I work for a non profit organization that provides testing services. We have a tester that has submitted an ADA requested to use a mac with VoiceOver to take the test. We have purchased a Mac book pro for him to test with but I need to make it as simple as possilble for the test proctor to distribute and collect the testing matterials on schedule as this is a multi part test.
I was thinking we could use a droplet type app on the Admin users Desktop that the proctor could simply drag and drop each section of the test and it would copy the files to exam users desktop. And a second app that would collect the files from the exam users desktop zip them up into a timestamped file on the Admin users desktop.
The first app would need to…
On the Drop event prompt the user for the Exam User’s Account
Copy the each of dropped items to the selected User’s Desktop and
sudo chown
sudo chmod 644
sudo chflags uchg
for each item.
the second app would need to…
Prompt the user for the Exam User’s Account
collect all the files/folders from the selected User’s desktop
zip the files/folders in to a files on Admin Accounts Desktop with a name that is unique and includes a time stamp.
remove the files from the selected users Desktop.
if there is any one out here that is willing to help me put these scripts together I would be most grateful, even for a starting point.
Have you considered using the drop folders on the machine? I think that will ease your problems a little.
you can make alias to them on the respective desktops, and thereby make the passing of files a litle bit less painful.
I just tested it! you can actually make an alias of one users “shared/dropfolder” on another users desktop.
Then you could have a folder action, on each folder, in both ends, forwarding the material to each users desktop, and back again!
The folder action, should of course, write protect the file, as to hinder overwriting the file, by some other test-subject.
This way, I think you will avoice, chmod, and chown, and all that, but I am not totally sure, I’ll leave it up to you to experiment with it.
Maybe I don’t see the same problems as you do. But how would it then be to create new public folders,
giving only the adminstrator rights to drop contents into it, similarily that the administrator has one folder for each subject/user on his desktop. (Not knowing how many test subjects there are.)
Not knowing how, but I think it should be possible to make such a set up script, to generate new user accounts. Not so fancy as the applets, and maybe still have the applets to do the clean up and so, but using the folders as a way to at least bring the material back and forth between said desktops.
I’t should be fairly easy to make such a script to set it up, when the adminstrator is the one creating the account in the first place anyway.
Maybe, I can just give the Admin group read write access to the Exam User’s Desktop and add an alias to the Admin User’s Desktop that points to the Exam User’s Desktop…
Maybe it isn’t just that simple, as you have to take into account the ownership of the files.
I leave it to you to experiment with it. The thing about the public drop folder, is that anything that goes into it, or that is how I have understood it, becomes the sole property of the owner of the dropfolder, whereas as an administrator, copying something onto a users desktop, will leave the items as owned by the administrator.
But say, if you then had a droplet, or something that the adminstrator ran, that changed the rights, and ownership, when the files were placed on the desktop, leaving that user, as the new owner, and similiar when the adminstrator collects the stuff from the desktop, then you would have it, like you planned in the first place!
