Export of servers to Mac and iOS

[alexschomb]

Hey there,

I'd like to export (a selection or all of) my servers from RemoterVNC to another Mac (colleague) or my iOS device running RemoterVNC for iOS. As far as I can see that is not possible yet. For me that is a very important feature.

[alexschomb]

Exporting the file to Dropbox and being able to open it in the iOS and Mac app would be a good solution to me.

[raf]

This exact thing is being added to Remoter at the moment.
The way it will work (at least initially) is as follows:
-You go into the "CloudSync Manager" screen, and create a backup. The backup file is saved in dropbox
-Then you go on any other device, open the "CloudSync Manager" screen, and from the backup, select to restore it.
It will wipe out all of your current sessions on that device, and replace them with the ones from the backup. An option to merge them will be added in a later release.

Raf.

[alexschomb]

Perfect, that's good to hear. Thanks for your initiative.

We're using Remoter for Mac all in our team right now and it would help a lot to share our configurations (semi-)automatically between colleagues. Another request for the future would be to only export/share selected categories. We have some clients that want to have access to their devices, too. Recently I copied my sessions.plist and had to delete all other entries (from other clients) manually because the content of the sessions.plist didn't expose which entry is described by all those XML tags.

[raf]

Yes, it's an interesting problem. Not sure what's the easiest (most user intuitive) way to add that functionality, without making the whole process a chore.
But I'll keep this in mind.

Thanks!,
Raf.

[macmedix]

Really Glad to hear this is an upcoming feature! Really important. I use Remoter for Mac, and also Remoter for iOS on 2 iOS devices. it's a pain when I don't have all servers already configured on all devices. It would be wonderful if all my devices could use the same config files.

Exporting:
I also would like to vote for a selective export/import without erasing any existing setups. I imagine the interface for exporting could have a checkbox next to every server title to toggle the choice of exporting or not exporting. Default would be to export all server setups.

Importing:
Please don't erase any existing server setups when importing! How about reading the file to be imported, and displaying the server titles that can be imported - with a checkbox next to each to allow importing of them. These imported setups would by default add to the servers already setup in this device, not erase.

Think about the case where I just want to give a setup file of one or two servers to an associate. He would be very sad if my help erased all his other server setups. Or maybe really mad! Also think about the case where I have added a new server to one of my Remoter devices, then want to share that setup to my other Remoter devices. If I need to hand-edit the plist files, I can, but it would be a lot more friendly to not erase any existing server setups.

Since these exported files could or will contain passwords, please consider safe storage of them. Being able to save as a text file might be ok, as long as we retain control over that file. I don't feel I have control over the cloud nor dropbox. Maybe let them be transferred via built-in ftp server? At least then it is my responsibility of how & where the files goes. I am ok with transferring files via iTunes, or direct from iOS device to another iOS device.

Easy way:
Transferring plist files via iTunes files is going to be the easiest for you to code, and not difficult for me to use. Again, each server could be a separate plist file, and Remoter would load them all on start up.

Encryption? Even really simple encryption might be ok. I hesitate to ask for encryption, since another person on this thread, alexchomb mentioned he needed to delete part of the plist before passing it on to someone else. I can see that as a valid reason to be able to see the file as plain text. But of course security counts for something too.

Alternately:
Let Remoter get updated server config files from DropBox. This might call for keeping each server setup as a separate plist, with the option to import each to update the settings on the current device. Security is an issue, so some kind of encryption would be in order. But if each server is stored as a separate plist, then we would not need to hand edit the text files.

I'm excited about this feature, it will help make my life easier/better. Hope there is some value in this conversation. Thanks!

Dave Nathanson
Mac Medix
http://nathanson.org/davesays/

[alexschomb]

Thanks Dave, I agree with most of your points.

Concerning the Export feature I'd like to add that besides the checkboxes it would be nice to add whole categories (or even tags if that will be implemented sometime in the future) to the export list.

I also second the encryption topic, although I'll be glad to wait for it. I don't need to edit the sessions.plist file if there is an export feature, so no concerns here. By the way, how about a SQLite database file? These databases are used in several Mac and iOS applications already, are very performant, easy to share AND they support encryption.

[raf]

Thanks both for all your comments.
Remoter does in fact encrypt all passwords that are stored in the plist file. Also, Remoter went from using mysql db for session storage into plist, because it makes it 1x10^6 times easier to add/remove fields/features.
I hear all your points about not deleting existing sessions, and about being able to select which to keep, etc. Would it be a good compromise if the non-complete/non-pro version of Remoter (ie Remoter VNC) simply stores all sessions, deletes current on restore. And the pro/complete version/mac version give the user more fine-grained control on how the process works? This would justify spending all the extra time working on these features.

Thoughts?

Raf.

[alexschomb]

That's fine for me. I already purchased the Complete In-App-Purchase. Besides that I think that after all you're the one to decide over pricing and product design in the last place I'd just like to see the mentioned features and I also think that it might add an unique and important value to your products.

[macmedix]

Hi Raf, I don't have a problem with the price, that is up to you. It's the features I want, and I can easily justify the cost because I use Remote access so often. That is probably also the attitude of other Pros, but occasional VNC users may not understand, and just want cheap. So your idea has merit.

Please just make sure that the Pro/Complete version of Remoter can export server setups that the non-pro version can import. And please make sure that the user is warned (with opportunity to cancel) before any erasing of settings takes place.

I'm looking to find out if I can replace Timbuktu Pro with Remoter. TB2 is $99 per seat, but it has a lot of really fantastic features. Unfortunately TB2 is having crashing problems in Lion, and Motorola is very slow with updates. Very slow, as in no updates for the past 12 months. And TB2 does not have an iOS version. Nor any new features in about 10 years.

I'd be happy to talk about the fab features of TB2 in your "Requests" forum if you're interested. I could explain which TB2 features are so important and why I use them daily. My aim would be to help make Remoter the best remote control package there is!

Best,
Dave Nathanson
Mac Medix
http://nathanson.org/davesays