Keyboard Shortcuts during iChat Screen Sharing

ichatkeyboardscreen-sharing

Switching Screens

I was just on an iChat-initiated Screen Sharing session with a friend, and had a really rough time telling him to get off the mouse so I can click back to my computer in order to look some stuff up.

Even when on my computer, as long as screen sharing is still active, the audio chat interface remains, so I can keep talking to him as I look up information he's asking for.

Doing this, while watching his screen, was an aggrivating task. How does one switch back to their computer without asking for mouse access to do so?

Ending the Sharing Session

Are there alternate keyboard shortcuts for ending a screen sharing session? The menu bar lists ^ ⎋ for achieving this (⎋ is the power button on your computer). However, I'm stuck in a really annoying middle ground.

At work, I have a MacBook Pro, plugged into a Cinema display, external keyboard (mini-style/no-numpad style), and magic mouse, and I use my laptop with the lid closed. Thus, I have no power button.

Can I end the session without asking for mouse access?

Best Answer

Are there alternate keyboard shortcuts for ending a screen sharing session? The menu bar lists ^ ⎋ for achieving this (⎋ is the power button on your computer). However, I'm stuck in a really annoying middle ground.

Actually, the symbol that you're referring to references the "Esc" key.

So, by pressing ^ ⎋ (Control-Esc) you can end the Screen Sharing session without asking for control of the mouse.

Related Solutions

Unable to share screen over iChat

Another thing to try is to use Screen Sharing directly. This means:

Turn on Screen Sharing from the Sharing preferences
If the computers aren't on the same network, set up port forwarding for port 5900
Open Screen Sharing from /System/Library/CoreServices/, type in the IP address of the other machine and connect.

Why is Mac-to-Mac screen sharing just hanging

Since the Screen Sharing feature seems to be the only one unable to connect, the best way to diagnose its behavior is by using the application directly.

Please, launch screen sharing located in:

/System/Library/CoreServices/ScreenSharing.app

The application has no visible "UI" so don't expect a fancy Cocoa interface. Instead, once you have loaded it, all you'll see is this "poor" icon in the Dock:

ScreenSharing

Click on it and then go to Preferences in the Mac menu bar. You should be presented with:

sshar preferences

Notice the second option to only encrypt passwords and keystrokes. That's fine, but as you can see, there's no option to skip encryption altogether. Some VNC versions have incompatibilities with encryption, but this would be rather shocking since you're talking about OS X vs OS X.

In any case, once you have the settings like that, try connecting, again, in the menu bar: Connection -> New (or ⌘cmd + N).

A simple dialog appears asking you to enter the Host's name. Following your screenshots, try: 192.168.1.99 and hit enter.

We'll see what happens from here. Also, have the Console.app open on both computers, to see if there are any System messages going on (or anything related).

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