My world often narrows to Xcode and Terminal. There are times I just want to check in on another computer quickly and I don’t want the hassle of creating a new Finder window, going to the network, waiting for the items to load, and clicking Screen Sharing.
Let me share a quick osascript solution I use instead (and there’s an even better solution for launching just using open, thanks Chris). This example connects to Esopus Spitzenburg, my Mojave computer (aka the one that still runs everything including Photoshop and Microsoft Office).
#! /bin/sh /usr/bin/osascript -e 'tell application "Screen Sharing" to GetURL "vnc://Esopus-Spitzenburg.local"'
If closed, the Screen Sharing application launches in the foreground. If already running, it stays at its relative hierarchy. You can add a command to activate to bring it to the front on each invocation, even if the connection is already active.
If you’d like to let the utility toggle visibility on call instead, add a request to Finder and append it to the script:
/usr/bin/osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to set visible of process "Screen Sharing" to not visible of process "Screen Sharing"'
I have written similar utilities to open Broxwood Foxwhelp and Glockenapfel, depending on the computer I’m using. As much as I’ve intended to write a single utility instead of two or three dedicated scripts, I’ve can’t convince myself it’s worth the effort.
(Bonus points: Why are my computers named this way?)
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