[JMII]

I'm pretty sure this is impossible but let me tell ya what I want and you guys can chime in with how I can do it (if at all).

I want to do this on my home/personal computer that only me and the wife use, so security is not a problem. The wife wants different preferences, mostly related to the system (Finder, Dock & Desktop) but still needs to be able to access our email (Netscape), calendars, photos and music (all your standard "i" apps).

How can I do this? Creating a new user gives us two sets of system preferrences, but locks her out of the photos and music in my home folder. Creating an alias to these items in my Shared Folder does not work and changing the premissions (via Get Info) doesn't seem to help either. How do you get iCal, iTunes and iPhoto to look into another folder? It defaults to your home folder, now I know iTunes allows sharing and can be made to look in another folder but that's does not solve the problem with our other apps and documents

It so easy to share the applications since they are at the system level but other "personal" items are VERY user specific thus you can't share them as easily... unless I'm missing something obvious like putting everything in the system's document folder. That seems kind of dangerous since everything I've read about OSX says keep user settings/docs in your USER home folder for safe keeping and easy back-up.



- John

[piracy]

This is possible, and since I have a sneaking suspicion that pretty much all of the responses to this are going to range from questionable to laughably wrong, with the occasional correct answer peppered in, but with no way for you to discern which from which, I'll answer:

The obvious, sane, and easy answer is just to share an account, and get over the fact that each of your desktop settings are different. That is my recommended solution.

But, if you and your wife are hell bent on wanting different desktop, Dock, Finder, and environment preferences, but sharing literally everything else that was designed to explicitly be tied to one home directory, there is no way around having two accounts. So, you will definitely want to have an account for you, and an account for her.

As for accessing mail and all of the iApps, it's going to essentially involve placing the data for these items in a central location that is accessible to BOTH of you - AND in such a way as you both have permission to read AND write to them.

One method would be ensuring that you both have access to all of the files, using the Terminal, or utilities like XRay or batchmod, to ensure that the permissions are correct. The normal way you'd do this in a typical UNIX environment would be to add BOTH of you to a common group, associate that group with all of the shared items, and make that group have read/write/execute permissions for everything within it. Another alternative, since you're both "trusted" users, is to set up the same two accounts, but give yourselves the same UID. For example, if you're already UID 501, you'll make your wife's account UID 501 as well (using NetInfo Manager while not logged in as her). You'll still have separate home directories, user accounts, preferences, etc., but since Mac OS X (and virtually all other UNIXes) handle permissions by UID and not username, you will each always be guaranteed to be the "owner" of all of the files in question. This method would require something like:

sudo chown -R <uid> /Users/<yourwifesusername>

after the UID change.

I would strongly recommend the UID-sharing method.

/Users/Shared might be a logical place to put all of the shared data. However, each application will have different mechanisms for getting at the data in an alternate location. Some applications, like iTunes, let you explicitly specify where items are.

One model would be the following: move the Pictures, Movies, Music, etc folders that currently have the data you want to share into /Users/Shared. Make two sets of aliases to each of these folders, and place them in EACH of your accounts. This will handle iPhoto, iMovie, and iTunes. For Mail, you'll want to place the ~/Library/Mail from your account in /Users/Shared and again place aliases in the corresponding location in EACH user account. Same goes for iCal. Then, I'd recommend taking the preferences for each application from your account, (e.g. things like ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Mail.plist) and either placing copies or aliases of them in the corresponding location in your wife's account. In the case of the preferences themselves, copies are probably better, because then she could make minor changes to the behavior of the applications in question, but while still having access to all of the same DATA associated with them.

One other note: with the UID sharing method, you wouldn't even need to move any items out of your home directory into a shared location. You could actually just keep them all in your home directory, as is, and make aliases to all of the directories (~/Movies, ~/Music, ~/Pictures, ~/Library/Mail, etc.) and aliases or copies of the appropriate preferences in your wife's home directory. That might actually be the easiest.

Essentially what you're going to be doing is figuring out a way to share the things you want to share from each account, and not others. The reason why this is so convoluted is because this goes against the grain of the very purpose of a multi-user system. I'd strongly consider just sharing an account and compromising on Desktop and Finder settings.

