Does anyone here know how to control another PC with another PC? Basically, I’m in a group project with my friends for computer science, and we have to make a program using Visual Studio in c#. The problem with visual studio is you cannot edit other files at the same time with other people using different computers. What I am planning to do is use my computer as the central computer to do all the editing, while my friends are able to connect and control my computer from their PC. I don’t know any piece of software where I can do that so I am asking if there is any out there that will be helpful for me?
I’m unclear are you simply looking for remote control of another machine or do you want to access files remotely too?
It sounds like you want to see what the other person sees on their screen and to control their keyboard and mouse.
If so, there are many ways to remotely view and control a PC (I’m assuming you mean Windows based PC not not a Mac, but these will work pretty universally):
- VNC
- Windows Remote Desktop
- Skype (offers desktop viewing and control)
- Zoom (https://zoom.us/)
- … The list goes on.
Search for the term ‘remote control’ and add any other keywords you want to refine the search. That should get you where you want to go.
PS - Please use paragraphs and line-breaks to make posts a little easier to read. A wall of text is kind of off-putting.
You should really look into github, bitbucket, dropbox, Google Drive or any other cloud storage option, rather than give control of your machine to a group of people.
Collaborative development has a long and varied history, and a simple Google search should give you a plethora of choices, instead of just opening a port and letting other kids mess around with your desktop.
Yes, that was exactly what I was looking for, thank you!
@Alex@Panc
Can you give me more information about why a lot of people use GitHub for collaboration on files?
I have used GitHub before, only to download the source code from another developer. So basically I don’t know much about GitHub.
Also, is there an article or a site where I can learn more about collaborative development so I can understand how to get work done effectively with my members?
I’m asking this because I am curious about learning more about collaborative development, but also you are warning me not to open a port and let my members control my computer, even though that is my best option?
I’d suggest Googling “benefits of using github” or something like that, as your question is a treatise in and of itself, and one which I am far under-qualified to speak on. Suffice it to say, github/bitbucket/sourceforge are the solutions that professional teams use to allow stakeholders to contribute to development while maintaining a clean trunk and systematic backups.
I’m just saying that having your computer act as the “server” is not a good idea and therefore not your best option, because there are far better options for containing your code in the cloud, some of which I referenced above. However, if you are set on letting your classmates VNC into your machine whenever they feel like it, then there is no point to doing the above research.
I can’t think of any development environment where trying to have multiple people running one GUI based IDE will work. You can allow remote access to PC’s, but I’m not really sure how well Visual Studio is going to be have trying to run concurrent versions or how it will work if multiple people are trying to type and move the mouse at the same time.
Source Control (Git, GitHub, Mercurial, SVN, etc.) are tools where there is a master copy of the files. You can update a file and post it back to the repository and the next person can get it. Even if two people are working on the same file at the same time, when they commit their changes back, the source control system intelligently merges the files back together. Each person runs VS on their local computer and I’m certain that VS has built-in support for some flavor of source control.
Rob
It occurs to me that I may have misunderstood the intended usage.
My suggestions are only suited to:
- Allow one person at a time to control the target machine’s keyboard and mouse.
- Allow two or more people to review a piece of code or a sample app together (although remotely viewing the app in action in the simulator will be laggy).
Remote sharing of a machine should never be used to collaboratively code the same files from two locations. If you want to set up a team coding environment, then (as noted above) some source control system and agreed upon method of interacting is a called for.
I’m unclear are you simply looking for remote control of another machine or do you want to access files remotely too?
It sounds like you want to see what the other person sees on their screen and to control their keyboard and mouse.
If so, there are many ways to remotely view and control a PC (I’m assuming you mean Windows based PC not not a Mac, but these will work pretty universally):
- VNC
- Windows Remote Desktop
- Skype (offers desktop viewing and control)
- Zoom (https://zoom.us/)
- … The list goes on.
Search for the term ‘remote control’ and add any other keywords you want to refine the search. That should get you where you want to go.
PS - Please use paragraphs and line-breaks to make posts a little easier to read. A wall of text is kind of off-putting.
You should really look into github, bitbucket, dropbox, Google Drive or any other cloud storage option, rather than give control of your machine to a group of people.
Collaborative development has a long and varied history, and a simple Google search should give you a plethora of choices, instead of just opening a port and letting other kids mess around with your desktop.
Yes, that was exactly what I was looking for, thank you!
@Alex@Panc
Can you give me more information about why a lot of people use GitHub for collaboration on files?
I have used GitHub before, only to download the source code from another developer. So basically I don’t know much about GitHub.
Also, is there an article or a site where I can learn more about collaborative development so I can understand how to get work done effectively with my members?
I’m asking this because I am curious about learning more about collaborative development, but also you are warning me not to open a port and let my members control my computer, even though that is my best option?
I’d suggest Googling “benefits of using github” or something like that, as your question is a treatise in and of itself, and one which I am far under-qualified to speak on. Suffice it to say, github/bitbucket/sourceforge are the solutions that professional teams use to allow stakeholders to contribute to development while maintaining a clean trunk and systematic backups.
I’m just saying that having your computer act as the “server” is not a good idea and therefore not your best option, because there are far better options for containing your code in the cloud, some of which I referenced above. However, if you are set on letting your classmates VNC into your machine whenever they feel like it, then there is no point to doing the above research.
I can’t think of any development environment where trying to have multiple people running one GUI based IDE will work. You can allow remote access to PC’s, but I’m not really sure how well Visual Studio is going to be have trying to run concurrent versions or how it will work if multiple people are trying to type and move the mouse at the same time.
Source Control (Git, GitHub, Mercurial, SVN, etc.) are tools where there is a master copy of the files. You can update a file and post it back to the repository and the next person can get it. Even if two people are working on the same file at the same time, when they commit their changes back, the source control system intelligently merges the files back together. Each person runs VS on their local computer and I’m certain that VS has built-in support for some flavor of source control.
Rob
It occurs to me that I may have misunderstood the intended usage.
My suggestions are only suited to:
- Allow one person at a time to control the target machine’s keyboard and mouse.
- Allow two or more people to review a piece of code or a sample app together (although remotely viewing the app in action in the simulator will be laggy).
Remote sharing of a machine should never be used to collaboratively code the same files from two locations. If you want to set up a team coding environment, then (as noted above) some source control system and agreed upon method of interacting is a called for.