AirMote is an application for the iPhone or iPod Touch that lets you connect to, and control, a remote computer. This is the online help page. The general page describing AirMote is here. A page that describes how to set up your computer to allow it to be controlled by AirMote is here.

Settings Screen

This screen appears when AirMote first starts and it is does not automatically reconnect to the last computer it controlled. It also appears when you touch the “Settings” button on the Status screen.

The upper section shows a list of computers to which you have recently connected. Touch a computer name to connect to it. Touch the Detail button to the right of a computer name, to see or change the connection details. Touch “Add Computer” if you want to connect with a computer that isn’t in the list. Touch the “Edit” button if you want to delete a computer from the list, or change the order in which they appear.

The lower section shows some options. “Auto Reconnect” will cause AirMote to try to reconnect with the computer it last controlled whenever it starts up. “Click Sounds” turn on or off the sounds when you touch buttons on the remote screens. “Screen Library” displays and lets you customize all the remote control screens that are available – see the Screen Library section below. “Button Library” displays and lets you customize all the available buttons – see the Button Library section below. 

Status Screen

This screen appears while a connection is being made, when there was a problem making a connection, when you touch the “Done” button on a Remote’s screen, or the “AirMote” button on the Settings screen.

A message on the upper part of the screen shows the current status. In the example image here, it shows “Ready”. The screen also shows the application version, copyright and credits.

Touch the Settings button to make a connection with a computer, or to change application settings.

Touch the “Online Help” button to open the Safari Internet browser to the help pages on Leptonic Systems’ AirMote web site.

Add Computer Screen

This screen appears when you touch “Add Computer” on the Settings screen.

The upper section lists all computers on the local WiFi network which are advertising an available connection. See the FAQ for details. Touch a computer name to connect.

Touch “Advanced” in the lower section to manually enter details for connecting to a computer that is not on the list in the upper section.

Connection Screen

This screen appears when you touch a Detail button on the Settings screen, or “Advanced” on the Add Computer screen. It allows you to enter or edit details for connecting to a computer.

The Name field holds a name for the connection. This is the name shown in the Settings list, and can be anything you want.

The Address field holds the DNS name or IP address of the computer to which you want to connect. A computer on your local network might have a name like “mycomputer.local” or an address like 192.168.1.101 – check the network settings on the computer to find out. On a Macintosh running OS X 10.5 Leopard, you can see the computer name in System Preferences -> Sharing in the Computer Name section for the name, or the Remote Management section for the IP address. However, that Remote Management section is where you turn on VNC permission and set a password, and once you do that, it should simply show up on the list of available computers in the Add Computer screen.

The Port field holds the port number for the connection. This should be the default 5900 unless your computer is set up to use a nonstandard VNC port.

The Password field holds the password for the connection. If you leave this field blank, you will be asked for a password when you connect.

Touch “Save” to keep the values you entered, or “Cancel” to discard any changes.

Screen Library

This screen appears when you touch “Screen Library” on the Settings screen.

The names of all the screens available for use are listed. Screens that are active have a checkmark next to them. A “Next” button on the Remote screen will cycle through the active screens. Touch a screen name to toggle the checkmark for the screen. Touch a Detail button to see or change the properties for a screen.

The Edit button lets you add, delete, or change the order of screens in the list. The order also affects the order of screens that the Remote screen “Next” button cycles through. Default screens are protected and can not be deleted or edited.

Screen Setup

This screen appears when you touch a Detail Disclosure icon on the Screen Library screen.

The gray sample screen at the upper right shows all twelve button positions on the screen. Each item shows a tiny label for the button in that position. 

Touch a position in the sample screen to change the button in that position. The scroller at the bottom, which lists all the buttons in the Button Library, will change to show which button is in that position. To change it, simply move the scroller to select the button you want. Set it to “-none-” to make that position empty.

The Revert button will reset all the button positions to what they were when this screen was first shown.

Button Library

This screen appears when you touch “Button Library” on the Settings screen.

