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Remote desktops

A Windows PC or server, a Linux desktop or a VNC screen opens in a Wayfinder tab, beside your terminals, or on the whole display. Windows is reached over Remote Desktop; Linux and most other screens over VNC, or Remote Desktop where the machine runs xrdp.

Add one

1. Choose File › New Connection › Remote Desktop… or VNC…, or New Connection in the + menu above the sidebar.
2. Give it a name, the address and, for Remote Desktop, the user, as name or DOMAIN\name.
3. Choose Add and Open. The first time, the tab asks for the password and can keep it in your keychain.

A Windows server shows its certificate the first time, with its fingerprint. Most make their own, which your Mac does not know: check the fingerprint with whoever runs the server if you are not sure, then choose Trust and Connect. Nothing is sent before you do.

Full screen

• Choose Full Screen in the tab's bar, the window's green button, or press ⌃⌘F. The desktop takes the whole display, sized to it.
• To come back, press ⌃⌘F again or move the pointer to the top of the screen for the menu bar.
• To open a connection full screen every time, tick Open full screen in its editor. The sidebar's menu then offers Open in a Tab for the times you want the other.

Copy, paste and the keyboard

• One clipboard. What you copy on the desktop is on your Mac's clipboard, and what you copy on the Mac pastes on the desktop. ⌘C, ⌘V, ⌘X, ⌘A and ⌘Z are Ctrl-C and the others there, as are the Edit menu's.
• ⌘ on its own is the Windows key: press and let go to open Start. Control-Alt-Delete has a button in the tab's bar.
• Your layout, as it is. The desktop gets the character printed on the key you press, whatever your Mac's keyboard layout: the characters Option makes, such as | and @ on a Belgian keyboard, and accents from dead keys. To use Option as Alt instead, choose it under Option key in Settings › General, as for the terminal.

Through a jump host

For a desktop on a network only one of your SSH hosts can see, choose that host under Through in the connection's editor. Wayfinder opens a tunnel on the host's connection and the desktop connects through it, so VNC, which is not encrypted itself, travels inside SSH. The address is the one the host uses, such as 10.0.4.20. Tunnels says more.

When the connection drops

After your Mac sleeps or joins another network, the tab says it is reconnecting and connects again by itself, for about a minute. Windows normally keeps your session meanwhile, so you are back where you were. A session the server ended, because you signed out or someone connected to it from elsewhere, is not taken back: the tab says why and offers Reconnect.

Good to know

• The desktop is made the size of the tab, a point to the pixel, and follows the window as it changes, so text stays sharp. A server that cannot change its size is scaled to fit.
• For sound, printers, drives and several screens, choose Open in Windows App in the tab's bar. It is shown when Microsoft's Windows App is on your Mac.
• A Mac's own Screen Sharing, and VNC servers that need their own encryption, open in macOS's Screen Sharing from the tab's bar.
• If a server's certificate changes later, the tab says so in red. Choose Connect Once if you are not sure, or Trust the New One when you know the server was given a new certificate.