283267 - Document how lock_pref works in FireFox

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 241534

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Aaron P]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

For a while, it has been either very difficult or impossible to freeze a pref at
a certain value in FireFox 1.x. Since before FireFox 1.0 came out, people have
been asking how to do this in FireFox. I can count dozens of threads where
people ask and are handed advice on how to do it. Some people point to web
sites, such as:
- http://www.alain.knaff.lu/howto/MozillaCustomization/locked.html
- http://www.int-evry.fr/mci/user/procacci/netscape/en/
- http://togami.com/%7Ewarren/guides/mozlockdown/

Unfortunately, after many attemps, every try ended in failure. This makes me
think that either 1) lock_pref does not work in FireFox, 2) something has
changed to make it not work as it used to, or 3) those of us who try are just
not doing it correctly.

No matter which one of these is the case, there needs to be a mozilla.org
sanctioned document describing the basics of how to use lock_pref in FireFox. If
lock_pref doesn't work, then please tell us! Knowing something doesn't work is
the first step to getting it fixed.

As a final plug to get this bug fixed, note that when corporations come looking
for a FireFox equivalent to "group policy", they are going to be sorely
disappointed if they cannot find any documentation on lock_pref in FireFox.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Having the steps to reproduce would be half way to getting this bug fixed. If
you know how it is supposed to work, please pick a pref (such as the
network.proxy.* prefs) and post all of the steps to locking that pref here.

Comment 1

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

This is a dupe.

Also, I know it works, because I wrote the patches to ensure that it worked
through the prefpanel in firefox.

Lastly, documentation should be on the mozilla.org site, not in a bug.

Comment 2

[Aaron P]

I assume you are referring to your work with bug 241526 - "Make sure we respect
locked prefs throughout UI". It is good that the UI respects locked prefs, but
the fact that few people know how to lock a pref in FireFox is the reason I
opened this bug. I searched bugzilla and mozilla.org again and still could not
find anything related to documenting how to lock a pref in FireFox. 

P.S. Sorry if I posted this in the wrong place. If not bugzilla, then where to I
post official requests for this type of information?

Comment 3

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

btw: It's lockPref not lock_pref. Does this then work for you?

Comment 4

[Nickolay_Ponomarev]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 241534 ***

Comment 5

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

sorry for bugspam, long-overdue mass reassign of ancient QA contact bugs,
filter on "beltznerLovesGoats" to get rid of this mass change