Remotes Release 3.0
September, 1992

Remotes is a companion package to Stuart and Terminal.  It simplifies the management of Stuart and Terminal sessions.   Remotes can launch local Stuart and Terminal sessions.  However, its primary use is to establish sessions with remote hosts using the rlogin, telnet, and tn3270 protocols.

The first production release of Remotes was in April, 1990, under NeXT System Release 1.0a.  It has since been modified to run under NeXT System Releases 2.x and 3.0.

Features

The primary window is so tiny that you can hide it behind the dock.  It consists of a single button that displays a pop-up list of your local and remote hosts.  To launch a new Terminal or Stuart session, choose the desired item in the pop-up list.

Each host configuration (e.g., auto-launch, window location, lines, columns, font, font size, protocol, login ID, etc) can be tailored individually.

Just as you can auto-launch applications, Remotes can be configured to auto-launch Terminal and Stuart sessions.  When you launch Remotes, it can automatically establish sessions with remote hosts.  This is useful if you auto-launch Remotes from your dock.  Simply logging in to your NeXT can establish sessions with remote hosts.

For more information, choose Help from Remotes' Info menu.

Prerequisites

Remotes3.0 requires NeXT System Release 3.0 (standard or extended).  It has been tested with Stuart Release 2.4.  (Stuart is not required to use Remotes, but Remotes works better with Stuart than with Terminal.)

Availability & Installation
Remotes is available from some well-known NeXT archive sites, including cs.orst.edu and sonata.cc.purdue.edu.  

To unpack the source code, type:
 
	uncompress -cvV Remotes3.0.tar.Z | tar xvf -

An executable , stripped version of Remotes is provided for you.  Simply move Remotes. app to the desired installation directory.  Usually, this is your personal Apps directory, ~/Apps, or the system Apps directory, /LocalApps.  Be sure to delete your old version of Remotes; the new Remotes is in an app wrapper and will not automatically replace the old version.

To re-make and install Remotes from scratch, type:

	cd Remotes3.0
	make install

Getting Started

When you first launch Remotes, it will create local Stuart and Terminal entries.  Choose an item from the Hosts pop-up list and the Stuart (or Terminal) application will be launched.

To add new entries, choose Configuration from the Remotes menu.  To view a specific host, press the Remote Systems button and choose an item.

Tips

Put the Stuart (or Terminal) application midway in your dock.  Tuck the Remotes' Hosts window behind the Stuart icon.  Remotes will stay mostly hidden until you press the button in the Hosts window; then, your list of hostnames will pop-up, temporarily covering the dock.

You can auto-launch Remotes without using precious dock space.  For example, if you have placed Remotes in the /LocalApps directory, type:

	dwrite Workspace LaunchPaths /LocalApps/Remotes

If you use the Terminal application with Remotes, you might want to set the default for Terminal's Title Bar to Custom Title.  Remotes supplies the hostname for the title.  By setting the Title Bar to just Custom Title, the mini-window will contain a meaningful title.   Choose Preferences in Terminal's Info menu to set various defaults.

Stuart or Terminal?

Remotes launches a separate Terminal application for each session.  Upon logging out of a remote session, the Terminal application remains active.  Although this is not fatal, it is annoying.   Terminal 3.0 provides tools to save (and open) window configurations.  You might find these tools adequate and not even need Remotes.

Remotes speaks to Stuart using the speaker/listener protocol.  This allows Remotes to efficiently communicate with it.

Terminal is free; Stuart is a shareware package with a modest license fee.

Future Directions

Remotes needs re-writing to properly support Terminal under NeXT Release 3.0.  In fact, much of the Remotes code could be removed since Terminal supports the saving of window configurations.  The Remotes Configuration window could consist of just a couple of fields to associate the pop-up button names with ~/Library/Terminal files names. The  code to launch new Terminal session might be as trivial as system ("open ~/Library/Terminal/xyz.term").   Currently, I use Stuart so I have no immediate plans to make the changes. 

Stuart continues to mature.  Future releases of Stuart might obviate the need for Remotes or dictate a major re-design.  Time will tell.

Perhaps it is time for separate companion packages; one for Stuart and one for Terminal.

License

Remotes is under the terms of the GNU General Public License.  Refer to the file COPYING for details.

Rex Pruess, Weeg Computing Center, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242
Rex-Pruess@uiowa.edu (NeXTmail)                               (319) 335-5452