[Jellytussle]

All sounds good, piracy, but i seem to recall that Fast User Switching gets squirrely with UID sharing - maybe they can work round that. Perhaps changing the system umask to 002 and symlinking Docs Pics Movies to a single set of directories might be an alternative?

[piracy]

Originally posted by Jellytussle:
All sounds good, piracy, but i seem to recall that Fast User Switching gets squirrely with UID sharing - maybe they can work round that. Perhaps changing the system umask to 002 and symlinking Docs Pics Movies to a single set of directories might be an alternative?

Yes, I wouldn't recommend using Fast User Switching at all with any of the scenarios I described. They'd want to leave Fast User Switching disabled and completely log in/log out.

[JMII]

As for accessing mail and all of the iApps, it's going to essentially involve placing the data for these items in a central location that is accessible to BOTH of you - AND in such a way as you both have permission to read AND write to them.

That is kind of what I was thinking... something like a mini server, with common data stored in a central location.

Like I guessed: there is no "safe" way to do without using some UNIX hack, so the wife will just have to deal with MY preferrences I might have buy her an pink iPod mini to get her mind off the idea

[IamBob]

The simplest solution is probably the best. Don't try to fight the system, make it work for you...

Create 3 accounts; You, Her and Joint.

Do your email/iCal/whatever in the joint account and be done with it. No fussy hacks needed...FUS in and out at will.

[hudson1]

Here's another method to explore:

Move everything that you want to share onto a separate partition. I did this with iPhoto and found that it was the most expedient way for two users to use the same iPhoto library without everything getting messed up. I'm not sure how well it would work with Mail, though.

The reason for this working (at least with some apps) is that OS X ignores permissions on volumes other than the boot volume.

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by hudson1:
Move everything that you want to share onto a separate partition.

You don't need a different partition. You can put everything you want to share in /Users/Shared. You can put iTunes library and iPhoto library there with the preferences. You will probably be able to put most other stuff into there with the help of Aliases and/or symbolic links.

[chris v]

You can change the path to the home folder for a user in Net Info Manager, but don't ask me what this will do to permissions.

[hudson1]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
You don't need a different partition. You can put everything you want to share in /Users/Shared. You can put iTunes library and iPhoto library there with the preferences. You will probably be able to put most other stuff into there with the help of Aliases and/or symbolic links.

If that works it's because something changed with 10.3 from 10.2 and/or iLife 4 vs 3. I tried for almost a week to make iPhoto work right for two users with the library in the Shared directory. Though both could view all of the photos, it just wouldn't allow two users to edit the library no matter what I tried with permissions.

[Millennium]

What I would suggest is that you have two accounts. Use one account to initially set up everything which will be shared between you. Once something is set up, move it to the Shared folder, make sure the permissions are correct, and then symlink it back into the the user's folder. Use another symlink to put it into the other user's folder, so that you're both using them.

Note that it's important to use symlinks, not aliases, for this. The downside of using symlinks is that they'll break if you move the original, the symlinks will break, but this scenario doesn't seem to make it likely that you'll be moving these from the Shared folder.

There is an important reason to use symlinks for this, though: namely the fact that many Unix apps (and apps written with Unix APIs) don't understand aliases, but do understand symlinks. You may not use many Unix apps personally, but they see a lot of use "under the hood", and so you need to be careful. OSX's APIs also understand symlinks, so this method will ensure that everything works properly. It is said that Tiger will fix this problem by making Unix apps understand aliases too, but it sounds as though you need a solution sooner than that.

Symlinks are easy to create in the Terminal, using the ln -s command (the -s option is important), but there are also GUI-based symlink creators out there if you'd prefer to do it that way. VersionTracker and MacUpdate can help you there.

[piracy]

Um, guys?

Notice my post above where I explain everything in detail?

Notice how it's like, really long winded and everything?

That's because this is NOT A SIMPLE PROBLEM. Sure, you might be able to offer piecemeal solutions for something like iPhoto, but he was asking a lot more than that. Please read my post, and if you don't understand why it's that complicated, then you might stop posting lest you embarrass yourself further.

