Inside OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: Screen Sharing adds drag and drop file transfers
Remote Screen Sharing is enhanced in this summer's release of OS X Mountain Lion, adding support for drag and drop file transfers between the viewer and the remote desktop and enhancing support for virtual displays.
Screen Sharing, a remote access feature Apple first added to OS X 10.5 Leopard to enable viewing or controlling another Mac's desktop, is gaining a feature from Apple Remote Desktop: the ability to drag files from the local desktop into a remote session.
After connecting to a remote host, the local user can now drag files to the desktop, or target a specific app, invoking Exposé to, for example, drag an image file to a Pages document, select the window of the desired document, and place the graphic in the document.
Screen Sharing 1.4 in Mountain Lion now defaults to show a menu bar of text only items, presenting Control Mode, Scaling Mode, Capture Screen and the options to show the Shared Clipboard, Get Clipboard of the remote host, or Send Clipboard to the remote host. The toolbar is still configurable, so you can opt to show icons (the default settings in today's Lion) or show no toolbar at all.
Below, a remote connection to a Mac displaying Launchpad is depicted in the default settings of Mountain Lion's Screen Sharing feature (which can be initiated from the Finder by selecting another Mac on the network and asking to share its screen).
When copying a file, Screen Sharing shows a File Transfer window similar to Safari downloads or Messages file transfers.
When connecting to a remote host, via the Finder, Messages or by IP address using the VNC protocol, Screen Sharing allows you to login as a local user, via Apple ID, or by requesting access form the remote user.
Mountain Lion also enhances the ability to view a "virtual display," or the ability to log in as a different user than the one actually logged into the remote host. When connecting to a remote system as a user other than the one currently logged into the system, the remote user is prompted to "ask to share the display" or to "connect to a virtual display," which shows an alternative desktop.
As with today's OS X 10.7 Lion, as AppleInsider exclusively reported last March, users can switch between the virtual display and the "hardware display," or what's actually being shown on the remote system's screen.
[ View article on AppleInsider ]
Comments
Like if I wanted to buy a couple of 27" iMacs, extend my main desktop to them and then use then pu them into a render farm?
Mountain Lion also enhances the ability to view a "virtual display," or the ability to log in as a different user than the one actually logged into the remote host. When connecting to a remote system as a user other than the one currently logged into the system, the remote user is prompted to "ask to share the display" or to "connect to a virtual display,"...
Umm, hello? Lion has done this from day one, not that it has ever worked well.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost...2&postcount=15
Wait, so "virtual display" would allow me to use my networked machines as an extended desktop?
Like if I wanted to buy a couple of 27" iMacs, extend my main desktop to them and then use then pu them into a render farm?
I don’t think that’s what this is for (although there are apps like that; I use one that makes my iPad be a third monitor).
The “virtual display” means that someone is sitting at a Mac using it already; then you remotely connect to that Mac, but instead of seeing the ACTUAL display (what that person is doing) it creates a new display just for you, logged into your own account. Two people using their own accounts/desktops/files, simultaneously, on a single Mac--not seeing each other’s work, only their own.
It’s like using one Mac as two. (You do need a computer to connect FROM as well, but it doesn’t have all your stuff on it, it’s just a window onto the shared Mac.)
Umm, hello? Lion has done this from day one, not that it has ever worked well.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost...2&postcount=15
Well, I suppose the article did say “enhances the ability” rather than “introduces a new ability."
(Maybe this is already possible with Screen Sharing in Lion or earlier, but having done some searching, I haven't come across the method.)
I use Screen Sharing a lot, I love these new features.
If you use screen sharing a lot you should invest in Apple's Remote Desktop 3.5. Drag-and-drop has been a feature for years.
... os x development since snow leopard has been an embarrassment and these kind of articles unwittingly only serve to emphasize this...
My only motive to move to Lion is to enable all the features of iCloud.
MobileMe still serves me well for now (and SL), but the clock is ticking.
Mountain Lion's feature set is giving me much more incentive to clean up my machine for the update.
I use Screen Sharing daily, as I have an older machine with no monitor that I access from my MacBook Pro.
Drag n Drop is something I have wished for.
I wonder if the remote machine needs to be running ML for Drag n Drop to work? My older machine is a G5, so it cannot be upgraded.
My only motive to move to Lion is to enable all the features of iCloud.
MobileMe still serves me well for now (and SL), but the clock is ticking.
I know June it getting close. I am using Lion now but still haven't tried iCloud since I use iDisk a lot.
Not a new feature, but polished enhancements to an existing feature. When I activate screen sharing from within iChat, it's been possible to drag and drop files since at least Leopard.
Really? I've never been able to do that.
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Colin
Is Apple finally going to implement native resolution support or still sticking with VNC? (as in when you log in remotely, the screen resolution changes to the resolution of the device you are logging from?)