Receiver for Chrome Configuration Options

Have you ever wondered how to customize Receiver for Chrome? Have you ever wondered how to configure the toolbar, for example, to hide it, or how to enable or disable file transfer, or do anything else? If so, today is your lucky day. I’ve curated a list of important (and altogether handy) settings, which are available you right now, that can be configured based on your particular needs.

• Show/hide the in-session toolbar or individual buttons like USB, preferences, and others from the toolbar
• Enable/Disable file transfer
• Limit the file size for upload/download
• Provide custom session resolutions

Here are the different ways to these things set up in Receiver.

Google Admin Policy

This method works best if you’re a Google Apps customer. As a Chrome administrator for your organization, the Google admin console, which is cloud-managed, lets you push policies per device/user. Until Receiver 2.0, admins could only push policy to configure Storefront. With 2.1 version, even session settings can be pushed (and that’s pretty cool)!

Admins can use the tool to create the policy.txt file. Once it’s created, they can edit the file to add any custom configuration as a JSON object under the engine_settings key.

Here’s a sample policy.txt file that hides the toolbar:

{
  "settings": {
    "Value": {
      "settings_version": "1.0",
      "engine_settings": {
        "ui": {
          "toolbar": {
            "menubar": false
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

The second way is through editing the web.config file, which applies the settings to all the users connecting to Storefront, in Storefront. Just open the web.config file (typically located at C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\<storenameWeb>) where storename is the name specified for the store when it was created. Locate chromeAppPreferences and update its value with the custom configuration as a JSON string.

Example:

chromeAppPreferences = '{"ui": {"toolbar": {"menubar": false}}}'

This method is mainly added for the web interface, which applies the settings to all the users connecting to the site. Open the default.ica file and provide the custom configuration by adding a new key chromeAppPreferences, making the value the custom configuration as the JSON object.

Typically, for the Web Interface, default.ica file is located at C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\<sitename>\conf\default.ica where sitename is the name specified for the site when it was created.

Example:

chromeAppPreferences={"ui": {"toolbar": {"menubar": false}}}

configuration.js

Receiver for Chrome contains a configuration.js file in the root directory of the package (ChromeApp). Admins can edit the file and then repackage the receiver after any change. Also, the configuration.js file needs to be edited and repackaged with every upgrade of Receiver.

Note: In Kiosk mode, the toolbar is hidden by default. Editing configuration.js to enable toolbar will be ignored. Our suggestion is to use one of alternative methods mentioned above to enable the toolbar.

You can use one or more methods to apply configuration to the Receiver. Our recommendation is to use one of them. In case one or more methods is used, then the configuration received from all the methods will be merged. If any conflicting settings are set using multiple methods, then the Google Admin policy takes the highest priority. In the absence of a Google Admin policy, web.config file of Storefront takes the priority then the default.ica file and lastly configuration.js.

Here are a couple of examples for quick reference:

1 ) Enabling file transfer without file upload/download toolbar buttons (but allow drag-and-drop or Send to My Device). More details on this feature are here.

• Google Admin policy

Policy.txt file (Both store and engine settings are independent. You can set both of them as required.)

{
  "settings": {
    "Value": {
      "settings_version": "1.0",
      "engine_settings": {
        "ui": {
          "toolbar": {
            "fileTransfer": false
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

• Web.config in Storefront

chromeAppPreferences = '{"ui": {"toolbar": {"fileTransfer": false}}}'

• Default.ica

chromeAppPreferences={"ui": {"toolbar": {"fileTransfer": false}}}

• configuration.js

Locate the key “fileTransfer” in the configuration.js file and set the value to false.

2) Hiding ctrl+alt+del button in toolbar and disable file transfer feature (both upload/download).

• Google Admin policy

Policy.txt file

{
  "settings": {
    "Value": {
      "settings_version": "1.0",
      "engine_settings": {
        "ui": {
          "toolbar": {
            "lock": false
          }
        },
        "features": {
          "filetransfer": {
            "allowupload": false,
            "allowdownload": false
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

• Web.config in Storefront

chromeAppPreferences = '{"ui":{"toolbar":{"lock":false}},"features":{"filetransfer":{"allowupload":false,"allowdownload":false}}}'

• Default.ica

chromeAppPreferences =  {"ui":{"toolbar":{"lock":false}},"features":{"filetransfer":{"allowupload":false,"allowdownload":false}}}

• configuration.js

Locate the keys “lock” , “allowupload”, “allowdownload” in the configuration.js file and set the value to false.

Useful Links:

• Configuring Receiver for Chrome
• Creating policy.txt for Store configuration
• Google Admin Policy