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I just paid $15 for a Mac application that just sits there -- such joy :-)


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I realise that Synergy aren't scammers, I bought the Pro license for version 1 many moons ago and kept trying it every so often, and hating it. And I'm generally happy to stump up another $15 to help keep the devs' coffee machine running for an hour or two (despite learning that others have paid $5) but for an app -- even a beta app -- that boasts "We’re making our software so easy to set up, that absolutely anyone can use it", my beta experience so far is <redacted to avoid offence>.

ANY professional app that runs and just ... does nothing, no errors, notifications, hints at what it's trying to do / is unable to do ... well, let's just say that -- even for a beta -- it is a very unpromising start.

I'll beam back in later when there is actually a config screen and at least some kind of notification system. In the meantime I'll leave those with braver hearts than me to deal with a pre-pre-pre-alpha. Bummer, I guess I'll just have to renew my licence for that other well know app that does the same thing, but with a great GUI. It's so simple in fact, everyone can use it....

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I'm hesitant to comment but I have to say that these kinds of comments are unhelpful in a beta testing effort. Maybe because I've done beta testing a lot before and code for a living as well as in my free time, but as I understand it, betas generally suck (no offense to the Symless folks). It's rare that you get a beta that has very few major issues. I've tried many of the iOS betas over the years, for example, and am disappointed each time by some crappy bugs, sometimes making the phone almost unusable. And that's from a multi-billion dollar corporation. But I expected as much because it's beta.

In this case, I paid up front so that I could get the full license cheaper. It just so happens that I can report a bug or workaround also. So as I understand it you're paying for early access to a beta build (which you should know is probably going to have major issues) plus the full license for less money. Doesn't sound like a bad deal to me. If you had doubts going into it due to your experience with v1, it wasn't a good idea to begin with.

What does help in beta testing, if you're going to do it, is report errors/bad experiences with logs and any workarounds you have tried, etc. In other words, the idea is that you unite yourself with the dev team temporarily to help them build a better product, and in this case you get the final product for cheaper. If you were part of the dev team, you wouldn't say these kinds of things.

No offense, but anyone who is not going to approach beta testing with that kind of attitude just shouldn't do it. Just some advice for the future.

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On 10/26/2017 at 4:04 PM, gee4vee said:

I'm hesitant to comment but I have to say that these kinds of comments are unhelpful in a beta testing effort. Maybe because I've done beta testing a lot before and code for a living as well as in my free time, but as I understand it, betas generally suck (no offense to the Symless folks). It's rare that you get a beta that has very few major issues. I've tried many of the iOS betas over the years, for example, and am disappointed each time by some crappy bugs, sometimes making the phone almost unusable. And that's from a multi-billion dollar corporation. But I expected as much because it's beta.

In this case, I paid up front so that I could get the full license cheaper. It just so happens that I can report a bug or workaround also. So as I understand it you're paying for early access to a beta build (which you should know is probably going to have major issues) plus the full license for less money. Doesn't sound like a bad deal to me. If you had doubts going into it due to your experience with v1, it wasn't a good idea to begin with.

What does help in beta testing, if you're going to do it, is report errors/bad experiences with logs and any workarounds you have tried, etc. In other words, the idea is that you unite yourself with the dev team temporarily to help them build a better product, and in this case you get the final product for cheaper. If you were part of the dev team, you wouldn't say these kinds of things.

No offense, but anyone who is not going to approach beta testing with that kind of attitude just shouldn't do it. Just some advice for the future.

I would tend to agree, but it does feel tough when the stable version (1.8) works only marginally better.

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Brian Davis
11 hours ago, moredone said:

I would tend to agree, but it does feel tough when the stable version (1.8) works only marginally better.

It sort of blew my mind that they were developing a whole new major version or 'new' entry to the market, when their current never reliably worked to begin with.

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Kees Alderliesten
On ‎26‎-‎10‎-‎2017 at 11:04 PM, gee4vee said:

I'm hesitant to comment but I have to say that these kinds of comments are unhelpful in a beta testing effort. Maybe because I've done beta testing a lot before and code for a living as well as in my free time, but as I understand it, betas generally suck (no offense to the Symless folks). It's rare that you get a beta that has very few major issues. I've tried many of the iOS betas over the years, for example, and am disappointed each time by some crappy bugs, sometimes making the phone almost unusable. And that's from a multi-billion dollar corporation. But I expected as much because it's beta.

In this case, I paid up front so that I could get the full license cheaper. It just so happens that I can report a bug or workaround also. So as I understand it you're paying for early access to a beta build (which you should know is probably going to have major issues) plus the full license for less money. Doesn't sound like a bad deal to me. If you had doubts going into it due to your experience with v1, it wasn't a good idea to begin with.

What does help in beta testing, if you're going to do it, is report errors/bad experiences with logs and any workarounds you have tried, etc. In other words, the idea is that you unite yourself with the dev team temporarily to help them build a better product, and in this case you get the final product for cheaper. If you were part of the dev team, you wouldn't say these kinds of things.