The names of all the buttons available to place on screens are listed. Touch a button name to see or change the properties of the button. The “Edit” button lets you add, delete or reorder buttons. If you delete a button, it will disappear from any screens that used it. To add a button, enter Edit mode and a “+” button appears that lets you create a new button. Some default buttons may be protected, and can’t be deleted or edited.

Button Setup

This screen appears when you touch the “+” button or a button name on the Button Library screen.

The “Name” field holds the name of the button. These names appear in the Screen and Button Library screens.

The “Label” field holds the text that appears on the button itself. See the FAQ below for information about putting special characters (such as arrows or symbols) on a button label.

The “Action” field holds one or more “action codes” that define what action the button performs when it is touched. An action code typically results in a keystroke being sent to the remote computer. Therefore, buttons can control the computer in any way you could from a keyboard. Action codes are discussed here.

Remote Screen

This screen appears when you connect to a remote computer. There are several remote screen layouts available, one is shown at the right.

The screen has 12 button slots in a 3 by 4 matrix. Each slot shows a button (or is empty) according to the way it is set up in the Screen Library. When the Remote screen first appears, it is set up according to the first active screen listed in the Screen Library.

Touching the “Next” button will change the button layout on the screen, according to the next screen in the Screen Library that is marked as active. Touching “Next” cycles through all the active screens in turn. The “Next” button only appears if more than one screen is marked active.

The “Disconnect” button will disconnect from the computer, and the Status screen will appear.

When you touch a button, the action defined for that button will be performed on the remote computer.

 

FAQ

Frequently asked questions.

Why doesn’t my computer appear on the Connections screen?

For a computer to automatically appear in the list, it must be on your local WiFi network and advertise an available VNC viewer connection via Bonjour or ZeroConfig. A page describing how to set up a computer for this kind of access is here.

AirMote should work with any computer and operating system that allows a traditional VNC/RFB protocol connection, even if it does not advertise the connection with Bonjour or ZeroConfig. If you can connect to the computer with another VNC viewer, you should be able to connect with AirMote, if you specify its IP number or DNS address when entering connection details manually on the Advanced screen, and  firewalls and security allow access to TCP default VNC port 5900, or another port you specify in the connection settings.

Can I connect remotely over the Internet?

Yes. Specify the computer’s DNS address on the Advanced screen, and make sure any firewalls allow connections through the VNC port (5900). Make very sure to use a secure, nontrivial password! VNC viewers can control your computer in very powerful ways, and though the password used to make the initial connection is encrypted, the keystrokes and data going back and forth through the connection is not, so stay secure.

AirMote can connect over WiFi to a computer on the local network, and that is the usual case. After all, the computer you want to control is typically in the same room. However, it can also connect over WiFi to any computer on the Internet, or even through the mobile phone data network to another computer – assuming permissions and firewalls are set up properly. In these cases, the lag between pressing a button and something happening on the controlled computer can be significant, due to the time it takes to get commands though the communications system.

How can I put special characters on a button’s label?

On the Button screen, you can specify the label that should appear on the button, but the iPhone’s keyboard only has letters, numbers, and a limited number of symbols. You can put any character in the Unicode character set that the iPhone can render by including special codes in the label field. A special code is in the format “\uFFFF” (without the quotes) where FFFF is actually exactly four hexadecimal digits that represent the Unicode symbol you want. For example, to label a button with a smiley face, use the label “\u263A”. Unicode has many thousands of characters, including international language characters, arrows, shapes, and many symbols.

A number of sites on the Internet enumerate the Unicode character set and can let you find the corresponding four hex digit code. On a Macintosh running OS X 10.5 Leopard, a very good way to see all the Unicode characters is as follows: In the Finder’s Edit menu, choose “Special Characters…” to bring up the character browser panel. From the panel’s “View” popup menu, select “Code Tables”, then select the “Unicode” tab. You can now see and scroll through all the Unicode characters. Click on a character, and a tooltip appears showing its hexadecimal code. Use that code, prefixed with “\u” in the button’s label field.

You can put any number of characters, special or otherwise, in a button’s label. The more characters in a label, the smaller in size they will be. At some point, the size won’t get smaller – instead, extra characters in the label will be truncated.