2.0.0-beta4 first impressions

[RichM 2]

Support asked me to post these first impressions having moved to the 2.0.0-beta4 from 1.8.x

• First off this doesn't feel like beta software. I've been used to Synergy working reliably for a number of years. I was expecting more of the same here but it seems more like an Alpha at best. I quite understand that you are making big changes but the Beta moniker doesn't really describe the experience at the moment.
• I don't like the fact that Synergy needs to connect to your servers to configure itself. Why can't we just put a licence code in like other software? Odds are that at some point I'll want to install on a computer when either your servers are down or when my local internet connection isn't working.
• Also it isn't clear what information you store on your servers. Do you store my screen layout configuration or does it just hand out a licence code? I've worked in environments where internal network architecture is closely guarded and storing on your servers wouldn't be welcome there.
• The new minimal user interface is probably fine if things "just work" but there are no clues that "`" gives a log or that F12 will force a device to be master. I really think you need to give some more visual clues to make it easier to find diagnostic information and configuration stuff.
• On the subject of F12 a number of my Ubuntu machines use F12 as a hotkey. As such I can't use F12 to force that computer to attempt to be master. I mouse/menu operated way of doing that would be appreciated.
• I should say I do like the ability to configure things by dragging things around. It is nice and simple in general.
• I have finally got my main 4 machines talking to each other.  It looks like it was: part firewall (not totally sure on that because I've never had problems with synergy regarding that before); part subnet related; and part the linux packaging issues mentioned elsewhere on this forum.
• For information in terms of subnets I have a number of different subnets here in particular I have a separate subnet for wifi access and I closely firewall off access into my main subnet. That has always worked with a fixed configuration of master in 1.8.x but it doesn't seem to be working in 2.0.0. I haven't dug into this very much because I'm not convinced it is working reliably in a single subnet.
• As I said I haven't reliably had things working single subnet yet. I haven't had time to look further but it seems to be that if a computer goes away for a while (suspend/hibernate/laptop off site) then it doesn't connect later.
• Finally do I take it that Synergy is becoming closed source? The Debian/Ubuntu package makes no mention of the GPL. I can see the github sources are still getting some updates with mention of 2.0 in there and it still says that it is released under the GPL.

Thanks and keep up the good work.

Richard

[Onoitsu2 34]

1 hour ago, RichM said:

• The new minimal user interface is probably fine if things "just work" but there are no clues that "`" gives a log or that F12 will force a device to be master. I really think you need to give some more visual clues to make it easier to find diagnostic information and configuration stuff.
• On the subject of F12 a number of my Ubuntu machines use F12 as a hotkey. As such I can't use F12 to force that computer to attempt to be master. I mouse/menu operated way of doing that would be appreciated.

I have to agree with the lack of clues of tilde and F12 and even Scroll Lock, the ability to do these tasks with other keys (configurable) or mouse would be appreciated.

[StefanMUC 0]

Thumbs up!

I also feel like testing Alpha software.

[Nick Bolton 407]

On 21/09/2017 at 8:47 PM, RichM said:

I have finally got my main 4 machines talking to each other.  It looks like it was: part firewall (not totally sure on that because I've never had problems with synergy regarding that before); part subnet related; and part the linux packaging issues mentioned elsewhere on this forum.

These issues will be fixed in beta5, which is due in about 4-5 weeks.

On 21/09/2017 at 8:47 PM, RichM said:

Finally do I take it that Synergy is becoming closed source?

Partially, yes.

Thanks for the feedback!