Tips for working in the Web Client environment

The RD Web Client allow any device to connect to the Red Hen remote desktop using only a browser.  The resulting session feels exactly like a traditional non-browser session except for a few minor changes. The article identifies these changes and their functionality.

Local Drive Access

In a traditional Citrix or RDP session, the client's local drives get mapped to corresponding drives within the remote session so files can be moved between the session drives and the local client drives.  In a web client environment, files can only be downloaded to one place: the local Downloads folder.  This makes sense given that modern browsers also only allow downloads to one destination: the Downloads folder.  Gone are the days when you could "Save as" internet downloads to any location on your computer.   

To download files from your session to your local Downloads folder, simply copy or move the target file to the folder labelled Remote Desktop Virtual Drive on RDWebClient\Downloads in Explorer. 

The file will be "downloaded" across the internet and show up in your local Downloads folder. Do note however, that the Downloads folder is a one-way mirror.  For security reasons, it will never reveal the contents of your local Downloads folder in session, not even recently downloaded files.  

 To upload files (move them from your local computer to the Red Hen session drives), click on the Upload icon in the top right corner of your session and navigate to the file you want to upload from your local drive.

The file will be copied or moved across the internet and appear in the Remote Desktop Virtual Drive on RDWebClient\Uploads folder within your Red Hen session.  From there you can move it to your K: or H: drive on the Red Hen servers.

 

Printing

The RDP Web Client environment does include mapped printers.  In other words, there is no way to print directly from QuickBooks to your local office printer.  Instead, each session includes a virtual PDF printer that allows you to save documents as pdf files.  

When you print to the Remote Desktop Virtual Printer, you will prompted to select a location to save the new PDF.  You can even save it to your Remote Desktop Virtual Drive on RDWebClient\Downloads folder so you can use it locally.  That's one step closer to your actual printer.  Habits have changed over the last decade and people print a lot less paper documents than they used to but if you still regularly require paper documents, we recommend upgrading to the Full RDP Client.  Instructions are here.

Screen Size

Adjusting your screen size is as easy as adjusting your browser window.  Simply grab a corner of your browser window and drag it to your preferred dimensions.  To maximize your session window, you can Unpin the navigation bar to hide it.  The navigation bar pin appears in the top right corner of your session.

If you really want to maximize your session screen, you can switch to Full Screen mode by selecting the Full Screen arrows.

You can subsequently use the ESC key to leave full screen mode and the black block in the top-center of the screen to re-expand the hidden navigation bar.