Feature request : overview refresh of all thumbnails (G)

[alin_derom]

Dear Support forum,
i don't know if this is the place, but I have a request for the newer versions of "vRD 2010".
In the overview screen there is an automatic refresh for 1 remote connection.
The overview screen is very usefull for having an overview of many systems. Being able to apply the automatic thumbnail refresh on more than 1 thumbnail , and indepenent if it is a local or remote connection, is the request that I ask.
This can be done several ways. For instance a refresh of every thumbnail every 2 seconds. And if there are 10 thumnails, then very thumbnail will be refreshed every 20 seocnds.
Is't just an idea (and is actually what I wanted vRD to do)

[TCH]

Hi,

thanks for your feedback.

First the thumbnail refresh works not only for one connection, but for all connections displayed as thumbnail on the overview tab. Please try again to make sure, that this works.
Second you can adjust the settings to refresh the thumbnail over Tools|Options|Remote Desktop|Polling interval to refresh thumbnails. The initial setting after installation is Never. Please also read the according FAQ entry, available here: http://www.visionapp.com/germany/product...top.html#5 under Display.

[alin_derom]

In attachment you can see that it does not work.
Ik have a VNC connection with 2 systems. That are the 2 small screens above. And under it you can see the overview screen.
In the beginning you can already see that the screen on the RIGHT only synchronises when i activate the "remote screen"
Then i go to the LEFT screen whree you can easily see when the program with the green lines synchronises or not :
At the start the green screens shows on both places. Then (WHILE the remote session "AML-BLDGRP is still activated") I minimize the green screen on the left and you it is NOT synchronized. It is only when i activate the window "AML medibridge VNC" that the overview synchronises. AT the end i activate the window "AML-BLDGRP" again and you see that once again the screenchanges on the left are not reproduced in the overview.
Bye the way the settings are so that the Thumnail refreshes every 2 seconds.

Hi,

thanks for your feedback.

First the thumbnail refresh works not only for one connection, but for all connections displayed as thumbnail on the overview tab. Please try again to make sure, that this works.
Second you can adjust the settings to refresh the thumbnail over Tools|Options|Remote Desktop|Polling interval to refresh thumbnails. The initial setting after installation is Never. Please also read the according FAQ entry, available here: http://www.visionapp.com/germany/product...top.html#5 under Display.

[haimo.grebenstein]

Hi !

I do have the same appearance: no refresh is taking place except if I am working in one of the connections and then only this image will refresh.

It would be helpful if all images would be automatically refreshed.

As an alternative: would it be possible to establish an "automatic screen switching" - about the way KVM switches work ?

Regards,

Haimo Grebenstein

[TCH]

Hi,

to make it a bit clearer:

The refresh of the thumbnails accoring the configured settings only works, if the focus lays on the remote desktop. This is the behavior shown in the video of alin_derom. This is a limitation of a control we are using.
To refresh the thumbnails manually, go to the tab tool bar select connections and click on the item Refresh thumbnails. Then you will see, taht all connections visible on the overview tab are refreshed one by one.

[haimo.grebenstein]

The refresh of the thumbnails accoring the configured settings only works, if the focus lays on the remote desktop. This is the behavior shown in the video of alin_derom. This is a limitation of a control we are using.

Thank you, Thomas.

This is how I understood the FAQ topic.
But, to be honest, this behaviour doesn't help monitoring a number of connections > 2
So I do support this feature request, or the alternative suggestion I have proposed - the latter should be possible even with the limitations of a control you mentioned.

Regards, Haimo

[alin_derom]

Indeed that is what happens.
And that's why I asked for a new feature to have the posibility of determining which session (and several sessions at a time) can be refreshed automatically. My preference is that this can be included in the "standard" properties and also the possibiliy to activate this manually (just like you do with smart resizing under RDP). And this independend if it is in a local or remote session. (But i have an easier programmable solution at the end of this message)

The reason for vRD is that i want to check screens from several analyzers without having to touch the keyboard or mouse. When there is an error they have a big red pop-up. I wanted a system where i could see all those screens (12 up to now) in (almost) real-time. Once I see a red screen i have perform corrective actions.
This can of course theoretically be done with the remote sessions. But if you want to check 12 systems then the screens are to small to work with. You can of course resize them and after the check make them smaller again, but your screens will aways be located just a little different and by the end of the day your whole screen is a mess. But if you can do this on the overview, then you can leave the sessions in local-mode. You will never have a unorganized screen. And when you start your day, then you will have all your 12 screens nicely ready from the moment you start vRD2010

For me a "quick" solution could be that in the overview tab under connection there is not only a "refresh thumbnails" option. But also a "automatically refresh" button. The speed of refresh (e.g. 2 seconds) could be configured under Tools->options just like the actual thumbnail refresh
If you think of it : There is not much difference between a "human being" clicking every 5 seconds on "refresh thumbnails" and a program that performs automatically that function every 5 seconds. That's why we have computers.

So my final question is : Can this be incorporated in version 6.6 or later?

[TCH]

Hi,

thanks for that detailed description.

We will check what is possible with a future version of visionapp Remote Desktop.

[jsaunder]

I concur with the gist of the other users' comments.

The current behavior of the overview tab is not at all intuitive, and having to undock the overview tab and change focus to the RDP sessions misses the point. I can already change focus from session to session to see what's going on. I want to be able to monitor many sessions all at once.

What I want the overview tab to show me, while it is docked, is thumbnails of all the tabs I have open, refreshed at the interval specified.

This would be a good thing to add (fix) in the next update.

Thanks!

[drlandau]

I concur with the other users, because the Overview would be a BIG help when performing management or updates on many servers at a time, when you need to monitor the progress.

On the other hand I understand the problem that Thomas describe (he has described it several times before - thats why I ended up suggesting the current refresh-feature, that cycles through all the tabs to capture screendumps of each tab. And I think it works ok, allthough it would be nice if it was faster. The downside is that it has to activate each tab one-by-one.

I'm pretty sure we have talked about an auto-refresh feature earlier, but don't remember the outcome. I think it might be because the "Refresh thumbnails" feature was implemented late in the process, so there was probably no time for it then.

An Auto-refresh feature would still need to cycle through all the tabs, which means that with may tabs you still loose the overview during the refresh - especially if you have the auto-refresh set very frequent. I don't know if any other RDP controls are available that can overcome this problem.

Anyway, this might sound like a CRAZY idea, but could another possibility be to replace the "static" thumbnail images (that needs refreshing by capturing a screendump of each tab) with downsized (RDP) controls ordered side-by-side?

Then there's no need to refresh them, as it would essentially be like you detached the tabs, downsized them and ordered the windows side-by-side. You would actually be able to click a "live thumbnail" and work in it, allthough with many thumbnails it would probably not be practically possible due to the small size.

I don't know if vRD would be able to handle many RDP controls on a single tab, but it is just an idea. Think about it!
-

On another note, I have also previously mentioned the possibility to reorder the tabs by re-ordering the thumbnails.
See the post about Tab Groups (http://forum.visionapp.de/showthread.php?tid=3220) where I mention the new Tab Candy in future Firefox, maybe the drag'n'drop features could inspire something.