When technology totally gets it right
-
I've been using Windows 10 on an iMac for years with a secondary monitor. This year I've switched to macOS as my main dev system on the iMac, and the other screen is used for my win11, Ubuntu, Debian or mac mini machine. Lots of juggling. I'm working on the iMac on one file, and on the mac mini on the same file, but a different version. I was wishing I could just copy from one to the other, but they are on different machines. Then, without thinking, I copied some text, dragged the cursor from one screen to the other, and then pasted. I totally forgot about macOS Universal control. It was so intuitive I wasn't even aware of what I was doing: it just worked the way I expected it to (but had I thought about it, I would have not expected it to work). I love UI/UX like that. It's like the perfect butler: they are there before you even realise you need them, and then step back once the job is done. But without the whole moral issues thing and all that. I wish we all had the time and resources and mental space to write software that worked like this.
cheers Chris Maunder
-
I've been using Windows 10 on an iMac for years with a secondary monitor. This year I've switched to macOS as my main dev system on the iMac, and the other screen is used for my win11, Ubuntu, Debian or mac mini machine. Lots of juggling. I'm working on the iMac on one file, and on the mac mini on the same file, but a different version. I was wishing I could just copy from one to the other, but they are on different machines. Then, without thinking, I copied some text, dragged the cursor from one screen to the other, and then pasted. I totally forgot about macOS Universal control. It was so intuitive I wasn't even aware of what I was doing: it just worked the way I expected it to (but had I thought about it, I would have not expected it to work). I love UI/UX like that. It's like the perfect butler: they are there before you even realise you need them, and then step back once the job is done. But without the whole moral issues thing and all that. I wish we all had the time and resources and mental space to write software that worked like this.
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote:
I wish we all had the time and resources and mental space to write software that worked like this.
It's been my experience that companies will spend hundreds of thousands so people can argue over a text box for months and call that innovation. :laugh:
Jeremy Falcon
-
I've been using Windows 10 on an iMac for years with a secondary monitor. This year I've switched to macOS as my main dev system on the iMac, and the other screen is used for my win11, Ubuntu, Debian or mac mini machine. Lots of juggling. I'm working on the iMac on one file, and on the mac mini on the same file, but a different version. I was wishing I could just copy from one to the other, but they are on different machines. Then, without thinking, I copied some text, dragged the cursor from one screen to the other, and then pasted. I totally forgot about macOS Universal control. It was so intuitive I wasn't even aware of what I was doing: it just worked the way I expected it to (but had I thought about it, I would have not expected it to work). I love UI/UX like that. It's like the perfect butler: they are there before you even realise you need them, and then step back once the job is done. But without the whole moral issues thing and all that. I wish we all had the time and resources and mental space to write software that worked like this.
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote:
I was wishing I could just copy from one to the other, but they are on different machines. Then, without thinking, I copied some text, dragged the cursor from one screen to the other, and then pasted.
It came with the Logitech mouse drivers, maybe four or five years ago. I never worked with "i" stuff, but if I remember the documentation right, it worked across OSes. I never saw a standard protocol for cut & paste across internet - maybe it exists, maybe it even existed then. Most likely, Logitech devised its proprietary cut & paste protocol between its drivers. They are just talking to themselves, need not relate to other mice or OSes (except that the mouse driver will have to know how to do both copy and paste on the local system - but if you write a driver for an OS, you are likely to know that!), so there really isn't that much need for a world standard protocol.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
-
I've been using Windows 10 on an iMac for years with a secondary monitor. This year I've switched to macOS as my main dev system on the iMac, and the other screen is used for my win11, Ubuntu, Debian or mac mini machine. Lots of juggling. I'm working on the iMac on one file, and on the mac mini on the same file, but a different version. I was wishing I could just copy from one to the other, but they are on different machines. Then, without thinking, I copied some text, dragged the cursor from one screen to the other, and then pasted. I totally forgot about macOS Universal control. It was so intuitive I wasn't even aware of what I was doing: it just worked the way I expected it to (but had I thought about it, I would have not expected it to work). I love UI/UX like that. It's like the perfect butler: they are there before you even realise you need them, and then step back once the job is done. But without the whole moral issues thing and all that. I wish we all had the time and resources and mental space to write software that worked like this.
cheers Chris Maunder
Sort of like Synergy? [Synergy - Share one mouse & keyboard across computers](https://symless.com/synergy) Although that's sort of the other way around, perhaps being best described as a software KVM switch, that allowed you to cut & paste between systems. Maybe drag-and-drop, too. It's been a long time since I used it, but your description of rang a bell for me. So, if you're looking for something to do this, and you have windows/mac/linux systems, it might be a solution for you.
