Provide ability to set configuration at the machine level, rather than just at user level

[gep13]

At the minute, the Chocolatey GUI settings:

are configured on a person user basis. It should be possible to allow settings these options globally, with the ability for users to configure these to their own needs, if required. They will help with administrative deployments of Chocolatey GUI.

This should include the ability to roll back setting to the globally configured defaults.

Also, for an administrative user, when making a change, it should be possible to specify whether the change is to the global setting, or to the local user setting.

[gep13]

Following a discussion with @ferventcoder it makes sense that these global configuration options should be added to the main chocolatey.config file. This is already starting to house configuration for other parts of the Chocolatey ecosystem, like CCM and Chocolatey Agent, so it makes sense that this should also house configuration data for Chocolatey GUI.

[gep13]

This has now been implemented, and is available in the latest package from the Chocolatey MyGet feed (see the readme for more information) and it will ship as part of the 0.18.0 release of Chocolatey GUI.

Chocolatey GUI has always had a data.db file in the users appdata folder:

which housed all the user specific configuration for Chocolatey GUI.

With this change, there is now also another data.db file, located in the common appdata folder

which will house all the global defaults for the Chocolatey GUI configuration.

Opening Chocolatey GUI and using the Settings screen will always update/edit the configuration within the user specific data.db file:

However, using the chocolateyguicli command, it is now possible to list out, and modify both the global configuration and the effective user specific configuration.

For example, running:

chocolateyguicli feature list

will list the current effective configuration for the currently logged in user:

and running:

chocolateyguicli feature list --global

Will show the global configuration that is in place for all users:

In these examples, you will see that the currently logged in user has modified their setting to enable the ShowConsoleOutput feature, while it is disabled globally. Overriding settings on a per user basis, is allowed by default, but this can be turned off using the AllowNonAdminAccessToSettings, while also using the Chocolatey GUI Licensed Extension.

While signed into a computer as a non-administrator user (assuming it is allowed) a user can modify configuration through the chocolateyguicli, as shown here:

However, any attempt to modify the global settings, will result in an error:

While logged in as a non-administrator user, with the Chocolatey GUI Extension installed and the AllowNonAdminAccessToSettings feature disabled, any attempt to modify the current settings with the chocolateyguicli will result in an error:

In addition, access to settings through the UI will not be possible:

In terms of easily parsing the current features and config for Chocolatey GUI, you can use the following commands:

chocolateyguicli feature list -r

And:

chocolateyguicli config list -r

NOTE: The decision to place the global configuration into the chocolatey.config file was not followed, since it made more sense to continue with the data.db approach, which is currently what is used for the user specific information.

[choco-bot]

🎉 This issue has been resolved in version 0.18.0 🎉

The release is available on:

• GitHub Release
• Chocolatey Package

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