Closed Bug 380356 Opened 17 years ago Closed 16 years ago

Wish to share mail/news server configuration across multiple profiles

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Preferences, enhancement)

x86
Windows XP
enhancement
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 147344

People

(Reporter: dennis.mccunney, Assigned: mscott)

References

()

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070309 Firefox/2.0.0.3
Build Identifier: Thunderbird 2.0 (200703326)

I have multiple Mozilla products installed, with multiple profiles for each.  I would like some information to be common across all profiles.  For instance, I have NS 7, SM 1.1, FF 1.5 and 2.0 installed.  I wish all browsers to use the same bookmarks file.  That's easy: a one-line user.js file in the profile directory, specifying the browser bookmarks file I want to use.  I just copy that into any new profile I create and I'm good.

I don't use Mozilla products for email, but I do use them for news reading.  I have seven news servers configured at present.  I'd like all Mozilla news readers to share a common news server configuration, so changes made in one will be visible in all others.  That's not so easy.  I can (and have) abstracted a news server configuration block from a prefs.js file, and saved it as user.js in another profile.  If nothing ever changes, I'm good.  If a change *is* made, it's made to the prefs.js file for the product I'm using when I make it, and everything else is out of sync.

I think what I'm hoping for is an include statement that can load an external section into a prefs.js file, and write any changes back to that external file where they will be visible to any other products that include it.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create a mail/news configuration in NS/SM/TB
2. Extract the specific mail/newsserver config section of the resulting prefs.js file, and save it as user.js
3. Copy that user.js file to a different profile
4. Open the product with the different profile, and make a config change.
5. Exit and reopen the product with the original profile.  The config change is not reflected.
  
Actual Results:  
The different products no longer had the same mail/news configuration. 

Expected Results:  
I'd like to be able to share the same mail/news configuration across multiple products/profiles.  The things that would *differ* would be the add ons installed in and themes used by the profiles, not the servers that fed them or the specific areas groups read. 

I suppose I'm asking for modularity in the program configuration files, and not keeping everything in prefs.js, so that segments of the configuration can be shared among several products/profiles.
Version: unspecified → 2.0
(In reply to comment #0)
> I suppose I'm asking for modularity in the program configuration files, and not
> keeping everything in prefs.js, so that segments of the configuration can be
> shared among several products/profiles.

Duplicate of/related to Core bug 147344, Core bug 195308 or Core bug 252640?
... or Core bug 107675?
your bookmarks wish is a wontfix - ref bug 219772.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 16 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
(In reply to comment #3)
> your bookmarks wish is a wontfix - ref bug 219772.

I don't care about bookmarks: as my original post mentioned, a one-line user.js file with a pointer the preferred bookmarks file handles the case.  This *could* be problematic is more than one browser pointing to the bookmarks file was active simultaneously, but in practice that doesn't happen here.  (FF3 with the SQLLite database adds new wrinkles I'm still digesting.)

I'm interested in doing something similar for mail/news, pointing to an external configuration file for mail and newsserver settings.  Those are currently kept in prefs.js, and I'd like to see them broken out.
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