I have written a JavaFX app running on Windows 10 machine in the office which has problems showing (painting/rendering) certain embedded controls such as a Pane with PdfBox when I connect to it with Remote Desktop for Mac. It shows only a black screen in the app instead of the pdf document.
When I connect using RDP from my Windows 10 machine at home to my Windows 10 machine at work, the app works just fine (the pdf is shown in the app).
I have the same problems using AnyDesk and Teamviewer.
The app only shows PDFs properly using a connection from Windows 10 to Windows 10 with Microsoft RDP.
It might be a JavaFX issue. Similar issues are described here (although not 100% identical):
https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8239589
https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8229394
However, since I guess Microsoft Remote Desktop for Mac is using the same technology as the Windows Desktop client, I would have expected it to work fine.
I have a Mac Mini M1 running the latest OS (Monterey) at the time of writing this post. I am also using the latest Remote Desktop client for Mac.
This problem is not new and was also present in older releases.
I have tried to play around with screen resolutions, both on Host and Client but nothing good came out of those tests.
Disabled also hardware acceleration in Remote Desktop for Mac preferences but it didn't change anything.
The machine at the office has the following specs (which I cannot change nor update)
Edizione Windows 10 Pro
Versione 20H2
Data installazione: 10/09/2021
Build sistema operativo 19042.1415
Esperienza Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3920.0
Anyone else who has seen this problem and perhaps resolved it?
Could it be a bug in either PdfBox or Remote Desktop for Mac?
Except for the above issue, the Remote Desktop Client for Mac is working great (not lagging as TeamViewer or AnyDesk) and the user experience is phenomenal.
PS: While this might be considered a programming question (since I wrote the app with JavaFX) but it might be better to post on another forum? If yes, which one? On the other hand, many similar posts (look at the suggested thread on the right) have been upvoted despite not dealing with programming issues.
Thanks.
How do you use PDFBox? I ask because this is not a JavaFX component. If you use a SwingNode for that it might be interesting to try one of my two PDFViewer demos here and see whether the problem persists.
https://github.com/mipastgt/JFXToolsAndDemos#awtimage
The difference is in how I do the rendering and maybe that makes a difference for your use-case too. But of course this is just a wild guess and I can't promise anything.
This may already have a question somewhere, but I am at a loss as to how to debug IE11 on my Mac.
I currently run a full Win10 instance in a Virtual Box, but it is so bloated that it is nearly impossible to move nimbly between coding and debugging. IE dev-tools are also inaccessible using this method because it just cripples the VM, so I am flying blind with coding.
I have looked up tutorials as to how to run IE on a Mac direct using Wine/Remote Desktop, but these instructions are out of date or the supporting software does not work as intended. Also, Microsoft (being the evil empire that they are) discontinued support for debugging with Azure so that is another option off the table.
If there is anything that actually works without having to shell out $$$ please let me know as it is so painful currently to debug the worst browser that will never die.
From your description, I can see that you had already try to use the Windows 10 VM but it get hangs.
You can try to go to Windows Features on or off inside Control Panel-> Programs-> Programs and Features and try to turn off the features that you are not using may help to reduce the load.
It is possible that you are running your VM in a very less memory that downs the performance of the OS.
If possible for you than try to install a VM with some more memory.
Otherwise you can try to install Windows 7 in your VM and upgrade to IE 11 in that.
It can help you to solve your issue with the OS and you can debug the code on IE 11.
Below are some helpful references that may give you some additional information.
How to test your website with Internet Explorer on a Mac
How to Debug in IE on a Mac
This question already has answers here:
Is there a IE tester for mac? [closed]
(7 answers)
Closed 10 years ago.
I'm a webmaster that use mac platform to develop. Can someone suggest me the best way to test my website with IExplorer using a Mac? There're some virtualizer such as parallel, crossover, wine and so on, can someone suggest me the best for this purpose?
