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Mac 101: Add Screen Sharing folder to Dock for quick access

by TJ Luoma Oct 18th 2009 at 3:00PM

More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users.

This is really two tips in one. The first is a fairly basic one that new Mac users might not know: you can drag any folder to the right-hand side your dock (to the right of the faint-white lines which separate the Trash from applications). When you first set up an account, the Applications, Documents, and Downloads folders are already there.

The second is a "news to me" tip: did you know that when you connect via screensharing to different Macs, a file is created in your home directory at ~/Library/Application Support/Screen Sharing/?

These files can be used to reconnect to those machines simply by clicking on them. This means that you can launch Screen Sharing without having to switch to Finder, locate the machine, and then click the "Screen Share..." button. If you screen share to a different Mac, the .vncloc file will automatically be added to that folder. Just drag the folder of Screen Sharing shortcuts to your dock to make it into an easily-accessible Stack.

Using the Finder does have one advantage: if a computer is not available (if it's powered off or asleep) it will automatically disappear from the "Shared" section in Finder. The files in the Screen Sharing folder will still be there, so if you are having trouble connecting, you might check Finder to make sure that it still "sees" the computer you are trying to reach.

Henrik Nyh also suggested putting VNC shortcuts in a Stack in the dock, and he adds the notion of picking some suitable icons for them. Check out his rundown here.



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More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users. This is really two tips in one. The first is a fairly basic one that new...
 

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Sam

Simple video instructions without all the words :-P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47-EZFJ5wRs&fmt=22

November 06 2009 at 7:11 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Peter Ent

Question #1: Suppose you are doing an iChat screen share. You've started your session with someone by using iChat. Now that you are done screen sharing, how do you end the screen share and return to normal iChat (text or video)? The only way I can figure out is to quit the iChat session completely and re-establish contact. This isn't always quite the best thing when the other person is a Mac newbie.

Question #2: What options does a PC user have to doing a video chat with a Mac user using iChat?

October 26 2009 at 1:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mech

I can't locate the folder, in either /Library or ~/Library. Is there another place? I'm on 10.5.8.


October 19 2009 at 3:36 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to mech's comment
jason mark

not there for me either, but the URL tip in Safari works great.

October 23 2009 at 8:52 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Moshe

Thanks! found it, works great!

October 19 2009 at 10:12 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Moshe

I use Snow Leopard 10.6.1 and connect 3 computers over the LAN/Wifi. I can't find this folder (Spotlight doesnt find it either).

any solution?

Thanks!

October 18 2009 at 10:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Moshe's comment
jbrown510

~/Library/Application Support/Screen Sharing/
is
/Users/Your User Name/Library/Application Support/Screen Sharing/

Alternatively, if you use the Go To Folder command, it'll take the ~/Library/App... format.

...It can get a bit confusing with so many /Library folders.... Spotlight won't find it, App Support isn't indexed or search by Spotlight.

October 18 2009 at 11:45 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
GroundFighter

I simply made Safari shortcuts to them, too me much easier and easy to manage with MobileMe and Safari bookmarks snycs with all my Macs. In the form of vnc://24.xxx.xxx.xxx

October 18 2009 at 10:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jbrown510

Does anyone know if you can modify the .vncloc files using a plist editor to trigger options in screen sharing?

Specifically I'm wondering if I can get one vncloc to launch and open "Scaling ON" and another one "Scaling OFF"? ...similarly "Full Quality" vs " Adaptive quality?

...finally there were all kinds of awesome hidden ARD options that could be enabled in 10.5.X screen sharing by tweaking the pref file, which don't seem to work with 10.6, anyway to enable those?

October 18 2009 at 6:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to jbrown510's comment
jbrown510

FWIW, the tweaks I was refering to above are discussed here:
http://www.9to5mac.com/apple-screen-sharing-preferences-hacked-34265477?page=1

October 18 2009 at 6:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Roberto

OSX screen sharing uses VNC? For real?
I thought that Apple would emulate the X-via-SSH model that is so commonplace among UNIX users. Quartz over SSH would be orders of magnitude less bandwidth intensive, and way faster.

October 18 2009 at 4:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Roberto's comment
jbrown510

OSX Screen Sharing app CAN function as a VNC viewer, although it has fewer options than when connecting to a Mac with the ARD protocol.

October 18 2009 at 6:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
moyse

Are you sure that's true? I find it far quicker to vnc into a linux box rather then use remote X. There are graphical glitches doing it this way (compression artefacts etc) so I tend to use X if I'm at work, but from home vnc is the only thing that's bearable.

I think X is extremely bandwidth intensive.

And incidentally, however Apple does it the native VNC client is incredibly quick - quicker than any other VNC apps I've tried.

October 19 2009 at 5:41 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
robogobo

no such folder for me.

October 18 2009 at 3:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to robogobo's comment
Chroma

me too, I'm using Leopard still, not SL.

October 18 2009 at 6:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
TJ Luoma

I have been able to get the files to have the new icons building on the technique Henrik Nyh shared, but they do not appear in the stack. It is possible that this does not work under Snow Leopard.

And yes we covered Screen Sharing Menulet last month:

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/09/20/screensharingmenulet-fills-a-screen-sharing-gap

October 18 2009 at 3:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to TJ Luoma's comment
jbrown510

Screen sharing under SL defintely has some different hooks than under 10.5. My short cuts stopped working, bonjour browser can't be hacked in, etc... I've seen a couple ways to make screen sharing shortcuts now, using a bookmark dragged from safari, vncloc files, and a plist. For all I know they are all acutally the same thing with different file types.

I do like the idea of putting them all in a spring loaded folder, I only have 3 but they take up a lot of dock space.

I wonder if I can make a shortcut to mount that shared SMB drive that refuses to show up in finder like it's supposed to.... That'd be nice to have in that folder too.

October 18 2009 at 4:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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