PuTTY Integration

PuTTY Integration

For Windows users, there is the possibility to use PuTTY inside the tool. Doing so, you can benefit from interesting features.

Warning! This tool relies on a JNI library that has been compiled and tested on Windows XP. Users of other Windows versions are invited to test and report errors as [tickets]. I will try to provide fixes as soon as I can.

Features

• Multi-sessions tab organization
• PuTTY session organization
• Quick connection button: from a button access the PuTTY sessions as you organized them!
• Quick connect toolbar
• Embed already externally opened PuTTY windows
• Release embedded PuTTY windows (hint: press the Ctrl key when starting a PuTTY session to instantly release the window)
• PuTTY command shortcut button: duplicate or access the settings with a single click!
• Quick access to the system menu (it is a filtered menu, though, some features are not accessible because not compatible with embedded PuTTY windows)
• Auto-focus to embedded PuTTY windows (note: although this sounds very useful, this feature does not perfectly works for unknown reasons, so test it and make up your mind)

Some features can set and enabled or disabled in the preferences.

What this tool does not do

• Full screen (though PuTTY does support it)

Installation

Simply install PuTTY on your system and go to the preferences to indicate the path to the putty.exe program. Once done, your saved PuTTY session are immediately usable.

Manage and organize your PuTTY sessions

When you access the tool, at the bottom left corner of the window you will notice a little blue icon that shows a tree structure: just click it. A new view will open up.

In this view, you will notice a first "folder" named "Unclassified" that contains all your saved PuTTY sessions. Double click a session and it will open up in the application.

To create a new folder where to put sessions, just right click somewhere in the view then select "New Folder". Then drag and drop sessions into this folder to classify them. You can create as many folders and sub-folders as you want, drag them, order them, delete them.

Note: Do not worry if you delete a folder that contains sessions: contained sessions will be put back into the "Unclassified" folder.

In the view toolbar, there is an icon to alphabetically order the folders and sessions.

In order to rename a folder, press F2 or right click > Rename.

The only thing that you cannot do is order the sessions into the "Unclassified" folder.

Once you have organized your PuTTY sessions you simply start them by double clicking them or selecting them then pressing Enter. If you press the Ctrl key while double clicking or pressing Enter, the sessions will be opened in standalone (not embedded) windows.

You will notice that your oragnization is instantly reflected into the Quick Start Sessions button:

There is an option in the preference to remove the empty folders from this button. Just in case.

Note: you can organize your sessions even if you have not given the path to the putty.exe file. This is normal, do not worry about that. If you really think this is an annoyance you can ask for an enhancement request to disable this when the putty exe has not been set yet.

The approach to embedding PuTTY

Compared with some others, this tool does not allow you to create custom connection sessions. This is a choice: instead, this tool totally relies on the standard connection features of PuTTY. Offer a custom session creation mechanism seemed to me redundant with what PuTTY does pretty well. Implementing my own mechanism would not allow me to set X11 settings, window parameters, etc. So I opted for a way to organize the already created PuTTY sessions.