Please pay particular attention to the first sentence in my post.

(Also, using the /Users/Shared method, and making aliases OR symlinks, is 100% fine, just FYI, if done properly. But you'll also notice that all of these solutions were way too complicated for him and he already gave up, not to mention I already GAVE him every possible solution weeks ago. *Sigh*)

[barney ntd]

I use the "/Users/Shared" method for my iphoto library. It works so long as I am the only one adding photos. When iPhoto creates new folders (which it does for each photo date) it gives group & others read-only access, so only the owner can edit them or add more photos with that date. The other users can happily view and use them, but if they import any, iPhoto has problems. You could get round this by updating the permissions every time you import, but I can't remember to do that.

Barney.

[m a d r a]

get a divorce

[chris v]

Originally posted by m a d r a:
get a divorce

Lawyer: "Your Honor, my client requests that he be released from the bonds of matrimony due to irreconcilable differences... concerning how to share user settings on their Mac."

Judge: "Granted."

[JMII]

Originally posted by m a d r a:
get a divorce

No thanks I like my boat too much it's not *that* big of a deal breaker in my life.

This application is very close to what I want: http://www.yousoftware.com/desktops/index.php
However currently they do not support different docks on the various virtual "desktops" you can create.

[Gavin]

For iTunes and iPhoto you can do this without too much trouble. I've just tried this and it works. The trick is the permissions and getting the apps to look in a different place for their data.

Quit iTunes and iPhoto if they are running.

Move your iPhoto and iTunes folders from your Pictures and Music folder respectively, into the users/shared folder, a neutral folder outside of both accounts.

'get info' in the users/shared folder and under 'ownership and permissions' open the 'details' section. Owners, groups and others should all say 'read and write'. Click the 'apply to enclosed items' button. this will copy the loose permissions to all the files inside.
You may have to do this whenever you add a song or picture!

Put an alias of the iTunes folder in Music (option-command drag). Leave the Pictures folder empty.

iTunes should start right up with the music from the new location.
iPhoto will ask you to locate the library folder - a button.

You are all set. Now switch to the other user.

quit iTunes and iPhoto if running. - zap the iTunes and iPhoto folders (or just rename them to be safe) and do the alias trick with iTunes.

Start them up like before. You should now both have access to the same data.

You may step on each other if you leave iPhoto running in one account and edit in the other. But wtf, it mostly works. Like I said you may have to click the 'apply to enclosed items' button after adding files.

Mail is another mater. You could use an IMAP account instead of POP, the mail stays on the server and you just have a 'view' of it. Sharing is no problem with IMAP. You can even get at your old email from work or any computer, windows or otherwise.

iCal's calendar files live in ~/Library/Calendars. you could try the same alias trick with it.

have fun

[hudson1]

Originally posted by Gavin:
'get info' in the users/shared folder and under 'ownership and permissions' open the 'details' section. Owners, groups and others should all say 'read and write'. Click the 'apply to enclosed items' button. this will copy the loose permissions to all the files inside.
You may have to do this whenever you add a song or picture!

This is why I said that I never came upon a good way of doing this (with iPhoto) without moving the library to another partition. I'd move the library to Shared, change the permissions for both users to use the library but as soon as one user edited the library, the other user lost Write permissions. An endless and pointless battle.

This would be a great thing for Apple clean up. How about a setup preference that optionally places the library in Shared and grants permanent Read&Write to all local accounts?

[Boondoggle]

Personally, I think shared accounts are almost always a terrible idea. It is typical of newlyweds who haven't figured out yet how nice a little privacy is.

However If I was going to set up a system like this I would use hudson1's suggestion and set up a separate partition with permissions turned off for all the libraries (iTunes, iPhoto, etc) and documents that I wanted to share.

For Mail, I would simply use an IMAP account and store all on the server. Note that IMAP is not necessary, as long as you set up your POP clients not to delete new mail off the server right away both clients will be able to receive all the new mail. Set up a rule to copy yourself on all outgoing mail and you both get copies of that too. IMAP is my preferred solution though.

