ScreenSharingMenulet is one of my favourite enhancements in Mac OS X. It displays available machines on the network that can be controlled via Mac OS X’s built-in screen sharing functionality (a. ScreenSharingMenulet hits 2.0. Twitter Facebook Reddit Mail. Load More Articles; Sponsored Links. About Engadget About our Ads Advertise Brand Kit Buyers. Copy-paste text into your device. Minimal menubar app that stays out of sight until you need it. You may want to check out more Mac applications, such as Sofortbild, Slink or ScreenSharingMenulet, which might be similar to 1Keyboard. Download 1Keyboard.
‘Tis the season of awards here at Macworld. Earlier this week, we unveiled our 25th annual Editors’ Choice Awards, given to our favorite Mac hardware and software products of the past year. Next week, you’ll see the App Gems, our favorite iPhone apps. So it’s only fitting that I give props to my favorite Mac Gems of the past 12 months.
ScreenSharingMenulet2.2.zip is the default file name to indicate this application's installer. The most popular versions of the application are 2.8, 2.7 and 2.5. Our built-in antivirus scanned this Mac download and rated it as virus free.
These aren’t our all-time favorite Gems (although a few may make our next all-time list), and it’s different from the Gems I’m thankful for (a list of software I personally use every day). Rather, these are the 11 Mac Gems, reviewed between November 1, 2008 and November 1, 2009, that stood out for their usefulness, value, innovation, or overall excellence. A couple were so good that they ended up winning Eddy awards, as well.
Without further ado, the Gems of the Year, in alphabetical order:
Back-In-Time (): Time Machine, Mac OS X’s built-in backup feature, provides peace of mind by automatically backing up your data and, just as important, making it dead-simple to recover lost files or older versions. However, Time Machine’s interface and capabilities are quite limited. Back-In-Time offers an advanced interface for Time Machine, providing many more options for, and much more flexibility when, browsing and recovering files. $29; Tri-Edre.
ClickToFlash (): This must-have Flash-blocking plug-in for Safari makes browsing the Web a much more pleasant experience by letting you decide which Flash content to view on each Website. It can also automatically load the H.264 version of videos on YouTube. We liked ClickToFlash so much, we gave it an Eddy (click for the full writeup). Free; ClickToFlash Team.
Docks (): Utilities for creating and switching between multiple Dock configurations—so you can use different Docks for different groups of tasks, or keep a stock Dock handy for screenshots—have been around for years, but Docks stands out for its ease of use and attractive interface. Alas, the Website of the developer, Thoughtful Tree Software, recently dropped off the ‘net. Hopefully, this is a temporary condition and it will be back online soon. Update: The developer of Docks has told me that the software will be available again by the end of the month. $10; Thoughtful Tree Software.
Growl (): This behind-the-scenes utility provides a systemwide notification service used by many Mac programs and system add-ons. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, more and more of my favorite applications and services take adantage of Growl to provide notifications and updates—I can see when downloads and file transfers have finished, when new messages have arrived, when video conversions have completed, when my laptop’s power cable has been disconnected, and much more. An example of a great use of Growl notifications is HardwareGrowler, which informs you of hardware and network connections and disconnections. Free; Growl Developers.
I Love Stars (): For those who meticulously rate their iTunes media for sorting and for use as criteria in smart playlists, this menubar and keyboard-shortcut utility makes the process simple and convenient—I Love Stars even reminds you, partway through each unrated song, to rate. It’s a niche product, but it’s useful, intuitive, and elegantly implemented—right down to the way its stars “roll off” the menu bar when iTunes playback stops, and roll back on when playback resumes. Free; Potion Factory.
Screen Sharing Menulet
Layers (): This mind-blowing (at the time of release) screenshot utility creates layered Photoshop images—every onscreen item gets its own layer, letting you tweak, move, or delete any item after the fact. You can also filter particular onscreen elements out of your screenshots at the time of capture. For people who work with screenshots, Layers means no more manually moving and hiding windows and icons in order to get the perfect shot, and no more retaking screen captures because you missed something in your preparations. The Eddy-winning Acorn now includes a similar feature, but Layers continues to offer more features and options. $25; Wuonm.
MondoMouse (): MondoMouse is a bit difficult to explain: It lets you move and resize windows, in any program, without having to grab a thin title bar or tiny resize handle. You just move the cursor over the window you want to modify, press your chosen modifier key(s), and then move the mouse; the window moves or resizes with the cursor. (Still not clear? Check out our Macworld Video on MondoMouse.) It may not sound impressive, but once you’ve used it, you’ll never go back to clicking and dragging windows. $15; Atomic Bird.
RipIt (): It’s wrong to copy DVDs you don’t own, but there are plenty of legitimate reasons for ripping DVDs you’ve purchased. RipIt lets you rip those DVDs with a single click of the mouse; you can watch the resulting VIDEO_TS folder on your laptop using DVD Player or convert it to a format playable on your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. There’s no other Mac software out there that can handle as many different discs as RipIt—including the latest movies that can trip up utilities such as HandBrake and MacTheRipper. Like ClickToFlash, above, RipIt is also an Eddy winner. $20; The Little App Factory.
ScreenSharingMenulet (): The Screen Sharing feature in Leopard and Snow Leopard makes it easy to view or control another Mac. However, making screen-sharing connections can be a hassle. ScreenSharingMenulet gives you a systemwide menu that automatically lists any Mac on your local network available for screen sharing, as well as any remote Macs you connect to; just choose a computer from the menu to instantly start a screen-sharing session. Payment requested; Stefan Klieme.
Shimo (): While Snow Leopard’s built-in VPN (virtual private network) client is much better than the one included with older versions of Mac OS X, Shimo is still a big improvement. It supports Cisco and other networks, provides better reliability and more flexibility than the built-in VPN functionality, and offers many automated actions. If you regularly connect to a VPN, you owe it to yourself to give Shimo a try. $21; nexUmoja.
