Tabs and groups
Sessions open in tabs, tabs live in groups, and groups can be split, rearranged and moved to other windows.
The idea
Every session opens in a tab. Tabs live in a group. The workbench starts with one group, and you can split it into as many as your screen has room for, side by side or one above the other.
A tab is a view of a session, not the session itself. The same session can be shown in two tabs at once, in two groups or in two windows. That is what Split and Copy into New Window do.
Using a tab
| You do | What happens |
|---|---|
| Click a tab | It comes to the front, and its session gets the keyboard. |
| Click its ✕, or click the tab with the middle button | The tab closes. |
| Double-click a tab | Its group gets the whole window. Double-click again and the other groups are back. |
| Right-click a tab | Its menu opens. Nothing else changes. |
| Drag a tab | It moves. See Dragging. |
The tab's menu
| Entry | What it does |
|---|---|
| Close | Closes this tab. If it was the last view of the session, the session ends. |
| Close All | Closes every tab in the group, except pinned ones. |
| Close Others | Closes every other tab in the group, except pinned ones. |
| Close to the Right | Closes the tabs to the right of this one, except pinned ones. |
| Pin / Unpin | A pinned tab moves to the front of its group and shows a pin where its ✕ was. See Pinned tabs. |
| Split Right | Opens a second view of this session in a new group on the right. |
| Split Down | Opens a second view of this session in a new group below. |
| Split and Move › Up, Down, Left, Right | Moves this tab into a new group on that side. |
| Move into New Window | Moves this tab to a window of its own, for a second monitor. |
| Copy into New Window | Opens a second view of this session in a new window. |
The Dashboard tab is always there, always first, and cannot be closed, pinned, split or moved to another window.
Closing a session
A session ends when its last tab is closed. Closing one of several views of a session closes that view and nothing else.
Closing one session does not ask first, as its ✕ never did. PluggedDesk asks only when one action would end more than one connected session at once, which Close All, Close Others and Close to the Right can do. The question names the sessions; Cancel has the keyboard, and Esc means no.
Pinned tabs
A pinned tab comes first in its group and keeps its name. It is left open by:
- Close All, Close Others and Close to the Right,
- Ctrl W and Ctrl F4,
- the middle mouse button.
Click its pin to unpin it. Close on its own menu closes it, pinned or not: that is asking for this tab by name.
Dragging
- Drag a tab along its group to change the order. A line shows where it will land.
- Drag a tab onto another group's tabs to move it there.
- Drag a tab onto a session: over the middle it joins that group; near an edge, half of the group is shaded and the tab makes a new group on that side.
- Drag a tab out of every window and it gets a window of its own, where you let go.
Hold Ctrl as you let go to make a second view instead of moving the tab. Press Esc to give the drag up; nothing changes.
Nothing can be placed in front of the Dashboard, and an unpinned tab cannot be placed among the pinned ones.
Two views of one session
Both views show the same remote desktop, and what you type or click in either goes to the same session. The second view is marked SECOND VIEW on its toolbar.
Only the first view decides the remote desktop's size. If the session is set to Match this tab, the remote desktop follows the first view's tab; every other view fits the desktop into its own tab, whatever size that is. When the first view is closed, the next one takes over. See Display.
Other windows
A window made by Move into New Window or Copy into New Window has a workbench of its own: it can hold several tabs, and be split like the main window. The Explorer, the menus and the dialogs stay in the main window, which comes to the front when one of its dialogs has something to ask.
Closing such a window does not end its sessions. Its tabs return to the main window.
Sizes
Drag the line between two groups to resize them. Double-click it to give every group of that split the same room.
In a narrow group a session's toolbar says less: first its buttons lose their words, then the address and the buttons used least go. Session in the menu bar still has everything.
What is remembered
When you close PluggedDesk, the layout is kept: the groups and their sizes, the tabs in each, which is pinned, which was in front, and the other windows with their places on the screen.
When you start it again, the tabs come back without connecting. A session is started by you, never by the application: choose Connect in the tab. A tab whose connection you deleted in the meantime does not come back.
Keyboard
| Keys | What they do |
|---|---|
| Ctrl W or Ctrl F4 | Close the tab |
| Ctrl \ | Split right |
| Ctrl Tab, Ctrl Shift Tab | Next tab, previous tab |
| Ctrl 1 to Ctrl 4 | Go to the first, second, third, fourth group |
| Ctrl Alt →, ← | Move the tab into the next group, the previous group |
| Enter | Give the keyboard to the session in front |
Who has the keyboard
While a session has the keyboard, every key goes to the remote computer, these included: Ctrl W there closes the remote browser's tab, not your session. Press Ctrl Alt Home, or click outside the session (the Explorer, the title bar), and the keys are PluggedDesk's again.
After one of the shortcuts above, the keyboard stays PluggedDesk's, so you can press the next one: a session that took the keyboard would take Ctrl Tab with it. Press Enter, or click the session, when you want to type in it. The status bar says so.
All of them are in the list of keyboard shortcuts, and in Help › Keyboard Shortcuts.