| Author | Messages | |
jeromelcruz
Posts:120
 | | 01/22/2010 5:53 PM |
| Hey everyone,
There was a recent question on how to reorder multiple preference items. This has been covered before, but begs repeating.
Re-ordering the preferences in the GUI is easy, but not 'that' obvious. In the right-hand side of the main preferences pane, click on one of your preferences. Now look at the icons above. Like the Ribbon in MS Office 2007, new choices appear when appropriate. Once you have clicked on a preference, up/down arrow buttons appear that allow you to re-order them.
Here, I've just opened the interface onto a Files preference with two items. Notice that the default sort order is by the Name field.
[cid:image002.png@01CA9B41.D9912CB0]
When I click on the first item in the list (but which is actually in Order #2), the Up/Down arrow buttons appear. These allow changing the order.
[cid:image003.png@01CA9B41.D9912CB0]
You should also note the other three buttons' behaviors
[cid:image004.png@01CA9B43.2B991FD0]
Left-most: Display the xml data for the selected item(s)
Middle: Disable this item (or if used and an item 'is' disabled, ten it changes to a green 'Enable this item' button)
Right-most: Add a new item
Display the xml data for the selected item(s)
* If you click the left hand side of the preference (e.g. Files), then click this button, your browser opens and displays and ordered list of all the XML data for all the preference items in the right-hand pane.
* If you click a specific item on the right-hand side, then click this button, your browser opens and displays the XML data for that single item.
Disable this item
* If you click the left-hand side of the preference (e.g. Files), then this button, all the preferences in the right-hand pane are disabled. However, without actually clicking on one of the preferences in the right-hand pane you won't 'see' anything different. When you do click on one, the Processing status display section 'Disabled by ancestor' shows a 'Yes'.
Interestingly, if you then subsequently click on the main preference type (e.g. Files) in the left-hand pane, the GUI remembers the last selected right-hand preference. If you click the button again (Now showing Green and 'Enable this item', you do enable all the items again, but the Processing window still displays the last 'Disabled by ancestor - Yes' status until you refresh the display (green circle button or F5). At that point, you see the status change back to 'No' for that item in the right-hand pane. All this even though you are 'really' still selected on the left-hand side Preference type.
* If you click a specific item on the right hand side, then this button, that single preference is disabled. After a moment the 'Directly disabled' message in the processing window changes from No to Yes (or vice versa if enabling it again).
Add a new item
* No matter whether you click on the preference type in the left-hand pane or have a preference clicked in the right-hand pane, when you click this button, a 'new' preference dialog appears (appropriate to the type of preference).
Rename Your Preferences
I also like to use the rename feature (right-Click the preference and choose Rename) to be more specific about what a particular preference item is doing. This is easier to understand when you see the same default name on several preferences in a row when they are actually different (say targeting filtered OS type). Put that information right up front. Yes, you 'can' add comments, but that also means you have to click on each preference one-by-one to display the comment information. I do use comments as well, but it's also easier to see what each preference does at a glance by simply renaming them.
Jerry Cruz | Group Policies Product Manager | Windows Server and Infrastructure Architecture | Boeing IT
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