[feature/flat-mdm-settings] Support for MDM setting hierarchies with flat keys

[felix-schwarz]

Description

• adds support for MDM setting hierarchies with flat keys
• simplified relaunch when receiving MDM setting updates

Example

{
	"profiles$[0].index" 		 : 0,
	"profiles$[0].name"  		 : "hello",
	"profiles$[0].attributes.highlight"  : true,
	"profiles$[0].nicknames[0]" 	 : "hi",
	"profiles$[0].nicknames[2]" 	 : "howdy",
	"profiles$[0].nicknames[1]" 	 : "hey",

	"profiles$[1].index" 		 : 1,
	"profiles$[1].name"  		 : "maxwell",
	"profiles$[1].attributes.highlight"  : false,
	"profiles$[1].nicknames[0]" 	 : "max",
	"profiles$[1].nicknames[1]" 	 : "maxy",

	"unrelated.settings.with.dots"	 : "oc"
}

After (transparent) expansion, this equals:

{
	"profiles" : [
		{
			"attributes" : {
				"highlight" : 1,
			},
			"index" : 0,
			"name" : "hello",
			"nicknames" : [
				"hi",
				"hey",
				"howdy"
			]
		},
		{
			"attributes" : {
				"highlight" : 0
			},
			"index" : 1,
			"name" : "maxwell",
			"nicknames" : [
				"max",
				"maxy"
			]
		}
	],

	"unrelated.settings.with.dots" : "oc"
}

Screenshots

Types of changes

• Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
• Breaking change (fix or feature that would cause existing functionality to change)

QA

• (1) App closes suddenly when something is pushed [feature/flat-mdm-settings] Support for MDM setting hierarchies with flat keys #904 (comment)

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[jesmrec]

(1)

When something new is pushed from MDM, the app suddenly closes and the notification appears to re-launch:

Not sure if this is the intended behaviour.

From user PoV, it'd be better to show the notification without closing the app, in order not to break any operation that the user is doing at this moment.

If the app is closed, nothing happens (this is OK, so a new launch will apply the remote changes)

iPhoneXR v14.4
3e3b6ccb

[jesmrec]

About the new setting hierarchy, is this only a way to display? or is there something that deserve to be tested?

[felix-schwarz]

Re (1) I just pushed an update, so it now works a bit differently:

• first notify the user about the changes
• if the user taps the notification, schedule a relaunch notification and then quit
• if the user taps the relaunch notification, the app is launched

That lets the user decide whether they want to quit the app at the time.

[felix-schwarz]

About the new setting hierarchy, is this only a way to display? or is there something that deserve to be tested?

It is a different way to write the MDM plist. Instead of building <dict>ionaries and <array>s in the plist, that syntax encodes the dictionary/array structure in the key at the root level with a . (for dictionaries) and [] (for arrays) syntax.

The main benefit of this is that this allows to build AppConfig.xml files to allow configuration of parameters that would otherwise require storage in complex hierarchies that are hard or impossible to generate from an AppConfig.xml defined UI.

[jesmrec]

Re (1) I just pushed an update, so it now works a bit differently:

• first notify the user about the changes
• if the user taps the notification, schedule a relaunch notification and then quit
• if the user taps the relaunch notification, the app is launched

That lets the user decide whether they want to quit the app at the time.

nice fix!

[jesmrec]

It is a different way to write the MDM plist. Instead of building <dict>ionaries and <array>s in the plist, that syntax encodes the dictionary/array structure in the key at the root level with a . (for dictionaries) and [] (for arrays) syntax.

The main benefit of this is that this allows to build AppConfig.xml files to allow configuration of parameters that would otherwise require storage in complex hierarchies that are hard or impossible to generate from an AppConfig.xml defined UI.

ok, it's like a JSON notation, so, nothing to say about this form my side. Will test together with the MDM features