Can not pre-configure KDE Plasma bottom panel nor Dolphin with Kiosk

[Yvan Masson]

Hi list,

I am trying to configure some default settings to be able to deploy KDE.
I am doing my tests with Debian “hopefully-soon-stable” 12 (Plasma
5.27.2). I follow the kiosk mode documentation [1], and it works
properly for some settings (night color, baloo search, power management,
Discover).

However, I have very strange results when trying to configure the bottom
panel:

- From a new user with default settings, I customized the panel manually
(changing some applications shortcuts, disabling clipboard)
- Using `fswatch`, I could determine that the relevant configuration
file is `~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc`
- If I copy this file to `/etc/xdg/`, my settings are not applied to new
users (while it works for other files like `kscreenlockerrc`)
- As a workaround, if I copy this file to `/etc/skel/.config/`, settings
are applied to new users BUT the panel gets a height of 30 instead of 44
(the default).

Also, a somewhat similar issue is for configuring Dolphin (toolbar, left
panel, right panel, detailed view by default):

- I found that the relevant files is
`~/.local/share/kxmlgui5/dolphin/dolphinui.rc` (strangely
`/etc/dolphinrc` does not seem to contain the settings I am interested in)
- If I copy this file to `/etc/xdg/dolphinui.rc`, my settings are not
applied for new users
- After copying this file to
`/etc/skel/.local/share/kxmlgui5/dolphin/dolphinui.rc`, settings are
indeed applied to new users except “overview in right panel” and
“detailed view by default”

What am I doing wrong? I suppose I missed something from the
documentation, but could not find what. Any help would be greatly
appreciated!

Regards,
Yvan

1. https://develop.kde.org/docs/administration/kiosk/introduction/