Proposed TightVNC Improvements

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Preface

The team of TightVNC developers is not a commercial organization, and the TightVNC software is free, but any major improvement of TightVNC costs the developers a lot of time, and effectively prevents them from doing other (paid) work. That is why we're seeking for sponsors who could help us to improve TightVNC.

Here we propose a number of major improvements to the TightVNC software, in hope that there are organizations and individuals who would like to support the development of these new features. We believe that these proposed changes will result in a much better software for you.

There is a number of projects that need your support:

1. Major improvements in the Win32 viewer (see below).
2. TightVNC ActiveX control.
3. File transfers in TightVNC.
4. Built-in encryption and improved authentication capabilities.

Below you can find a detailed description of enhancements we plan to introduce in the Win32 TightVNC viewer, and our contact information, in case if you are interested to support any of the projects from the list above.

Improvements for the Win32 viewer

Here is a list of the proposed changes to implement in the Win32 TightVNC viewer.

• An improved "Connect to..." dialog allowing to choose predefined connection option sets quickly. It will take just one mouse click to choose if the connection should be optimized for a fast LAN or for a slow modem connection. Also, there will be an easy way to switch into the listening mode right from the initial dialog.
• Automatic saving of connection options for each host, and for the listening mode. Once you have connected to a host, its name and the display/port number will be remembered in the registry, together with all the connection options set for that session. These options will be used by default each time you are connecting to the same host, and any further changes in the connection options will be saved as well. Also, changing default options in the listening mode will immediately result saving them in the registry, so you won't have to enter the same options every time or to tweak the command line used to start the viewer.
• Toolbar in the windowed mode. The user should be able to perform most frequently used actions in a single mouse click.
• Hotkeys for frequently used menu actions.It is also very handy to perform frequent operations without touching the mouse or entering long sequences of keyboard combinations.
• Easy way to use port numbers instead of VNC display numbers. For example, typing "myhost::443" in the "Connect to..." dialog will tell the viewer to connect to the port 443 on the machine named myhost. No more negative display numbers or integer overflows to specify the desired port to connect to.
• Help over every control in the GUI. No need to say that having some help is always helpful.
• GUI settings corresponding to each command-line option. For example, current TightVNC viewer supports writing logs into a file, but there is no way to use this feature without changing the command line used to start the viewer (the -logfile and -loglevel command-line options). New viewer will support all such "hidden" features in its GUI.
• Additional GUI and command-line settings (e.g. the number of connections to remember in the registry).
• Other GUI improvements (e.g. reduced number of items in the system menu, preserving window size and position after applying new connection options etc.). Our goal is to make the GUI as intuitive and useful as possible.

Make It Real

Most the proposed changes are either already done (but need some testing), or are worked on, but the developers do not have significant funding for the work at the moment. If you could help by contributing the money, we would greatly appreciate that. That would be helpful for all the community of TightVNC users and developers, as well as for the future of the project.

As you might guess from the list of features above, the amount of work being done is big enough. But we don't ask you to provide a huge amount of money -- it's up to you how much to pay for the development, and any amount can help a lot.

Please contact us if you're interested in supporting the development. Thank you in advance!

	If you would like just to make a small donation, please do it now by clicking on the logo on the left (use this link to make donations starting at $10).
	Another possibility to make small donations is using PayPal. If you have a PayPal account, just direct your payment to the address tightvnc@tightvnc.com.