Or some other workaround is appreciated (i really don't need an entire copy of windows, only to test my websites on IE6 and IE7 using my mac)
First: Look at the question linked to in the comments. If you just need to see what a site looks like, browsershots.org will do the trick. But if you need to fully test and debug, you need Windows. But that can be done too:
Purchase Parallels Desktop
Download free Windows virtual machines directly from Microsoft made specifically for this purpose. You can rename the .exe self-extracting archives .rar instead, and unpack with anything that can extract RAR files
Import the resulting virtual machine image into Parallels, and you're done
Just know that many of the Windows images are huge. You'll need something like 40GB free to download, unpack and convert the Windows Vista and Windows 7 images (once you're done, you can of course toss a bunch of stuff out again)
Edit: Oh, yeah, forgot to mention: The Windows images last about 3 months at a time before they lock down completely, and you have to download a fresh copy. Microsoft obviously isn't giving away fully-fledged Windows copies for free :)
One option is to join MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network subscription) to get access to all Windows versions in all languages etc. You can install those you need in separate Parallels virtual machines (VMWare and virtualbox would work as well).
This allows you to install the exact version some customer happens to have, e.g. certain old Windows Server with certain IE version, etc to replicate the environment for testing and regression testing.
I would say that virtual machine installations are a must so you get the exact complete real thing.
MSDN has different options, "OS only" would be probably enough for this need (I had other needs for Windows development tools as well so got the full MSDN). MSDN has a cost (on the order of $1k/year) but was worth it to get access to everything for development and testing purposes.
PS. The only fun thing was that as a Mac-based UNIX developer I had many versions of Windows and many versions of Linux installed on my MacBook, but only one installation of OSX ;-) Some people also thought it was fun to see a "Mac developer" with "MSDN subscription", but whatever gets the work done, is the way to go.
I want to implement websites using a computer that is running only Ubuntu.
This is not feasible because Ubuntu FireFox displays completely different from Windows FireFox.
This means that I can do things like JS & PHP on Ubuntu, but have to switch to my Windows Computer to (edit and) view HTML & CSS as they appear for most users.
This makes file management too complicated. I have two of everything. And...I don't want to install a server on my Windows machine.
Is there any browser that looks remotely similar between Ubuntu and Windows? I want to stay on Ubuntu as much as possible.
Following the advice from Greg, why don't you install wine and run Internet Explorer from that?
use Wine to run a windows based browser to work with: http://www.winehq.org/
If its layouts and stuff you're worried about have a look at http://browsershots.org/ it allows you to see what a website looks like on many revisions of many browsers on BSD, Linux, Windows and Mac
I have to say you are working on the total wrong idea.
I can easily switch between 20 different themes. I'm currently using either an old Win2000 theme or the olive WinXP theme.
The only way for a non Desktop GUI app is to make your website look good on any computer.
Use CSS to style the input elements. Or better - make the GUI simple enough that the look of the common GUI form controls do not matter.
Everything else should work exactly the same anyway cause the layout engines for Firefox Linux and Firefox Windows are the same.
Google Chrome took special care to look the same on all platforms for font-rendering, etc. But I haven't noticed anything problematic on firefox, either. Have you installed msttcorefonts on ubuntu? That should help.
I agree with Greg. The simplest problem from one OS to another is fonts. While you can installed Microsoft licenced fonts in linux out of the box this isn't the default eg. Arial.
Even then just look at Safari for windows verusus Safari for Mac. Apple has their own implementation of the licenced MS fonts, as such the same font (eg arial) on Windows is not the same as on Mac. This can also be the case on linux if a slightly different implementation of the font is installed.
That aside, all the chrome ( toolbars, buttons, titlebar etc ) are different from one OS to another, so if you're a good developer and try really hard to word your content and fit your layout so that most people don't have to scroll just for two or three lines, then without actually viewing the page in the target OS you're really just doing half the job.