For addresses, i would buy .Mac and synch both accounts. This approach allows you to keep all the core OSX functionality like fast user switching, etc functional. It does potentially involve spending a little money though, (.Mac.) and repartitioning the drive can be a big time sink unless you use an external, and that will cost some $ too.


good luck.

bd

ps: There are other ways of sharing addresses other than .Mac. You can just drag all your contacts out to make a vCard and then put that in your shared volume. The other account will have to manually import it and any additions will have to be handled similarly but most people don't add adresses that often anyway. And it is free. .Mac does give you lots of other cool stuff too though.

[LeeG]

My wife and I have separate accounts, but both sync to the same .mac account. This way our calendars and addresses are always the same. We store all of our photos on the old desktop G4 tower, with iPhoto sahring turned on, and only 1 account (mine). Mostly access with laptops. Doesn't solve your problems, but I also vote for .mac being as nice way to have addresses and calendar sync across multiple users.

[chris v]

Really, if the only reason you have seperate accounts is so you can have your own bookmarks, dock, desktop and address book, then the obvious thing to do is create a second data partition and tell the OS to "ignore permissions on this drive." You can create an alias for iPhoto, and you just re-direct iTunes to the folder you want your MP3s in.

I've been doing it that way since 10.1 at home.

[Gavin]

Originally posted by hudson1:
This is why I said that I never came upon a good way of doing this (with iPhoto) without moving the library to another partition. I'd move the library to Shared, change the permissions for both users to use the library but as soon as one user edited the library, the other user lost Write permissions. An endless and pointless battle.

I didn't have that happen, I can edit from both user accounts without locking the other guy out. Worst case is I have to relaunch iPhoto to see any changes. It might depend on what group the files are set to? Everything in my Shared folder is set to 'wheel' group with wide open permissions (777)

Is there anything like a startup script that can run when you switch users?

or you could set a cron job to run this every 10 minutes:

chmod -R 777 /Users/Shared/*

This would be a great thing for Apple clean up. How about a setup preference that optionally places the library in Shared and grants permanent Read&Write to all local accounts?

Right, you should be able to give things 'computer wide' access.
For pix, music, calendars, addresses, spelling dictionaries, bookmarks, etc.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by Gavin:
Right, you should be able to give things 'computer wide' access.
For pix, music, calendars, addresses, spelling dictionaries, bookmarks, etc.

But what if other users don't want your pr0n clogging up their iPhoto?

[Gavin]

My pr0n is always opt-out. But why would you?


Just like with fonts, some things would be global and others would be personal. User's choice.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by JMII:
I want to do this on my home/personal computer that only me and the wife use, so security is not a problem.

I did want to take a moment to talk about this. Security is everyone's problem. It doesn't matter how many or few people use your machine, because there are non-human users who do work 'behind the scenes', and these are the users that most hacker-types are interested in nowadays. Your computer may not have data on it that The Bad Guy would find terribly interesting, but any computer is useful as part of a zombie network (that is, machines from which hackers launch attacks on other machines, so that it looks like somebody else was responsible).

It doesn't matter quite so much in this case, because as others have pointed out, it's possible to do the two user/one folder thing securely. But to say that security isn't a problem is, at best, naive. Macs are better at security than Windows, but they are not invincible. This is something that it would be wise to not forget.

[Randman]

No need for multiple partitions. We're talking OSX here, not Windows.

If security isn't a problem, create an account for your wife. Give her full privileges.
You can share iTunes easily enough. If you really find that certain apps are having permissions problems, let her access your account and do what's needed as far as adding and editing and deleting photos.
Winswitch is great for this (and free), taking advantage of Fast User Switching.

That said, MY recommendation would be to keep things separate. Nothing wrong with you both having your own accounts. You can still share an iTunes library. For iPhoto, she can do some stuff on her own but you have the "master" app (just call it something different).

Having your hard drive cloned via CCC on an external and both using that is another solution though you might run into permissions problems again.

Or share one account. One can use Mail.app from the web (even use bookmarks from online) or create two mail accounts, or one can use FireFox and one can use Safari.

Experiment, play around, see what works and what doesn't.