"A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants" Chuckles the clown
-
Sort of like Synergy? [Synergy - Share one mouse & keyboard across computers](https://symless.com/synergy) Although that's sort of the other way around, perhaps being best described as a software KVM switch, that allowed you to cut & paste between systems. Maybe drag-and-drop, too. It's been a long time since I used it, but your description of rang a bell for me. So, if you're looking for something to do this, and you have windows/mac/linux systems, it might be a solution for you.
"A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants" Chuckles the clown
I would love to have something like this, Microsoft supports this, but you have to login to the Microsoft ID. I refuse to do so. i have an app in the works...
Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.
-
Sort of like Synergy? [Synergy - Share one mouse & keyboard across computers](https://symless.com/synergy) Although that's sort of the other way around, perhaps being best described as a software KVM switch, that allowed you to cut & paste between systems. Maybe drag-and-drop, too. It's been a long time since I used it, but your description of rang a bell for me. So, if you're looking for something to do this, and you have windows/mac/linux systems, it might be a solution for you.
"A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants" Chuckles the clown
We used to use Synergy in our industrial applications. We had to split the processing load between five different machines and Synergy allowed us to easily control all of them with one keyboard and mouse. Those machines were installed about thirteen years ago. Late last year we replaced all five machines, which were 4U boxes that each had dual six-core Xeons, with a single 2U box that has a single Ryzen 7950X (16 cores) and the performance is more than twice as fast as it used to be. We couldn't find this package commercially so we build them ourselves. Those five old machines cost about 6K each then (30K total) and the new one costs less than 2K in parts. Incidentally, we tried a machine with a 24-core EPYC CPU and another with dual 16-core EPYCs and this Ryzen is faster than both of them. We also used the EPYCs to host a high-powered GPU (A100 or A40) but our problem is so complex that the Ryzen CPU is faster than the GPUs and the CPUs by themselves. Now we use the EPYCs and GPUs for AI training and they work great for that. Technology marches on.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
-
I've been using Windows 10 on an iMac for years with a secondary monitor. This year I've switched to macOS as my main dev system on the iMac, and the other screen is used for my win11, Ubuntu, Debian or mac mini machine. Lots of juggling. I'm working on the iMac on one file, and on the mac mini on the same file, but a different version. I was wishing I could just copy from one to the other, but they are on different machines. Then, without thinking, I copied some text, dragged the cursor from one screen to the other, and then pasted. I totally forgot about macOS Universal control. It was so intuitive I wasn't even aware of what I was doing: it just worked the way I expected it to (but had I thought about it, I would have not expected it to work). I love UI/UX like that. It's like the perfect butler: they are there before you even realise you need them, and then step back once the job is done. But without the whole moral issues thing and all that. I wish we all had the time and resources and mental space to write software that worked like this.
cheers Chris Maunder
[Ditto clipboard manager](https://ditto-cp.sourceforge.io/) can do it, too.
-
Chris Maunder wrote:
I wish we all had the time and resources and mental space to write software that worked like this.
It's been my experience that companies will spend hundreds of thousands so people can argue over a text box for months and call that innovation. :laugh:
Jeremy Falcon
Or spend millions in court aguing over ownership of the shape of a corner!
-
Sort of like Synergy? [Synergy - Share one mouse & keyboard across computers](https://symless.com/synergy) Although that's sort of the other way around, perhaps being best described as a software KVM switch, that allowed you to cut & paste between systems. Maybe drag-and-drop, too. It's been a long time since I used it, but your description of rang a bell for me. So, if you're looking for something to do this, and you have windows/mac/linux systems, it might be a solution for you.
"A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants" Chuckles the clown
I used synergy some years ago across a couple of Windows boxes and a Linux box and I'm sure a Sun box was in the mix somewhere, too - it just worked really well.
-
Sort of like Synergy? [Synergy - Share one mouse & keyboard across computers](https://symless.com/synergy) Although that's sort of the other way around, perhaps being best described as a software KVM switch, that allowed you to cut & paste between systems. Maybe drag-and-drop, too. It's been a long time since I used it, but your description of rang a bell for me. So, if you're looking for something to do this, and you have windows/mac/linux systems, it might be a solution for you.
"A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants" Chuckles the clown
I use Input Director, a very good KVM style tool that has copy/paste among other neat little features. And it is free.