If you can get your head around it, try something like virtualbox and have a set of virtual machines, which you can run one at a time and test fully how each browser will work with your pages. A few things to note: as much as we ALL hate IE6, if your sites are going to be viewed by a company / organisation, chances are they'll still be on IE6, even worse is that there are TWO versions on IE6 which do operate slightly differently, notiable IE6 from XP ( no service packs installed ) and IE6 from XP SP2. Then you've got the default install that is Vista with IE7 ( which can look different and operate differently to IE7 on XP), and the default install in Win7 which is IE8. REALLY importantly is that it is known that some CSS on IE8 in XP is different to IE8 on Vista or Win7.
We (unfortunately) have as part of our testing 7 Win vm's to test just IE, then two for Firefox on windows ( FF 3.0 and 3.x - the latest ) plus two vms for Chrome and two vms for Safari on windows. Admittedly we promise our sites will work on all these browsers in our projects if the client chooses to at an additional cost.
Good luck
Fonts and platform form controls are likely reasons that you're going to see things differ between Linux and Windows. But they can also cause differences between different Windows users or different Linux users, so testing on a single Windows machine isn't necessarily sufficient either. If you're seeing drastic differences between Linux and Windows, it might be a sign that there are things in your design that are unnecessarily dependent on particular text widths or form control sizes.
About 2 years ago I dropped windows from my home PC and switched 100% to linux (fedora, then ubuntu) - The missus wasn't too happy but she got used to it and learned a thing or two. Then about 6 months ago I got myself a shiny new Macbook and since moving to OSX have never looked back; Unfortunately I've not been successful in getting my employer to buy me one for work (and I can't be carrying mine back and forth) so I have to "put up" with windows.
I started out with windows over 8 years ago so I have a really good understanding of how it works and have done my fair share of Win32/MFC/.NET development.
My question is; Who else has to use a windows box at work (and have a mac at home) And how do you cope - what windows apps/configurations do they use that let them work in a similar fashion to OSX? - I was just thinking how cool it would be if I could get some sort of keymapping app that re-mapped my windows keys to the OSX variants (Apple+W, Apple+Q, Apple+Left, Apple+Right, etc etc).
I miss expose (TopDesk is nice but not free)...
I miss the simplicity of finder...
I miss the nice smooth dialogs and windows and shadows (YzShadow can juuuuust cope)
I miss the underlying unix framework (I run andLinux at work)
I miss OSX :(
Unfortunately 90% of our clients use IE so windows is a must; They also can't justify the expense of a mac for a developer; Especially a Mac Pro :-p
Ah well.
Operating System is just a tool, if you are building cross platform applications (or web applications[it depends only your target web browser]) and you can use whatever operating system you like , you can install windows xp in virtual machine on your osx for using IE for example, but if your company forces you to login on their domain controller, using outlook for email and task management that project manager assigns to you, this is different story. As you mentioned multiple operating systems at work and home, personally I use Linux at home but I use Windows at work because in my day to day job I write a lot of C# .NET code but at home I spend time by programming with open source technologies and I use it because I've used Linux since October 2001. So try to get used to it.
Might I suggest if you like life on the command line that you try PowerShell as a replacement for cmd on the windows box. It has aided me tremendously in my transistion from a Unix Server environment.You have a profile and the ability to create aliases and modify things. Now I never have to worry about using one of my trusted Unix commands, and if I find one that wasn't already taken care of by the PowerSHell team I just create it and add it to my profile. ls, process grep, top, and find for the the win!!
I think the single best thing I've done to maximize productivity is to standardize my text editor across platforms. Personally I use vim as mush as possible. I use viemu to integrate into visual studio on windows, have replaced notepad with gvim, and I use vim on mac and linux alike.
You could remap shortcuts, but the simple ones are the same anyhow. Personally I dont have a problem remembering both. I do go through a mental exercise every few minutes to look for OS specific landmarks to remind me Im on Vista or OS X, which helps me to stay focused.
I'd also look into Powershell if you're a fan of Linux scripting, its the coolest shell going IMNSHO. Failing that there is always Interix
I don't have a lot of pain switching from one to the other on a daily basis. At the end, I spent the most of my time either in Eclipse, which is quite plateform independant, and Opera web browser.
