Any way to lock the Finder sidebar

neruda

I tried to GTFA but could not find a solution to this anywhere and I guess there is no solution. Is there any way to lock the items that appear on the Finder's sidebar?

We put a network folder in the sidebar for students to submit their work and kids keep removing it.



I tried the following command in the Terminal to look at the Finder's defaults, and the only setting there was SidebarWidth:

defaults read com.apple.Finder >> ~/Desktop/finderdefaults.doc



The dock's contents can be locked so that items cannot be moved or removed by typing

defaults write com.apple.Dock contents-immutable -bool yes;killall Dock



If only the following would work (but then, would this stop the finder from loading additional network volumes?):



defaults write com.apple.Finder sidebar-immutable -bool yes

or

defaults write com.apple.Finder contents-immutable -bool yes

marvin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neruda


If only the following would work (but then, would this stop the finder from loading additional network volumes?

The immutable Dock doesn't prevent launched apps not in the Dock from appearing so it shouldn't. There may be an option for com.apple.sidebarlists.plist rather than finder.plist. It would be nice if Apple supplied a list of preference keywords supported.



You could try putting the network shortcut on the desktop and prevent removal or even in the area next to the trash icon and lock the Dock.

neruda

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marvin


You could try putting the network shortcut on the desktop and prevent removal or even in the area next to the trash icon and lock the Dock.

Excellent idea. Why didn't I think of that? I was so focused on the Finder that I completely overlooked the Dock.



I wonder why Apple has apparently overlooked this. It should not be this difficult for an admin to set the Finder up and lock it so that non-admin users can't change the sidebar, and the simple finder setting is pretty close to useless.



Thanks Marvin.