Drag and Drop

As a former Connectix Virtual PC user, the first thing I want to see is support for drag n' drop. I should be able to drag a file from my Mac's desktop and drop it into the PC window to copy it over. Also, being able to share any folder in the Mac's Finder as a 'drive' for the PC is another VPC trick I would like to see.

 

you're right and also

yes this is a very useful feature that being able to exchange datas from both guest and host OS: no need to ftp, email, megaupload or burning CD to transfer files anymore.

 

Drag and drop is vital to make this software viable.

 

While it may not be in your current beta, you can do this in the other versions of Parallels. It will require that you understand that this is virtualization, not just another desktop app. You will have to know how to network computers since the drag-and-drop is implemented as a network connection between 2 distinct computers on your network - just as if you have a windoze machine networked to your machine. This method is common to all virtualization technologies that currently exist (VMware does try to mount local drives, but not very well). Exchanging data between the host and guest is currently possible, and if your choice of host and guest supports it, drag-and-drop already works.

 

Drag and drop exists to simplify the life of those who doesn't want to understand the networking behind. And it will not require understanding of the networking, of course, as it's not required in the VPC or VMWare on other platforms. Now, what people say here makes a great sense, I fully support this request. Please implement if possible.

 

Technically, yes, I suppose you could argue that dragging and dropping a file to a network share is "drag-and-drop" but sharing files via networking is not what he was asking for. Try VirtualPC running Windows on Windows (maybe the old PPC Mac version supports it too?). You can drag a file from the host PC and drop it into the VirtualPC window and it will copy the file to the VirtualPC. The reverse also works.

 

<< Try VirtualPC running Windows on Windows ... >>

Don't think that is a fair comparison because you are talking about products soley from the same vendor. Doing it across platforms, particularly when one of the platforms is proprietary, has to be a significantly different challenge. Have you ever heard of a product or an achronym describing this type of capability that is cross-platform? I've used several emulators/virtualizers in production use under windoze and Linux and I've never seen any of them mention this capability. So if this is a make or break issue for someone, it might be best to look into BootCamp and deal with it's limitations.

 

<< no need to ftp, email, megaupload or burning CD to transfer files anymore. >>

There was never a need to do this using Parallels. You are exagerating a great deal with this remark.

 

<< And it will not require understanding of the networking, of course, as it's not required in the VPC or VMWare on other platforms. >>

You are mistaken here with respect to VMware. It does not support file/app drag-n-drop between host and guest.

 

Of course it does. It's not as far fetched a feature as you seem to think it is.

 

I only mentioned the Windows VPC as an example because I use it everyday and knew it was supported. You didn't seem to understand what the original poster was asking for. However, since you seem so adamant I looked on MS's site and the PPC version of VPC would seem to support this as well.

Virtual PC for Mac

 

<< You didn't seem to understand what the original poster was asking for. >>

Yes, I do understand the original post, and since I have installed and used all of the available emulator/virtualizer products - and that's where I'm coming from. There just simply is no protocol, interface, or library that will support what was being asked by the original poster. I don't have any idea what you are talking about when you say a PPC version of VPC. To my knowledge there are 2-3 OSs that run on the PPC. Maybe some of them can talk to a virtual OS in the way you describe, but you would have to be more specific about the host-guest configuration to demonstrate that this capability could be applied successfully to all platform combinations.

 

I linked to a doc on Microsoft's website but to be more specific: Microsoft Virtual PC 7 when running on host OS of Macintosh OS 10.x on a PowerPC CPU with Windows 9X/Windows2000/WindowsXP as the guest OS supports dragging and dropping files between the host and guest operating systems.

I think the issue may be that you are mostly working with Linux. With all the many flavors of linux, not to mention the varied graphical environments I agree that this functionality would be very difficult. I don't think anyone is asking for universal dragdrop between any and all platforms, but I don't think it's that far fetched to support it when using Windows on MacOS.

 

Look. Drag and Drop CAN be implemented... it's just a matter of getting CREATIVE about it if no APIs etc. exist.

As an example: (and this is an EXTREME example if they can't get it working normally)

Let's say you take a file on the mac desktop, drag it onto the Parallels XP window... nothing can be done to natively move that over... HOWEVER... if it detects files are being dropped on it's window (this is a programming interface operation), as Parallels is a MAC OS X application, the MAC OS X Parallels software could seamlessly convert the files to a .dmg in the background, mount said .dmg file in Windows XP in Parallels, and copy files from .dmg in XP to the folder that the files were being dragged to... and then of course quickly deleting the .dmg and cleaning everything up afterwards.

Tricky? Probably. Doable? Of course... and would be seemless to the end user. They'd have no idea what was going on

There are ALWAYS ways to get things done... sometimes you just have to think outside the box.