For the rest, I use launchy to poorly mimic quicksilver and e as a replacement for Textmate.
In the end, I'm more statisfied of my mac, not because of the software it provide, but rather for the software it don't provide, such as Toad or IE that I'm force to use for my work.
Although there are many ways to skin Windows to look like OS X, none of the solutions deliver the real OS X experience. Not in terms of OS Features, that'd be impossible, but the look and feel is always different. I remember skinning for the sake of pleasure, my Windows XP box (like 5 years ago) and used Windows Blind plus a lot of tools (YZDock!) to have a "WS X" ;)
It never felt the same.
You could try a "hackintosh", if your hardware is "ok" with OS X. Then run VMWare/Parallels.
Or else, you just do like me:
Cry a river. Build a Bridge and get over it. :)
I use OS X (Mac Pro) but I code in C#, so I'm 90% of the day in Windows VIsta in Full Screen in one of the many Spaces; the advantage is that VMWare (and Parallels) let you map your keys so I can cmd-c/v inside Windows.
I understand your frustration :S
Unfortunately 90% of our clients use IE so windows is a must
IE6 works under OS X without Windows (fonts aren't quite right, but it's enough for everyday testing), and you can get it 100% perfect under virtualisation (Parallels, VMWare, VirtualBox).
As a software developer I pretty much live in my text editor and shell. In the jobs where I've been forced to use windows I install emacs and cygwin and I'm off to the races.
I don't focus on the periphery -- control panels, window managers, etc -- I focus on what I really use 90+% of the time and don't sweat the rest.
A little bit of cygwin to take the pain out of windows. Any virtual environment will work. A mac can run parallels hosting windows with the enforced outlook requirements.
If it's not a financial burden and your company allows it, just get yourself a macbook. I bring my macbook to home and work everyday. I have external 24" screen at work, and it's no difference to working on a windows box. I run parallels when I need to use windows/IE, otherwise, all my time are spent on the mac.
Another important item in this arrangement is an external harddrive for backup at work. Time machine hourly backup + windows work file sync and you're all set. This way, you don't have to worried about losing your work if you get robbed or get into an accident.
I was in the same situation - Mac at home, Windows at work. There isn't really any way to bring the Mac experience to Windows without something breaking or a badly-written program misbehaving. You just have to get used to adjusting between the two.
The only three things that constantly caught me out were hitting Shift-2 for the "#" sign in Windows (I have a UK keyboard, but the Mac uses the American key position), trying to use two fingers and a mouse click on the Windows laptop trackpad for a right-click, and hitting F9 for Expose. Swapping between Command-C and Ctrl-C didn't really bother me.
I use Windows XP at work and Mac OS X and Linux at home.
Windows XP frustrates me everyday. If I only used it I would get used to the limitations, but being exposed to them daily (and the plethora of awful software for it, from the dire Checkpoint VPN client, to the clunkiness of Outlook) and then experiencing decent software in the evening just underlines XP's limitations (and to be fair, XP is venerable these days).
However making the switch on a daily basis isn't a problem, #/" issue aside.
The only thing I ever did to make the Mac more "windows-like" was install Office for Mac. I've never had a problem with files I couldn't read or write, and the "student edition" is pretty cheap. Recently, for dealing with IE6 I used bootcamp bought and an MSDN copy of XP to install XP on partition on my Macbook. No problems.
I regularly use OSX, Windows and Linux and the only times I get confused is when I'm running XP under VMWare on my Macbook. For some reason, when my fingers are on the Mac keyboard, I have a lot of trouble using Windows key strokes.
Otherwise, no real problems.
I don't have much of an issue. I can do most of my development work in OSX, eclipse works, Coda is an awesome web development tool, but when I need to use Visual Studio, I can, either by running in Fusion, or booting into windows via bootcamp.
Having the luxury of a windows install on bootcamp means I can also run games better than most of the Windows PC's i've owned!