[icedtea-web] RFC: add support for validating the deployment configuration

[Deepak Bhole]

* Omair Majid <omajid at redhat.com> [2010-12-13 17:06]:
> On 12/13/2010 02:46 PM, Deepak Bhole wrote:
> >* Omair Majid<omajid at redhat.com>  [2010-12-09 16:22]:
> >>On 12/09/2010 03:43 PM, Deepak Bhole wrote:
> >>>* Omair Majid<omajid at redhat.com>   [2010-12-09 12:12]:
> >>>Looks okay to me. Not sure if we should be using a 'default' value
> >>>instead though.. what does the reference impl. do?
> >>
> >>Hm.. good point, I hadnt checked that. I have tried it out now, and
> >>here are my observations.
> >>
> >>I tried adding a few malformed and invalid entries and it seems to
> >>run without any problems. I tried using a url as a cache location
> >>(which is not allowed) and I did not see any files being cached in
> >>the default location. As far as I can see, any invalid entries are
> >>silently ignored and some sane value (_not_ necessarily the default
> >>value) is substituted instead. In general, even with incorrect
> >>properties, javaws works - no error messages, nothing printed to the
> >>console and the invalid entries in the properties file are not
> >>modified.
> >>
> >>If you like, I can leave out the part where incorrect values are
> >>replaced with default values (after all, everywhere in the code
> >>where a configuration is used, it is checked for being valid first)
> >>- the rest of the validation is still useful for doing command line
> >>and GUI validation and informing the user.
> >>
> >>The important thing, I suppose, is that we should somehow tell user
> >>that something is wrong, but still run all JNLPs and applets.
> >>
> >
> >Agreed. Since the ri does replace it with some value rather than just
> >notifying the user, I guess there is no harm in using the default value.
> >It'd be nice though if it were made so that the user is made aware that
> >the values are wrong, and that default values are being used instead
> >(notified via the GUI I mean, for cases where launch is from browser).
> >
> >That way they can fix it for the next run instead of it continuing to
> >use values that the user may not want.
> >
> 
> If it's all right, I would like to address this in a separate patch.
> I can have a dialog pop up telling the user the error in the
> configuration. I am also working on adding something to the control
> panel to make it show all the problematic settings and where they
> come from.
> 

Sure, that is fine. In that case, original patch is ok for HEAD.

Cheers,
Deepak

> Thanks,
> Omair