 

<< With all the many flavors of linux, not to mention the varied graphical environments I agree that this functionality would be very difficult. >>

Actually, about 95%+ of LInux distros use the same X windows, and nearly always the same version. You would see more variation in the different versions of windoze.

I don't think drag-and-drop is all that useful on any two platforms anyway - file sharing is much more useful. It eliminates the effort necessary to synchronize the files.

<< There are ALWAYS ways to get things done... sometimes you just have to think outside the box. >>

Let's see how long it will take M$'s 100,000 programmers to implement VirtualPC for the Intel platform. Then I bet the price goes up from 3 times as much as Parallels to 5-6 times more. You can brag outside of your box when that box is on the shelf - not announced - the go and buy it.

 

Connectix implemented tighter Mac OS integration features in Virtual PC by writing additional extensions for Windows. Version 1.0 had extremely rudimentary support (shared folder and basic clipboard). 2.0 brought along drag and drop as well as a bi-directional clipboard which supported graphics. The software essentially worked as a glue to make the integration work more seamlessly (it wasn't and as of 7.0, still isn't perfect but good enough). In the earlier days, it was simply called OS Additions and required manual installation but in later releases (including the Microsoft Mac versions), is the VPCAdditions disk image located inside the Resources folder of the application bundle. This is already installed in the various Windows OS packs but if you do an install from scratch, VPC will detect this when booting the new Windows install and throw up a dialog asking if you want to install those additions.

As far as I remember, I don't think there was ever any integration when installing Linux in Virtual PC for Mac (I only did it once myself around the VPC 5.0 timeframe) as the focus by Connectix and Microsoft (who in reality has not done much for the Mac version after they bought out the software) was always on seamless Finder/Windows Explorer drag and drop and better bi-directional copy/paste. Anyway, Parallels can eventually implement this feature and it will no doubt win browny points with current PPC Mac users who do utilize drag/drop between the Mac and VPC.

 

It sounds like you don't use a Mac very often or at all and thus have never used the Mac version of Virtual PC. It is a completely different product from the Windows version of Virtual PC (which does virtualization unlike the PPC Mac version which emulates the entire x86-ISA and other basic hardware components in software). All of that technology was bought out by Microsoft from Connectix in 2003 (mainly for the Virtual Server for Windows product they were working on at the time). More VPC information here.

Drag and drop made it easy to quickly move files in between a Finder and Explorer window (this worked both ways). Shared folders was useful for synchronization/automated copying tasks. To dismiss drag and drop is missing one of the most pervasive features of the Mac. For longtime users, it is a natural part of their workflow (my workflow process in Windows is completely different compared to when I am using my Mac for example). For newer converts or very casual users, they often times have difficulty groking this and that is quite understandable because they've never really used it; it is not only a Finder level thing but also works in and across most Mac applications.

 

As our friend obviously has no idea how a Mac works... he can not appreciate it's finer drag-and-drop architecture.

One of the demos I always show Windows folks that makes their jaw drop is highlighting text in a browser, and dragging it to EXPOSE, and selecting the Word Processor or Email program, and dropping it right in.

Boom! Drag - N - Drop.

Or... dragging a Photo from the Web into Photoshop... *Boom* Drag -N- Drop.

Or... dragging a photo or a selection of text to the hard drive... through Spring-Loaded Folders (Windows users are blown away by this feature)... and when I tunnel down through 18 levels of nested folders just for good measure... and drop what I'm dragging, and it creates a text document of the selected website...

They just try and pick their jaws up off the floor.

However, something tells me... if the guy has no CLUE what the Red Green and Yellow buttons are for... he won't have a clue about the power of Expose, Spring Loaded Folders, or any other drag and drop technologies that Mac users take for granted as part of the overall "Experience".

 

Your comment in the other thread about not trying to impose windows thinking on OS X is exactly right... when I got my Mac I thought the finder was seriously junk (and it does have some issues) until one day I accidentally found out about spring-loaded folders and some other tricks that didn't occur to me in my "windows" mode.

You really do have to change your operation mode when you come to OS X... windows requires you to complicate things. Obviously OS X isn't perfect, but windows people who try to force a windows methodology on it wind up confused and missing the whole point... so they decide it's a useless OS!

 

I'll second that... it takes some rewiring of your brain. I have probably converted 20-30 people in my life to Macs... and I always make sure I'm there for them... during and right after the transition.

One of my Agents recently bought his first Mac... and Intel Dual Core 20" iMac... he freaking loves it. However, every once in a while he'll get frustrated because he can't figure out how something works... when I show him... he just rolls his eyes... and says "That was easy. I was trying to figure it out so hard... and it was right in front of me all this time"...

You get programmed into a certain way of doing things... not saying which one is better.

However, most folks that can get de-programmed and give both OSes the same and equal footing can see how intuitive OS X is over Windows.

And... just for the record... I own 2 PC's and 2 Macs... so I use both daily.