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VNC Viewer for Macintosh

Beta 2 -7/6/99
Beta 1 - 16/7/98 .

Note. This is a beta release. As with all VNC software, you use at your own risk!  We welcome bugfixes/ comments.

Requirements:

To use the Macintosh VNCviewer, you will need:
  • MacOS 7.1 or greater,
  • the Threads Manager,
  • and Open Transport (1.1.1 or later) or MacTCP, though OT will work much better.

Introduction:

Use of the Mac viewer should be straightforward if you are familiar with the concepts behind VNC, and have a suitable VNC server running on another machine.  Read 'What is VNC?' and 'Getting Started' on the VNC web site if you haven't already done so - they'll give you a good overview, despite being Unix and Windows-orientated.

On starting the program, you are presented with a dialog box requesting the server name and display number. Type, eg. 'snoopy:0', or select a recent connection from the pull-down list. You can type a dotted IP address in place of the name, eg: '192.168.1.3:0'. Note the display number is NOT normally the TCP/IP port number. You can also pop up a list of options, the important ones are:

     
  • Share desktop

    • When you make a connection to a VNC server, all other existing connections are normally closed.  This option requests that they be left open, allowing you to share the desktop with someone already using it.
  • Allow only 8-bit encoding

    • This forces the viewer to request simple 8-bit true-colour (BGR233) from the server regardless of local or remote pixel depth, which can reduce network traffic.  Useful over modems.
  • View only

    • In View-only mode, no mouse or keyboard events will be sent back to the server. This is useful for teaching sessions or other situations where you want to observe but don't want to interfere.
  • Scale desktop to window

    • This scales the remote display to fit the local window.  This is a bit rough at present, but may be useful in certain circumstances.
If the connection is successful, you will be asked for your password, after which the remote desktop should appear.  The File.. menu will allow you to start new sessions.   The Connections menu lists open connections, along with icons representing their current status.  See the 'Symbol Reference' option on the Apple menu for a description of these icons.
 

Mouse Buttons (new for Beta 2)

As the Mac mouse (usually) only has one button, some mechanism is needed to transmit left and middle combinations. Pressing command + n will toggle the use of button n. The current status of the button toggles is shown on the title bar of each connection. Initially the only toggle set is button 1. This means when the mouse is clicked a button 1 click event is sent. If you wanted to send a button 2 click you would turn off button 1 (via command + 1) then turn on button 2 (via command + 2) then click the mouse. To return to normal (button 1) use you'd need to untoggle button 2 (command + 2) and retoggle button 1. In this way all 8 combinations of 3 button superpositions can be sent. Admittedly this is a bit long winded if you only want to send a button 3 click (as you would for pasting in Unix) so command + 4 and command + 5 are set to send a single click for buttons 2 and 3 respectivly.

So, to summarise,
 

Command + 1 Toggle use of button 1
Commnad + 2 Toggle use of button 2
Command + 3 Toggle use of button 3
Command + 4 Send single button 2 click
Command + 5  Send single button 3 click

Other modifier keys will work as normal so contol shift or alt dragging can be done with any combination of mouse buttons.

Other features:

Keeping your finger on the Propeller key (sometimes called the Command key) when starting off brings up the extra preferences box.
  • Enable Logging - will trigger the production of log files
  • Kill Preferences - Delete the preferences file and prevent this session's preferences being recorded.  The only thing currently stored in the preferences file is the list of recent connections.

Known Issues:

The "Scale to window" option is not pixel perfect, causing some redraws to be offset by one pixel. This causes a ripple effect as the mouse moves about. This option also does not preserve aspect ratio.

The 'enter password' dialog has been implemented at the expense of thread harmony.  Taking a long time to enter the password might slow the program down for a short time after logging in.

Any comments regarding this program should be directed to the VNC mailing list.
 

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For comments, feedback, etc, please see the 'Keeping in touch' page.
Copyright 1999 - AT&T Laboratories Cambridge