No offense, but anyone who is not going to approach beta testing with that kind of attitude just shouldn't do it. Just some advice for the future.

I would like to search through logs, if I knew that there are logs and where these are located...  I only get the Synergy window with 2 blocks, one green with the name of my Windows pc and one gray with my Macbook's name and a progress bar that fills to 50% and then starts again at 0. After a very long time this stops or the program crashes. This behaviour is exactly the same on Windows and mac, including the crash.

Thats it, nothing else. No settings to fiddle with, no option to remove an non existent computer (my previous mac is still visible, but it isn't even turned on), no hint for possible hotkeys, no hint for log files. Nothing! How are we supposed the aid in the debugging of these beta versions if we don't get any information at all? I didn't even know I had to go to the forums to report problems. Trying to find some contact email address I ended up here....

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8 hours ago, Kees Alderliesten said:

I would like to search through logs, if I knew that there are logs and where these are located...  I only get the Synergy window with 2 blocks, one green with the name of my Windows pc and one gray with my Macbook's name and a progress bar that fills to 50% and then starts again at 0. After a very long time this stops or the program crashes. This behaviour is exactly the same on Windows and mac, including the crash.

Thats it, nothing else. No settings to fiddle with, no option to remove an non existent computer (my previous mac is still visible, but it isn't even turned on), no hint for possible hotkeys, no hint for log files. Nothing! How are we supposed the aid in the debugging of these beta versions if we don't get any information at all? I didn't even know I had to go to the forums to report problems. Trying to find some contact email address I ended up here....

I am not yet familiar with MacOS but in windows, if the app crashes you can get logs of what went wrong by consulting the Windows Event Viewer. When I tried beta4 the app would not even start on both my Win7 and Win10 test machines. Actually it started and crashed a few seconds later.

Here is how to get to the event viewer

Way 1 (technical but easy)

1) Open the RUN command (Either from the start menu or by pressing Windows +R on the keyboard)

2) Type "eventvwr" (without the quotes)

The event viewer reader will open.

3) Expand the 2nd folder from the list on the left (Windows Logs) and select Application

4) Search the error log that appears around the time the application crashed (it will shows a red circle with an white exclamation mark)

5) Go to the detail tab from the error and select the XML view

6) Copy and paste that error message back here so dev can see what went wrong

----------------------------------------

Way #2 (Graphical, not any less easy)

1) Locate your "my computer icon" either on the start menu or by the desktop shotcut if you have one.

2) Right click on it and select "Manage"

3) The second option from the system tool tab will be Event Viewer

The rest of the process is identical of steps 3-6 written above.

This should help everyone to understand what's wrong and squash whatever bugs that prevents the app to run smoothly

Hope at least this will help a few lost souls downhere

Max.

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Kees Alderliesten
Just now, Nick Bolton said:

Woohoo! :D

 

One question: How do I remove an computer? I replaced my mac and the old one is still showing up (dark, not green)

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Nick Bolton
Just now, Kees Alderliesten said:

One question: How do I remove an computer? I replaced my mac and the old one is still showing up (dark, not green)

It's a feature that we still need to add. It'll probably be added in 2.0.1 :)

 

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Kees Alderliesten
Just now, Nick Bolton said:

It's a feature that we still need to add. It'll probably be added in 2.0.1 :)

 

Ok, no problem. Glad it finally works. With version 1 I always had to connect manually (I have hyper-v installed and the virtual switch with lots of network adapters confuses synergy so it choose always the wrong ip address). Now it just connected. Nice!

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Kees Alderliesten
48 minutes ago, Nick Bolton said:

That's the idea :D

 

Just found a small glitch: if I move my mouse from my mac to my Windows desktop the moment the mouse leaves the mac the mouse pointer on the mac switches off. If I then move the pointer on the mac with the mouse attached to the mac the pointer stays invisible. Mouseover reactions of open windows give you an idea where the pointer should but it 's not visible. The other way around works just fine. If the pointer leaves the Windows desktop it appears on the mac and on Windows it is still visivle, centered on the screen.

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Nick Bolton

Right now you have to click or press a key to take control. Simply moving the mouse doesn't take control (it's a bug).

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Kees Alderliesten
11 minutes ago, Nick Bolton said:

Right now you have to click or press a key to take control. Simply moving the mouse doesn't take control (it's a bug).

No, the pointer never reappears. Only when moving from Windows to mac. Clicking or pressing a key does not turn the pointer on.
As I said, a small problem. No big deal

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Nick Bolton
21 minutes ago, Kees Alderliesten said:

Clicking or pressing a key does not turn the pointer on.

Hmm, try: Cmd+Tab on Mac.

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Nick Bolton
Just now, Kees Alderliesten said:

Yup, now I have a pointer. Thanks!

Interesting. I guess the cursor gets stuck in a hidden state. Very annoying.

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