SimpleDesktop Client Help
- Control
- Features
1.1 - Remote Screen Control
SimpleDesktop allows you to control the desktop of a remote computer. Generally speaking, all you have to do to control the remote computer is act as if you were doing so already (move the mouse, click the mouse buttons, press some keys etc.). One subtlety to note is that SimpleDesktop has to decide when you press a key whether you are intending that key to be sent to the remote computer. How SimpleDesktop decides this isn't important but you can see whether SimpleDesktop is sending keypresses by the thin blue strip along the left of the remote desktop area.
If the strip is blue then any key you press while using SimpleDesktop will be sent to the remote computer. If the strip is not blue then it will not be sent. If you want to make sure your key presses are getting through, wiggle the mouse over the remote desktop area and the strip will turn blue.
2.1 - Connection Sites
When you want to create a new Connection to a server (see Connection menu) you don't want to have to type in all the details every time you connect. Instead, you want to save common places to connect to. The Sites function in SimpleDesktop lets you do this. When creating a new Connection Site in the New Connection dialog, type in all the details, type in a Site Name (this is just a name for the site) and the click 'Save Site'. The site will then appear in the list of sites and you can select it when you next want to connect (NOTE: the password for the site is not be saved as it is inherently insecure to store passwords).
2.2 - Incoming Connections
Quite often, when helping a user with their computer issues, the user you wish to help may not know enough about
their network setup and port forwarding to quickly set up access for you to control their computer. In cases like
this, you can use the SimpleDesktop callback feature. As the more technical person you can set up your network to accept
incoming connections and then have them connect back to you.
Run SimpleDesktop client and select 'Listen for an incoming connection' from the 'Connection' menu. You will need to
enter a port to listen on. Once you have SimpleDesktop listening on a port you can tell the person you wish to help
to run the 'Connect to Remote Help' shortcut or to run the requesthelp executable. They will need to enter your
IP and port in the form IP:PORT e.g. '1.2.3.4:80'. Once they have done this their copy of SimpleDesktop will establish
a backwards to connection to you and you will have full control over their computer.
2.3 - SubPanels
SimpleDesktop has a very configurable user interface to let you choose what is best for you. All the panels and menus you see on SimpleDesktop can be flipped on and off (see View menu) both in windowed mode and full screen mode (where the panels are all off by default). In addition to the View menu buttons, you can use the keys F1, F2 and F3 to quickly flip the panels on and off.
2.4 - Chat and Whiteboard
Some common uses for SimpleDesktop are multi-user demonstrations (where multiple users connect and one user demonstrates something on the computer) and remote administration (where one user is administering the remote computer but may wish to demonstrate to the user what they are doing). In both of these cases, communication between the local user (you) and the remote user (them) are important. To make communicating easy, SimpleDesktop has a multi-user chat function where any users connected to the same server (including the user of the server itself) can chat with any other user, and a whiteboard function where any user may draw on the remote screen to illlustrate what they are doing.
Chatting to another user couldn't be easier. The right hand panel of SimpleDesktop has a thin text entry strip at the bottom where you can type in any message and hit return (enter) to post it. The area immediately above will show messages from all users as they are posted.
To use the whiteboard facility in SimpleDesktop, select the whiteboard tab in the right-hand panel. The buttons down the side of the mini-whiteboard are as follows:
- Trashcan - clear the whiteboard
- Screen Whiteboard - whether to make the whole screen a whiteboard
- Pen Size - the size of the pen you draw with (click to cycle)
- Pen Color - the color you draw with (click to change)
- Eraser Color - the color you erase with (click to change)
To draw on the whiteboard, simply left-click and drag the mouse around the mini-whiteboard area. To erase parts of the whiteboard simply right-click and drag the mouse around.
Drawing to the mini-whiteboard is useful but the best use can be had from the whiteboard in overlaying it on the screen area. By using the 'Screen Whiteboard' button, you can flip on and off making the whole screen area a whiteboard to draw on. This allows you to draw on any part of the screen, highlighting buttons or text for other users or to see highlights and drawings from other users in relation to the remote screen yourself.
