What's new

Before you update

• Update Scootch on all your computers: this version and 1.0 can't connect to each other.

New

• Your other computers can sit against any of your screens: below the left one, beside the right one, above either. Click a computer on the desk, or drag it, and choose one of the places marked with a plus. Each computer is drawn as its own screens, set out as they are on your desk.
• Plug in, unplug or move a screen, on any of your computers, and Scootch keeps up. A computer by a screen you unplug moves to the screens left on that side; if another computer is already there, only its shortcut reaches it until the screen is back.
• Each computer's OS icon shows beside its name, on the desk and in the list: an Apple, Windows or Linux mark.
• In Settings, under Look, the edge effects can be previewed on a light or a dark screen, whichever is more like your desktop. Scootch remembers which.
• When Scootch looks for updates, it now also says whether it's your main computer, one you control, or not set up yet, so we can count how many people use Scootch. Along with its version and system, that's all it sends, and nothing about you is kept. Update checks can still be turned off in Settings.

Improved

• scootch place puts a computer against one screen of a side with --screen, and scootch status says where each one sits in the same words as the window.

Fixed

• With screens of different sizes, or set out unevenly, another computer sits beside the screens on its side of your desk: the pointer goes across from any of them, lines up along them, and always comes back onto one of them. Before, Scootch only knew the outline round all your screens, so the pointer could come back on the wrong screen, or get lost in the empty space beside a smaller one.
• A shortcut to another computer brings the pointer to the middle of its main screen, never into the space between two of its screens.
• With Linux as your main computer, holding the mouse button down on a computer you control no longer clicks it again and again, so selecting several things and dragging work there. Many wireless and gaming mice made Linux repeat a held button the way it repeats a held key.
• On Linux, the edge effect plays right at the pointer by an edge with a panel or taskbar. Before, the desktop pushed it clear of the panel, so it played well away from the pointer.
• On Windows, you can drag a computer on the desk to where it sits. Before, it couldn't be dropped anywhere, and only clicking it and then its new place worked.
• Scootch is harder to misuse from a computer you've paired that's been taken over: it can't keep the pointer from coming home, slow your main computer down, fill your disk with empty folders, or slip a link to a network share past the clipboard's check.
• A computer you control could, now and then, lose its connection for a moment when it sent two things to the main computer at the same instant. It doesn't any more.
• On Windows, the edge effect always plays in front of your windows. It could end up behind them, behind a maximised Chrome window for instance, and only showed once that was minimised.
• On Windows, a file dragged to the edge goes across every time. Pushing on into the edge while the glow played could leave it behind, so it often took two or three tries.

New

• Scootch 1.0, and the end of the beta: thank you for trying it early. If you used the beta, your free 3-day trial starts the first time you open this version, on the computer whose keyboard you share.
• Five new edge effects to choose from in Settings: Linked, Goo, Afterimage, Beam and Aurora.
• The Glow effect comes in any colour you like: pick one of eight, any other on the colour wheel, or Rainbow.
• With Linux as your main computer, you can drag files to the computer next to it too: drag them to the edge, rest there, and let go when it says to. They're saved in Downloads/Scootch on that computer.

Improved

• Settings is tidied into four tabs: Switching, Look, Copying and This computer. It opens on the one you used last. "Media keys follow the sound" is under Switching now.
• Settings plays the edge effect you're choosing all the way through, resting on the edge, going over and coming back, and shows a picture of each one, so you can see them before you pick.
• The Mac download opens to a nicer installation window.
• On KDE Plasma with Wayland, Scootch knows exactly where the pointer is on your main computer: the edge effect sits right under it, and resting on an edge goes across, without pushing.
• Pointer movement goes to your other computers at most 250 times a second, which keeps dragging smooth with a fast gaming mouse.
• The rings that show where the pointer lands match your edge effect.

Fixed

• On Linux, Buy a key and the update downloads open your browser from the AppImage on Fedora-based systems like Nobara too.
• Files copied in KDE's Dolphin go across to paste on your other computers. Before, nothing went.
• Files dragged from one of your other computers, over another one and on to your main computer, are saved there when you let go. Before, they disappeared on the way.
• With Linux as your main computer, its touchpad moves the pointer on your other computers at the speed it does on Linux, and tapping clicks there too if you have tap to click on, double-tap-and-drag included. Before, the pointer was slow over there, and only pressing the touchpad clicked.
• With Linux as your main computer, dragging something with double-tap-and-drag on the touchpad no longer lets the pointer go across to another computer, leaving the drag still going behind it.
• Right-clicking in Scootch's window no longer brings up a web page's menu (Back, Reload, Print). In a box you type in, it still has Cut, Copy and Paste.
• With less motion asked for in your system's settings, the edge effect pictures in Settings all looked the same. They show each effect now.
• The edge effects fade out softly instead of being cut off at their top and bottom, Glow most of all, and in the previews in Settings too.

Before you update

• Update Scootch on all your computers: this version and 0.1.4 can't connect to each other.

