How to store a dconf key as read-only?

Question

I want to use Unity-2D's Dodge feature for the dash. I accomplished that by changing the hide-mode value in com.canonical.Unity2d.Launcher in DConf Editor to 2.

However, when I decide to change Ubuntu's wallpaper, the hide-mode value gets reverted to 0. I want to prevent this by making the setting hide-mode read-only. How can I do this?

Answer 1

The directory you need for this is

/etc/dconf/db/local.d/locks

The are not stored there though; this is the place to put them to make one read-only. From dconf admininstration ...

Lockdown

Lockdown is supported by creating a 'locks' subdirectory in the keyfile directory (ie: /etc/dconf/db/local.d/locks). The files contained in this directory contain a list of keys to lock, one per line. Just as with the keyfiles, you may add any number of files to this directory. Here's an example of what one might look like:

# prevent changes to the company wallpaper
/org/gnome/desktop/background/picture-uri

Of course, you need to run the 'dconf update' tool after changing the locks. The tool will notice if the timestamp on the 'locks' directory has changed, so there is no need to touch the ".d" directory as well.

---

• The lockdown key for hide-mode should be ...

   /com/canonical/unity-2d/launcher/hide-mode
  

  I would consider it a bug if this does not work.

Alternative ...

• Command line method:

   dconf write /com/canonical/unity-2d/launcher/hide-mode 1
  

You could add this to some script or ~/bashrc or something else to get it reset.