At a technical level, this might be the easiest to implement since ZENWorks 11 already deals with a tremendous amount of XML in its own bundle format, etc. OS X uses property list files for virtually all descriptive information -- user preferences, MCX policies, internally inside application bundles for configuration information, and even for local directory information such as users. The Wikipedia page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_list ) does an excellent job of covering everything, including linking to developer documentation and the DTD.

One challenge is that plists are now in both XML and binary formats. However, as a variety of applications already exist to read and write plists, the engineering bar does not seem to be too high.

Being able to read and manipulate plists within ZENWorks would provide a level of fine-grained control over OS X preferences and applications that will eventually be required as ZENWorks support for OS X progresses.

My specific feature request is for a multi-staged understanding of plists in ZENworks, perhaps spanning several releases:
1) [First release]: A web interface for plists to be read by ZENWorks and their properties displayed in a user-friendly manner.
2) [Second Release]: Extension of the web interface to safely and clearly edit or extend arbitrary plists, perhaps with an option to redeploy them to their source. Validation would also be nice.
3) [Third Release]: Refinement of the web interface to understand specific type of common plists such as user preferences and provide guides for options (such as drop-down selectors for values) as a replacement for functionality such as that offered by OS X Workgroup Manager, deployment of settings for the most common applications (such as those shipping with OS X or Microsoft Office), or local user record manipulation.
(Yes, OS X has deprecated MCX. The capability is still around though.)

by: Johnnie O. | over a year ago | Application Mgmt