MS Application Sharing under TANGO Interactive
Bart Winnowicz
About ShareAgent
This set of programs allows sharing of the following Microsoft applications
under control of the TANGO Interactive session manager:
- Microsoft Word
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft Visual C++.
The TANGO Interactive ShareAgent combines WebWisdom's TANGO Interactive and Microsoft NetMeeting session models.
Other applications can be added to the system upon request.
System requirements
TANGO Interacative plugin and Microsoft NetMeeting version 2.1 (version 2.0
will NOT work).
About Installation
The setup of the ShareAgent copies Share Agent executable and configuration file to your
local directory (default is C:\Program Files\WebWisdom\Tango1.0x\ShareAgent\).
To make ShareAgent work with TANGO Interactive, you must:
- Have NetMeeting 2.1 installed
(Microsoft NetMeeting site is at http://www.microsoft.com/netmeeting)
- Initialize parameters of your NetMeeting user. Launch NetMeeting application once.
Wizard will guide you through parameters initialization
(If there is no such a wizard, NetMeeting user parameters had already been set).
- For NT users only:
have applications sharing enabled through NetMeeting application.
Look for 'Enable Sharing' button in one of NetMeeting application menu command lists.
If there is no such button, application sharing must have been enabled before.
- Quit NetMeeting application. ShareAgent will not launch properly if there is
another instance of Netmeeting application running.
Adding every new member to a ShareAgent session may take 30 seconds or longer. This is
the NetMeeting application startup overhead which is independent of TANGO Interactive.
To take control over the shared application in the slave mode, do one of the following:
- double-click on etheapplication window, or
- right-mouse click and select the 'Collaborate' option.
As soon as a user in the slave mode takes control of the application, he/she begins to share
ONE mouse with other collaborating users. This is because NetMeeting is a shared-display
technology. Using it requires good cooperation of all users and a great deal of patience.
Currently, if a user wants to leave the collaboration, he/she must take over the control of
the mouse and leave the session (if slave) or remotely close all other peers (if master).
To activate application window (either master or slave), user may double-click
on the name of the established session in TANGO Interactive Control Application.
Limitations:
- You may belong to only one shared Microsoft application session at any given time,
e.g. you will not be able to join MS PowerPoint session if you already belong to MS Word session.
You can however run an arbitrary number of other collaborative TANGO applications.
- You cannot run a shared Microsoft application from TANGO, if there is another NetMeeting
application running in the system.
- 'Become master'/'Grant master' functionality of the TANGO Interactive Control Application
is not supported. Default implementation does nothing.
- 'Local close' from TANGO Interactive Control Application does not close the MS application
itself if you are in the Slave mode. You must exit shared MS application from its main window.
TANGO Interactive support group
Last modified: Wed May 5 15:42:27 EDT 1999