[winswitch] Windiws client usage (was: Re: BUG: Mouse pointer stops working in multi-/single display setup)

[Lukas Haase]

Hi Antoine,

> [...]
> (snip)
> >>> Server: CentOS 6 with official repository (xpra v0.14.11)
> >>> Client: Windows 7, Cygwin SSH server, connection over SSH + Forwarding.
> >> I assume you mean Cygwin SSH client here?
> > I am actually using Putty/plink.exe with X forwarding.
> Oh dear.
> >> Can you paste the command line that you use for connecting? (I can't
> >> remember the last time I tried to use xpra with Cygwin's ssh instead of
> >> plink - good to know it still works)
> > I just use (this is in my connect.cmd):
> >
> >     plink.exe -X -load "my-remote-server" "~/xpra_client.sh"
> >
> > where my-remote-server is just a stored PuTTY session.
> >
> > xpra_client.sh on the server just contains:
> >
> >     xpra attach :1984 --no-keyboard-sync --encoding=rgb
> Why bother with an X11 server on Windows when you can just use the
> native client instead? That's bizarre.

Well, the reason was three-fold:

1.) In the beginning I used X fowarding extensively and had the cygwin X-server installed anways. All that I needed was persistance. Not needing to install any application on client is what I regarded as great advantage.

2.) I started using xpra on a server machine where I had no root access ... and installed xpra with some python modules into the home directory so the setup was pretty weird. I could not get the (winswitch) client working with it. It did not have much documentation or debug output so I just gave up (too quickly!) ... and just used X forwarding.

3.) I used GSSAPI authentication first and needed to pass certain options to plink. I didn't see how this works with winswitch/xpra. (Is it possible? Particularly, supplying a session name or SSH public key would be interesting)

But I took the opportunity now to give it one more try: Yay, it works now, great!
And I am happy to not have a DOS box with plink running any more. :-) :-) Client looks great!
The docu is unfortunately still missing ;-) (or I don't find it).

I found that I can save my settings in a *.xpra file. Nice!

* But even when I select "Raw RGB + zlib..." the client starts off with H.264. I need to change to RGB manually. Is this a bug?

* When I select "Disconnect", the app terminates but the tray icon stays there until I hover over it. Usually this is a sign that something crashes and Shell_NotifyIcon is not called properly. Is this a bug?

* When I double click the *.xpra file, the launcher opens. Is it possible to connect automatically? Similarly, is the xpra file format documented some where? The command line arguments?

> You're getting the "screen for X11" part of xpra, but you're missing out
> on a number of important features.

Out of curiosity: Which features/advantages does the native client have against the "xpra attach + X forwarding + cygwin X11 server" solution?

BTW, just a suggestion (I am sure it is not easily possible): I just started to create different virtual desktops per application - so I can access them on needed basis. It would be great if one tray icon would handle all current connections and you could supply a name for it (instead of one tray icon/X server per connection and title "username at server:3454".

Regards
Lukas