TIP: remember to turn off whiteboard overlay when you want to use the mouse with the remote computer again.
2.5 - Full Screen Mode
To really feel like you're there at the other computer, you need to see the whole desktop in place of your desktop. SimpleDesktop provides a facility called 'Full Screen Mode' (see View menu) which allows you to do this. Should you wish to flip between full screen and windowed mode, simple press F12.
2.6 - HTTP Proxy
A common use for SimpleDesktop is to connect to a machine at home, from work. In an ideal world, everyone would have all the access they need to do the things they want but a common restriction for organisations is to restrict their users internet access to HTTP web pages only. Fortunately, SimpleDesktop can pretend to be a HTTP web browser, looking at web page, when in fact it is doing anything but. To get SimpleDesktop to use an HTTP proxy, simply enter the hostname or IP address of the HTTP proxy and the port it uses into the HTTP Proxy area of the New Connection window. If you are not sure what your HTTP proxy settings are, you can often find them out from your web browser's settings.
2.7 - Tuning and Optimizing SimpleDesktop
SimpleDesktop has various settings which can make it run faster or slower depending primarily on the speed the remote computer and the speed of the connection you have to it. There main tuning parameter is Filtering. It isn't necessary to understand what it does but it is often a good idea to play around to get best results.
To make this even easier, SimpleDesktop provides a connection auto-tuning wizard that works out the best settings for you. You can run this manually from the Tools menu or you can have SimpleDesktop run it automatically every time you connect to a particular site by checking the 'Auto Optimize Connection' box in the new connection dialog (TIP: remember to save the site after you check the box).
SimpleDesktop needs to gather information to tune your connection to the best setting so while it's tuning your connection it will display a dialog with a progress bar.
2.8 - Filtering
When SimpleDesktop captures a remote screen, it doesn't simply send back everything it sees. Instead, it breaks the screen up into chunks and sends back only the chunks that have changed. This is known as filtering. Depending on the speed of your connection to the remote computer it may be faster to use larger or smaller filtering chunks. If your connection is fast (e.g. LAN) it may be faster to send unchanged data instead of spend time figuring out it has changed. If your connection is slow (e.g. Dialup) the the reverse is true. See the Tuning section for more information on how to change Filtering to get best results.
2.9 - Clipboard Transfer
When you copy some text or some files on your computer, they are stored in what is known as the 'Clipboard'. This is a common area all applications have access to which allows applications to easily share data. If you want to quickly copy some text or a bunch of files from the remote computer then the quickest way to do this is simple to Copy them on the remote computer (usually right-click and select 'Copy') and the get SimpleDesktop to transfer the Clipboard (see Options menu).
2.10 - File Transfer
If you want to transfer a lot of files between your computer and the remote computer, SimpleDesktop has a File Transfer mode to let you do this. To switch to the File Transfer mode, select 'File Transfer Mode' from the View menu.
If at any point you want to go back to the remote computer screen, just select 'Remote Screen Mode' from the View menu. To transfer files simply navigate the directory structure on the local side (top) and the remote side (bottom) or type in the path to the folders, then select some files and use the 'Put' and 'Get' buttons to transfer them. You can also delete local or remote files by selecting the files and pressing the 'Delete' button.
File transfers that are moving files from your computer to the remote computer are known as Uploads (Put) and file transfers that are moving files from the remote computer to your computer are known as Downloads (Get). By default, SimpleDesktop will turn off remote screen updates while you're in the Remote File Transfer mode, this helps to speed up file transfers and make navigation more responsive. However, if you wish, you can turn them back on at any time by selecting 'Enable Screen Updates' from the View menu.
2.11 - Scaling
Sometimes when you connect to a remote computer you just want to monitor what's going on and you don't care about the details. For these situations, SimpleDesktop provides a scaled screen facility (see Scaling menu) where the screen can be made to 1/2 or 1/4 size. Along with the advantage of seeing the whole remote screen in a smaller window, screen updates will also be faster because there is less information to send.
© Copyright 2004 Moog Software