USB Overdrive (): This third-party driver has long provided Mac users with support for otherwise unsupported keyboards, mice, and gaming devices. Remotix for mac. It also provides additional features for many supported accessories. Version 3 added 64-bit support, a revamped user interface, many new actions and settings, and compatibility with even more devices. $20; Alessandro Levi Montalcini.
Updated 12/11/2009, 9:43am: Updated with information about the availability of Docks.
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| Click here to return to the 'Using VNC from the Terminal' hint |
You can do the same from the Finder:
Go->Connect to Server. Or Command-k.
Type in the same 'vnc://..' as above (without the 'open' part). You can save connection shortcuts here also.
And of course, the 'open' command can be used to open anything that LaunchServices can - files, applications, URL's, and optionally specify the app to open them with. Very powerful command - even if this is a bit of an odd use for it.
You can do all you describe, or just go to the Finder (Command-Tab: 2), Connect to Server (Command-K: 4), navigate to your favorite server, and connect (Enter: 5). There - 5 keystrokes from Terminal to connecting, and no aliases or shell machinations, and it works from any app - since you're command-tabbing to the Finder first. It would be much nicer if Screen Sharing.app would bring up your favorite VNC locations when launched from the Dock, but sadly a trip to the Finder is necessary. You could always put those favorites on the Dock as well, but then you'd lose out on keyboard access.
This doesn't work if your VNC server is on a nonstandard port. I serve multiple VMs from one server, so I have to put each on a different port, and I can't access them this way.
I tried 'open vnc://192.168.1.30:9001' to no avail.
Strange. I use a non-standard port when I'm running vnc over an ssh tunnel and that syntax has always worked fine for me.
I know this won't work in all cases, but for the other computers on my home network, there's the even easier built-in way of doing this.
In the finder, in the sidebar, other computers on the network show up under 'Shared', and it's only two clicks to open a screen sharing session. One on the computer in the sidebar, one on the 'share screen' button that subsequently shows up.
I believe that there was some initial setup for this, but now it's just a matter of a couple clicks.
I just type vnc://blah.tld.com into the safari location bar and it launches screen sharing.
..me too. Even better, you can drag the location from the safari location bar and drop it on your desktop to create a convenient shortcut!
Excellent! TVM for the hint. (Just got a Mac Mini, so was looking for a quicker way to launch VNC/Screen Sharing.)
Yep, and you can save them as bookmarks in Safari. I've done that, then use LaunchBar to open them quickly.
don't forget that you can embed the authentication like this
vnc://username:password@ipaddressordomain
if it's a mac that you are remoting into. Setting them up as a shell alias is one way to do it. Storing them in Safari's bookmarks and the authentication in your keychain is another. Since I mostly work graphically and seldom in terminal, I put all my remote control links in a folder in my bookmarks bar. This has the side effect of also making them available on my iPad, and since I have iTeleport on my iPad the links work from there too.
And to the other poster, it is extremely easy to view the contents of the file. Just type
cat file in the terminal. Actually, there's really no need to examine the file anyway, since it has the password in there, anyone who wants to use it just needs to open it (if they are on a Mac). For the more GUI-inclined, try a free utility called Screen Sharing Menulet
http://www.klieme.com/ScreenSharingMenulet.html
It sits in the menu bar and automatically shows any Macs on the local subnet with screen sharing enabled. You can also add other computers by IP address. As a Mac administrator, I find it invaluable for quick remote access for troubleshooting.
I don't remember where I got it from (maybe here on macosxhints?), but here is my favorite solution: just drag the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Screen Sharing to the dock.
(This folder contains a file with extension .vncloc for each machine that you have accessed for screen sharing)
Click once to show the machines you've used Screen Sharing with; click a second time to select the one you want and there you go.
Seriously? 'on OSX'? For one thing, it's 'OS X,' and for another, this is Mac OS X hints, which should imply that anyway.
Screen Sharing Menulet
Quicksilver is dead, long live Quick Search Box: http://code.google.com/p/qsb-mac/
Really? What am I using then?
No need to be a jerk.
As far as I knew, QSB was the successor to QS. Thanks to your snide comment and some searching around on my part, I now know that QS has moved from its long-hosted blacktree location <http://www.blacktree.com/projects/quicksilver.html> and now exists as github project <http://github.com/tiennou/blacktree-alchemy>.
A bugbear of mine about this site is the use of absolute statements based on personal experience or personal preference. I'm sorry, I thought your comment was based on the latter.
<blockquote>just drag the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Screen Sharing to the dock.</blockquote>
Except ~/Library/Application Support/Screen Sharing does not exist on my Mac OS X 10.5.8. Any idea why?
Have you used Screen Sharing to connect to another Mac? The folder is created the first time used.
Thanks Rich,
sure I use it on a daily basis (hence my desire to improve the abysmal poor user interface).
I run on 10.5.8 and the application has not created such a folder. The screen sharing app used to remeber a list of visited serves, but at some point (with some action or update) this disappeared. All I have now is Apple+N to start a small dialog for the server I want to connect to.
I did create such a folder myself and added *.vncloc files with the vnc:// URl in ot but that does not work either.
I'm on 10.5.8 and this does not work.
What works is type vnc://mypc.example.com/ into safari and drag the little icon into a folder in finder. This creates a file named vnc--mypc.example.com.inetloc with some binary content.
If you like you can drag the folder with such *.inetloc shortcuts to the dock in order to show as a fan or grid.
Safari can directly handle vnc:// URIs. Also, you can directly use the Finder (under Go > Connect to server..) to save your vnc:// URIs, where you can optionally store credentials to those vnc servers in your keychain.