Chapter 14

SHARE

Overview

With SHARE, everyone in the conference can simultaneously participate in editing a CAD drawing, revising a document, or making changes to a spreadsheet. Using SHARE is like having several keyboards and monitors hooked up to the same machine.

This chapter discusses the following:

Requirements for SHARE

A SHARE license key is required to SHARE local applications to other conference members.

No SHARE license key is required to receive SHAREd applications.

SHAREing Applications with Others

The SHARE interface

Only machines running Communique! and properly licensed for SHARE are able to SHARE applications to other conference members. You must already be an active member of a conference to initiate application sharing. No restriction is placed on to who you SHARE your applications with.

To access SHARE, click on the SHARE icon in the Conference Manager. The SHARE window appears.

The top section of the panel lists any conference members with whom you are currently SHAREing applications. The bottom of the panel lists the applications you are SHAREing. You can scroll through long lists with the scroll bars to the right of the list.

SHAREing Applications

1. Select SHARE from the Application menu.

The SHARE an Application window appears.

2. Enter the application’s name.

If the application you wish to SHARE is not in your search path, a fully qualified path must be entered.

3. Enter any necessary arguments in the Arguments field.

4. Click SHARE Application.

A notification window appears.

5. Click OK in the notification window, dismissing it.

Your pointer becomes a labeled SHARE pointer, which looks like a pointing finger.

6. Click on the application window you wish to SHARE.

Almost any X-based application can be SHAREd. Some applications are character or line-based, however, and do not create independent display windows. To SHARE such applications, SHARE an xterm with other conference members and launch your application from the terminal. Refer to "SHARE Limitations" in this chapter for further usage restrictions.

UnSHAREing an Application

When the conference members are finished using a SHAREd application, the application can be exited in two ways:

Using an Application SHAREd by Others

Using an application SHAREd to you by another conference member is no different than using the application normally. The application acts as if it were running locally on your machine. However, others in the conference see exactly what you are seeing with one exception: each conference member sees only his or her mouse pointer. You cannot see a remote user’s pointer, although any changes made to the display are shown throughout the conference.

Care should be taken when making changes or selections, because another user may be attempting an action at that same moment. You may want to announce your intentions to the conference members ahead of time. For example, you could tell other conference members, "I’m going to delete the 1992 column of the spreadsheet." Announcing your actions is an excellent habit to develop for avoiding conflicts.

When you are using an application SHAREd by others, the windows are synchronized so that everyone’s SHAREd windows move together. If a SHAREd window seems to jump from place to place, this indicates that another conference member has changed the window’s location.

SHARE Preferences

SHARE has two preference settings:

Blind Sharing

Toggle this switch to On if you want to SHARE applications with conference members without a SHARE Plugin.

Conference members without a SHARE Plugin must enter the following command on the command line to receive SHAREd applications:

xhost +

Display Number

The X-windows pseudoserver used by SHARE must be tied to a port. This port is defined as a display. The console of a machine is typically assigned a display number (or port) of 0, leaving the pseudoserver to take the next available display of 1.

Rarely does the Display Number need to be changed from 1. Only if multiple people are running SHARE on the same host will a different, distinct Display Number need to be specified.

SHAREd Limitations

Currently, each SHARE server can SHARE a single application to the conference. The conference itself can SHARE multiple applications, but each user is limited to owning only one application.

No form of access control is currently implemented. SHARE offers SHAREd applications to all members, and all conference members have equal power to edit and close SHAREd applications.

Since SHAREd applications will use your system’s colormap, they may not appear in the correct colors to remote users. You can minimize these color differences by running Communique! in a private colormap. Also, if the application being shared can be run in a private color map, the correct colors will appear on the remote system.

Applications that background themselves automatically can not be SHAREd.

When SHAREing between systems using widely different font schemes, startup of the SHAREd application may fail or be delayed if no matching fonts are located.

Because SHARE is for use with X-windows applications, any graphical application not fully based in X cannot be SHAREd. Applications based on the following display and windowing technologies are incompatible with SHARE:

SunView®

NeWS®

Phigs®

Display Postscript®

XGL

XView

Programs using direct graphics access

You cannot SHARE applications to a user running on a PC system.

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