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Mac Forum / Country Specific / UK Mac Group / May 2008Why is Screen Sharing app hidden away?
I'm curious. Why is this application hidden away in /System/Library/CoreServices? I don't mean why is the app itself there (I can see it belongs with other such programs), but why is there no easily accessible icon for it? You have to take such an indirect route to getting it running (at least by default). I have put a link in the Dock now, but before that I had to go to a web browser and type in "vnc://servername" and that kicked off Screen Sharing. And to get that far I had to look in the Sharing Preferences pane for the computer I want to connect to and choose Screen Sharing. It doesn't seem beyond the wit of Apple to have put a link in Applications or Utilities, or indeed to have put an icon on the Dock in the first place. Just curious really. Ian. -- > It doesn't seem beyond the wit of Apple to have put a link in > Applications or Utilities, or indeed to have put an icon on the Dock in > the first place. And I still find VNC to be crap compared to Windows' Remote Desktop. Using VNC over broadband feels like using RDC over dialup. Jim  Signature"Well, well. We've come a long way from the Prime Minister's exploding cake." - Adam West, Batman. http://www.UrsaMinorBeta.co.uk http://twitter.com/GreyAreaUK >> It doesn't seem beyond the wit of Apple to have put a link in >> Applications or Utilities, or indeed to have put an icon on the Dock in >> the first place. > >And I still find VNC to be crap compared to Windows' Remote Desktop. Which isn't surprising. RDP is a low-level hookin, saying "draw a button, add this bitmap" just the same as Windows does locally, or X does either way. VNC is an after-the-fact "copy this bitmap over the network". And RDP has only MS servers while VNC has multitudes, so you end up with VNC falling back to lowest-common-denominator in a lot of cases. Cheers - Jaimie Signature"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read" -- Groucho Marx >>> It doesn't seem beyond the wit of Apple to have put a link in >>> Applications or Utilities, or indeed to have put an icon on the Dock in [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > And RDP has only MS servers while VNC has multitudes, so you end up > with VNC falling back to lowest-common-denominator in a lot of cases. I noticed VirtualBox includes some kind of RDP server. Maybe it works more efficiently when there's a VirtualBox graphics driver in the guest OS, but I've not tried it yet. Cheers, Chris >>>> It doesn't seem beyond the wit of Apple to have put a link in >>>> Applications or Utilities, or indeed to have put an icon on the Dock in [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >more efficiently when there's a VirtualBox graphics driver in the guest >OS, but I've not tried it yet. Oh, maybe it got opened up when I wasn't looking. It'll surely still be Windows-only for the clever stuff, won't it? Anything else will be stuck on VNC-style bitmap passing. Cheers - Jaimie Signature"I'll never forget my first wife - drove me to drink. I'm eternally grateful." - W. C. Fields >> I noticed VirtualBox includes some kind of RDP server. Maybe it works >> more efficiently when there's a VirtualBox graphics driver in the guest [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > It'll surely still be Windows-only for the clever stuff, won't it? > Anything else will be stuck on VNC-style bitmap passing. Possibly, but if they install a proper driver for an X11 guest, there's a /chance/ they can convert those operations into RDP primitives. But I've only installed a Windows (2003) guest into VB so far. I'll inflict a Linux on it next (or at least something with a guest driver) and see how they both compare. Cheers, Chris >>> It doesn't seem beyond the wit of Apple to have put a link in >>> Applications or Utilities, or indeed to have put an icon on the Dock in [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > does either way. VNC is an after-the-fact "copy this bitmap over the > network". This is something that's bugged me for a long time. Even Remote Desktop which was expensive seems to be just sending badly (or not) compressed bitmaps over the network. This is bad enough over gigabit ethernet. Over a broadband connection it is barely useable. Does anyone know if this will be rectified sometime soon? I've searched apple's site and found nothing. It seems like the kind of thing that could be done easily enough, in fact MS have already done it. Andy >>>> It doesn't seem beyond the wit of Apple to have put a link in >>>> Applications or Utilities, or indeed to have put an icon on the Dock in [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >apple's site and found nothing. It seems like the kind of thing that >could be done easily enough, in fact MS have already done it. And the X Windowing System did it 20 years ago. You wouldn't think it'd be all that difficult. As long as there's a well defined layer in the graphics system for drawing stuff, you should