is no other folder-like behavior in the Dock (no pop-up menu, no stacks behavior)
Workaround:
In the Preferences Details view in WGM, select com.apple.dock, then Once->Document Tiles->Document Tile->Tile Type and edit the value from “file-tile” to “directory-tile”. This causes the expected behavior in the managed Dock, but causes Workgroup Manager to throw a bunch of assertion errors if you select the Dock in Preferences->Overview view. This may also exhibit undesired behavior with Tiger clients – so test.
July 3, 2008 at 7:08 am
I noticed this as well, but then after I logged out and logged back in everything behaved properly.
July 3, 2008 at 7:56 am
I guess I’m not that patient! I want things to work the first time. I wonder if it would fix itself if the management frequency was “often” or “always”…?
August 2, 2008 at 5:50 am
This seems to work great! I also added the following under tile-data so that it displays it as a folder instead of a stack- displayas integer 1
September 10, 2008 at 1:59 am
Excellent, thanks.
But i don’t really like stacks. Is there a value that forces a folder to display a hierarchical menu, like it was in good old Tiger? I have a folder who contains some sub-folders with aliases of the most important apps and would like to navigate to them with a single click.
September 15, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Later versions of 10.5 have added addtional options: you can choose to show folders as folders or stacks, and to display the content as fan, grid, list, or “automatic”. There’s no support in WGM’s Dock preference editor for these settings, and I haven’ t been able to make them work using the Preference Details editor. It might be possible, though. Certainly you can set this for yourself; it may or may not be possible to manage these settings.
January 12, 2009 at 11:11 am
Notes:
noglass = controls dock appearance. Boolean value (yes/no)
arrangement = sorting
Auto = 0 (not listed. Defaults to “Name”
Name = 1
Added = 2
Modified = 3
Created = 4
Kind = 5
directory =
displayas – controls the icon display in the dock
Folder = 1
Stack = 0
showas – controls the Fan/grid/list/automatic setting
Fan = 1
Grid = 2
List = 3
Auto = 0
September 10, 2009 at 5:27 am
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Cheers! Sandra. R.