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ScreenSharingMenulet

connect to local, Back to My Mac and custom hosts via Screen Sharing from the menu bar

 

 

Starting with version 2.5 ScreenSharingMenulet is available only on the Mac App Store

 

Minimum Requirements:

• Intel Mac
• Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later

 

Features:

• Real-time search for available local and Back to My Mac hosts.
• Option to create custom non-local hosts with host, displayed name and port.
• Option to display custom hosts inline or in a submenu.
• Optional display of Back to My Mac hosts and local IP addresses.
• Optional disable the Bonjour browser.
• AppleScript support.
• Export/Import of custom hosts.
• Retina display support.
• Wake On Lan (WoL) for custom hosts.
• German, Dutch, French and Swedish localization.

How to use:

• Just select one of the displayed hosts to connect via Screen Sharing.
• Create custom hosts in the pane "My Computers" of the preference panel and choose them from a submenu (or optional from the main menu).
• Enable WoL in the pane "My Computers". A valid hardware address (primary Ethernet MAC-Address, format 11:22:33:44:55:66) must be specified.
• You can add ScreenSharingMenulet to the login items in the preference panel.

Hint:

If you want to connect temporarily to a shared host, create a new entry in the preference panel leaving the host field blank.
In this case the "Connect to Shared Computer" dialog box of Screen Sharing.app will open.

Notification Center:

By default the bonjour hosts are not shown in Notification Center when ScreenSharingMenulet is launching or the bonjour browser is restarting.
If you want to be notified about all bonjour host changes, type in Terminal.app

defaults write com.klieme.ScreenSharingMenulet SkipBonjourNotificationOnRestart -bool NO

Wake On Lan:

As sleeping hosts don't appear in the local hosts section, WoL is available only for custom hosts.
Automatically detected hosts in the local hosts section can be added to the custom hosts by selecting the menu item while pressing the option-key.
After sending the WoL packet the connection can take some time, ScreenSharingMenulet waits for the notification when the target host is awake.

Note: On pre Snow Leopard systems WoL works only on wired computers.
See the article About Wake on Demand to enable Wake on Demand in Snow Leopard.

AppleScript example:

tell application "ScreenSharingMenulet"

   set newService to make new custom service at end of custom services with properties {host:"111.222.333.444", name:"MyHost", port:5900}

   connect to newService

end tell



Known Problems:

The connection to Back to My Mac hosts is not reliable. It depends on router hardware and firewall settings.
Even if the password is correct an error message could occur. It has been tested with Apple Time Capsule and Apple Airport Express base stations.

Version Compatibility:

• ScreenSharingMenulet 1.7.1 and higher is compatible to Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard.
• ScreenSharingMenulet 2.2 and higher is compatible to Mac OS 10.7 Lion and Mac OS 10.8 Mountain Lion.

Private Poclicy

Version History:

2.8 (Januar 3, 2015)
• Added an option to hide the About / Preferences Menu.
• Removed obsolte artwork by using template images.
• Minor improvements.

2.7.1 (November 12, 2014)
• Improved artwork for the menu bar icon in Yosemite.
• The port numbers in preferences are displayed correctly (without thousand separator).

2.7 (October 28, 2014)
• Yosemite support.
• Considers dark mode.
• Bonjour hosts are sorted alphabetically depending on localization.
• IP addresses of bonjour hosts are updated dynamically.

2.6 (November 6, 2013)
• Fixes the "Add to login items" issue.
• The bonjour browser will be restarted when the network interface changes.
• Appearance of bonjour hosts can be shown in Notification Center.

2.5.3 (March 25, 2013)
• Adds the feature to export / import custom hosts.

2.5.2 (January 11, 2013)
• Fixes a problem in Snow Leopard which prevented the connection.

2.5.1 (December 14, 2012)
• Avoids the "Connect to Shared Computers" dialog box.
• Adds an entitlement to be able to send Apple Events to Screen Sharing.app.
• Considers the current AppleScript considering/ignoring state (case and diacriticals).
• Fixes a wrong MAC address separator (dot instead of colon) which caused an AppleScript error.
• Minor bug fixes regarding scriptability.

2.5 (November 13, 2012)
• Now available on Mac App Store.
• Retina display support.
• Option to display "My Computers" inline or in a submenu.
• Option to disable the Bonjour browser.
• AppleScript support.
• PowerPC support dropped.

2.2 (September 13, 2010)
• Adds copy and paste capability in the My Computers table view.
• Adds functionality to wake up local hosts via Wake On Lan (WoL).

2.1.3 (September 2, 2010)
• Prevents ScreenSharingMenulet from crashing if the local host name is not defined.

2.1.2 (July 29, 2010)
• Swedish localization by Pär Boberg.
• Fixed a problem with the updater.

2.1.1 (April 16, 2010)
• 64 bit support for Intel based computers.

2.1 (April 14, 2010)
• More sophisticated preference panel.
• Improved option to create custom hosts.
• Sparkle Framework added for update management, thanks to Andy Matuschak
• Dutch localization by Maarten Foukhar.
• French localization by Ange.

2.0 (March 14, 2010)
• Displays Back to My Mac hosts (optional).
• Preference panel added.
• Scanning network service runs completely in background.
• Fixed a problem, which causes the application to hang at launch time.
• The Recent Hosts submenu is left out.

1.8.1 (September 6, 2009)
• ScreenSharingMenulet will no longer crash after using version 1.7 and then having upgraded to Snow Leopard.

1.8 (September 5, 2009)
• Custom hosts can be added.
• New submenu "My Computers".

1.7.1 (August 30, 2009)
• Minor changes for Snow Leopard compatibility.

1.7 (July 23, 2009)
• Monitors now the proper service: Remote Frame Buffer.

1.6 (June 18, 2009)
• Static mode: the local host list will be created immediately at launch time or after wake up.

1.5 (June 3, 2009)
• The ARD and AFP host lists are merged.
• The local host list is sorted by name.

1.4 (April 13, 2009)
• Recent hosts submenu added.
• Non-local hosts will be displayed, if the Bonjour browser is enabled in Screen Sharing.app.

1.3 (April 3, 2009)
• Airport Base Stations, which are accessible via AFP, are no longer displayed.

1.2 (April 2, 2009)
• Recognizes also hosts over Apple Remote Desktop.

1.1 (March 18, 2009)
• Updates menu instantly, when hosts appear or disappear.
• Fixed a major problem, if host names contain special characters.

1.0 (March 17, 2009)
• Initial release.

© 2009 Stefan Klieme (e-mail: stefan@klieme.com)

This program is distributed "as is" in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY

Screen Sharing is a part of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard by Apple Inc.