be able to hook in at that layer and send those instructions rather than doing it VNC style. I have absolutely no idea if there is such a layer in the OS X UI, although I have some suspicions that there isn't a clean split because if there was, resolution independence would be a lot less tricky than it apparently is - that would hook in at the same place, I think. Cheers - Jaimie >So, what do *you* do for a living? I sit in a chair pressing small plastic rectangles with my fingers while peering at many tiny, colored dots. -- Peter Manders On Sat, 10 May 2008 23:39:44 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote >>>> And I still find VNC to be crap compared to Windows' Remote Desktop. >>> [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > if there was, resolution independence would be a lot less tricky than > it apparently is - that would hook in at the same place, I think. How does ARD work? Is it a tarted up VNC or does it do the same as Windows Remote desktop? >On Sat, 10 May 2008 23:39:44 +0100, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote >> [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] >How does ARD work? Is it a tarted up VNC or does it do the same as Windows >Remote desktop? ARD1 (and maybe 2, I'm not sure when it changed) used an Apple-originated protocol of some sort, but the current ARD3 (and maybe 2) uses a tarted up VNC. The client in ARD3 is the same code as is being used for Share Screen client in Leopard, see my other post with lots of links to enable the extra features. Cheers - Jaimie Signature"I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don't intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises." - Neil Armstrong >>>>> It doesn't seem beyond the wit of Apple to have put a link in >>>>> Applications or Utilities, or indeed to have put an icon on the Dock in [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > And the X Windowing System did it 20 years ago. And NextStep did it too - google for NXHosting. Of course if you're using DPS then this is relatively straightforward, and apparently Apple kept NXHosting for just as long as they kept DPS... > You wouldn't think it'd be all that difficult. As long as there's a > well defined layer in the graphics system for drawing stuff, you [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > if there was, resolution independence would be a lot less tricky than > it apparently is - that would hook in at the same place, I think. I think there are more bitmaps being thrown around than we think, and because of all the compositing that happens on the display machine trying to send *all* the bitmaps around will completely kill performance. Cheers, Chris >>> It doesn't seem beyond the wit of Apple to have put a link in >>> Applications or Utilities, or indeed to have put an icon on the Dock in [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > Cheers - Jaimie You can get RDP servers for Linux but they perform just as badly as VNC. Signatureremove stars for email g*a*r*y*c*o*w*e*l*l*a*t*m*a*c*d*o*t*c*o*m > It doesn't seem beyond the wit of Apple to have put a link in > Applications or Utilities, or indeed to have put an icon on the Dock in > the first place. Not sure if this is what you mean, but when I want to use screen sharing I double-click on the hard disc icon on the desktop, select the machine I want to connect to under "Shared" in the left-hand pane - and then choose either "Share Screen" or "Connect As" when they appear on the right. I've previously set the prefs under System Preferences. I don't start up a specific "Share Screen" app, and wasn't aware there was one. This works for me on my local network at least. Apologies if I've misunderstood. Danny > > It doesn't seem beyond the wit of Apple to have put a link in > > Applications or Utilities, or indeed to have put an icon on the Dock in [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > Apologies if I've misunderstood. Like this: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/lydiardtregoze/2480432882/> Danny >I'm curious. Why is this application hidden away in >/System/Library/CoreServices? Product differentiation. It's heritage is as part of Apple Remote Desktop, where it has a bunch more functionality as well as a handy picklist of remote computers. Fortunately, they didn't actually rewrite anything so the 10.5 client version is the same product. So lets enable stuff using defaults and the like: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071127183240696 http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071030092325625 http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071109130303999 http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071030092325625 Ooh, and for anyone who'd like their linux boxes to appear in the Finder machine browse list, http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2007102914203066 Cheers - Jaimie Signature"I'll never forget my first wife - drove me to drink. I'm eternally grateful." - W. C. 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