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Add More Functionality to Leopard's Screen Sharing
Posted by Adam Pash at 5:00 AM on December 18, 2007
Macworld has discovered that there's a lot more functionality hidden in Leopard's new Screen Sharing application (yes, it's actually just a normal application and not some obscure service), and unlocking it is just a matter of a couple of simple Terminal commands. First, you'll want to find the Screen Sharing app in /System/Library/CoreServices and drag it into your Dock or copy it to your Applications folder for easier access. Once you do that, fire up Terminal and enter the following (one-line) command, which will provide easy-to-read shortcuts for connecting to any local computer:
defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing ShowBonjourBrowser_Debug 1
Just copy and paste:
defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing \
'NSToolbar Configuration ControlToolbar' -dict-add 'TB Item Identifiers' \
'(Scale,Control,Share,Curtain,Capture,FullScreen,GetClipboard,SendClipboard,Quality)'If you're having trouble with Screen Sharing in Leopard, make sure you've enabled Screen Sharing with Leopard's simplified networking, and don't forget about how easy tech support and document collaboration can be with the new iChat.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
rockstarjoe
Posted 2:21 PM 17/12/07
Wow, awesome tip. After doing this, is there any reason to still buy Remote Desktop? Seems like this covers a whole lot of the same functionality! (note: I do not yet own leopard).
rockstarjoe
luomat
Posted 2:11 PM 17/12/07
You really, really don't want to copy Screen Sharing to your /Applications folder. You can make a link/alias there if you want but don't copy it.
If you do you'll likely miss out on whatever improvements come in the future, as you'll be launching the old version from /Applications/
Dragging it to your Dock is ok.
Why not just launch it via QuickSilver? ("ss" is all it takes for me now :-)
luomat
ahawks
Posted 3:07 PM 17/12/07
Semi-OT, but is there a decent VNC viewer for OSX? All I could find was "chicken of the VNC", and it ... well, it doesn't work that great. It sends events, but rarely retrieves window updates.
ahawks
jld
Posted 2:43 PM 17/12/07
Depends on what you'd use Apple Remote Desktop for, but it has tons more reporting, control, and installation features. It's a godsend for me, and while the the screen sharing is a nice feature, it wouldn't ever replace ARD for me.
jld
somepocho
Posted 4:44 PM 17/12/07
One of the more simple ways to use the built-in VNC viewer in Mac OS X is from the finder. From the pull down menu, click on Go To -> Connect To Server. In the URI box, type vnc://someiporfqdn and then press the enter key. From the keyboard, apple + K does the trick.
I don't have my mac in front of me right now :(
HTH
somepocho
andrewd2
Posted 7:47 AM 18/12/07
I can't get the toolbar to show up using the snippet of code. Any suggestions? I tried copying line by line, plus maintain the spaces, but no luck.
andrewd2
sebf
Posted 1:53 PM 18/12/07
Now all I need to know is how to get quality/compression working with other VNC apps eg UltraVNC/RealVNC.
Any suggestions?
sebf