A User can set many personal preferences in an application. Individual users' preferences are stored in User Preference Information records. The default set of preferences used when a user has not specified any preferences is also stored in User Preference Information records. When a user sets a personal preference, a User Preference Information record is created. This record contains the name of the preference in question and the value the user has chosen. The record forms part of a preference set, which is simply the set of preferences that the user has changed from the default.

Example

• Your application is deployed with a default time zone preference of 'GMT'. There is a User Preference Information record for this default preference. It has a Preference Set ID of 'DefaultPreference'.
• User Ronan Rooney logs in to your application. The system checks Ronan's User record and finds he has not set any personal preferences yet. The system retrieves the default time zone preference and uses the value obtained (GMT) for Ronan's session.
• Ronan opens the user preference editor, selects the 'Time Zone' preference and changes it to GMT+1. The system finds that this is the first personal preference that Ronan has set, so it creates a Preference Set ID for Ronan's User record. It then creates a new User Preference Information record referencing that Preference Set ID and containing Ronan's preferred time zone.
• Ronan then opens the user preference editor, selects the Modal Dialogs preference and changes it to 'off'. The system finds that Ronan has set preferences before, so it creates a new User Preference Information record referencing the same Preference Set ID as before and containing Ronan's preferred modal setting.

Technical Notes