New

• Copy and paste files between your computers: copy them in Explorer, Finder or your file manager, move the pointer across, and paste them there. Up to 1 GB at a time; drag them for more.
• Choose what goes to each of your computers. On your main computer, click Edit beside one: turn off its Keyboard and only the mouse goes there, while what you type stays with your main computer. Its Clipboard and Files can be turned off there too.
• Pause a computer with the button on its corner in the Scootch window, or from its Edit: the pointer doesn't go there, by its edge, its shortcut or the menu, until you turn it back on. It keeps its number, and an edge facing it leads on to the computer beyond, so pausing one in the middle of a row doesn't cut off the rest.
• Each computer in the Scootch window shows what's turned off for it, at a glance: paused, or its keyboard, clipboard or files.
• Turn off Switch at the edges in Settings and only the shortcuts and the Scootch menu switch, so nothing crosses by accident.
• Each computer you control has its own Files in Settings, next to Share the clipboard: off, no files come to it or go from it, dragged or copied.
• Buy a key whenever you like, from the bar at the top of the Scootch window or Settings, and unlock Scootch for good. During the beta it stays free with all your computers either way.
• A new edge effect, Sparks: a ring of spinning sparks opens in the edge, wider and faster as the pointer is about to go, and snaps shut once it's through. It takes Rift's place; if you'd chosen Rift, you have Sparks.

Fixed

• Mac: the pointer crosses to your other computers again from an ordinary desktop. With Stay put in full screen on, a window macOS keeps for Notification Centre was taken for something full screen, so the edges stayed shut.
• Mac: Safari in full screen keeps the pointer, as other full-screen apps do (its toolbar has a window of its own, which hid the page behind it from Scootch).
• On a computer you control, moving the pointer away from an edge with that computer's own mouse stops it going across. It used to go anyway, with the edge effect following the pointer.

Fixed

• Mac: pressing Caps Lock no longer closes Scootch.

New

• Send feedback from Scootch: what you think of it, an idea, a problem or a question, with your email if you'd like a reply. It's in the Scootch menu, at the bottom of the window and in Settings. The box shows everything that goes with it (your version of Scootch, your system, and whether it's your main computer), and nothing is sent until you press Send.

Before you update

• Update Scootch on all your computers: this version and 0.1.1 can't connect to each other.

New

• Free during the beta, with all your computers. When it ends, a 3-day free trial starts, then a key keeps Scootch going.
• Mac, as a beta: on Apple silicon and Intel Macs, as the computer whose keyboard you use or one you control. Until Apple has checked it, macOS asks you to allow it once in System Settings.
• Drag files the other way too: from a computer you control to the one whose keyboard you use, or on through it to another. Rest on the edge as usual and let go; they're saved in Downloads/Scootch, and the originals stay where they were.
• Give your computers your own names: click Edit beside one to call "nick-Inspiron-7559" "Laptop". The name is only used on the computer you set it on.
• Go straight to any of your computers from the Scootch menu in the menu bar or notification area, or bring the pointer back.
• When two computers can't connect because they run different versions of Scootch, both say which version each has and which one to update. This works between 0.1.2 and every later version.

Improved

• Windows: the installer and Scootch itself are signed by Afterimage Software Ltd, so Windows says who made them instead of calling them unknown.
• Settings is a page of its own, grouped into switching, look and sound, clipboard, networks and this computer, and each group says whether it's for all your computers or just this one. Open it with the cog at the top, or ⌘, on a Mac and Ctrl+, elsewhere.
• How long to rest on an edge is set once, on the computer whose keyboard you use, for all your computers.
• Shortcuts take less room: one key cap each (⌃⌥⇧H on a Mac), and each computer's number is on its screen.
• A computer that isn't connected is shown faded, with what to check.
• The update note reminds you to update your other computers too.

Fixed

• A key let go of on the main computer whose release went missing on the way no longer stops the pointer from crossing to another computer.
• Carrying files to another computer: the arrival glow stays at the edge, and the files' name follows the pointer once it has played. The "Saved" note goes sooner.
• Carrying a file with a long name: its label at the pointer is no longer cut off on the right, and "Saved in Downloads/Scootch" is shown in full.

The first beta, for Windows and Linux.

New

• Pair computers with a six-digit code. Everything you type is encrypted, and only computers you've paired can connect.
• Arrange your computers the way they sit on your desk: side by side, above or below, or in a row with one beyond another.
• Rest your pointer on the edge of a screen and it moves to the computer beside it, with your keyboard. Any mix of Windows and Linux, over your home network.
• Copy on one computer and paste on another: text, pictures and formatting. Passwords from password managers stay put.
• From a Windows main computer, drag files or selected text onto another computer and let go there.
• Quicker ways across: bump the edge twice, hold a key as you reach it, or jump straight to a computer with Ctrl+Alt+Shift and its number. Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H brings the pointer home.
• Full-screen games and slideshows keep the pointer (on Windows, and on Linux with X11), and Ctrl+Alt+Shift+L keeps it on any screen.
• Play, pause and volume keys go to whichever computer is playing sound.
• Rings show where the pointer lands, with a soft chime if you'd like one.
• Only on your own networks: anywhere else, Scootch pauses itself and nobody there can see it.
• Scootch keeps itself up to date. Updates download in the background and install when you say.

Not yet

• Mac.
• Dragging files from Linux back to another computer.
• Copying a file on one computer and pasting it on another.
• Signed installers, so Windows warns before installing.