DaDesktop for Participants - Howto

Objective

This guide is for participants (students) keen to join a course hosted on DaDesktop.

 

Overview of DaDesktop

DaDesktop is a cloud platform purpose-built for IT training. It’s designed for instructors and learners, using virtual desktops powered by the groundbreaking DaDesktop® technology. In each session, every participant gets their own full online desktop to work through exercises under the trainer’s supervision.

Its three main components are:

1. Management Console – a web interface for administering the system, like starting and stopping cloud desktops.
2. Training Room – a shared space for remote desktop sharing, audio, chat, lesson recording, and similar.
3. Remote Desktop – a virtual machine (Windows or Linux); one machine per user.
    

Requirements

If you’re joining from your office or home, you’ll need:

• A computer (PC or laptop) with a reliable internet connection (at least 10Mbit/s download and 1Mbit/s upload). Windows, Mac, and Linux machines are all supported.
• Chrome or Firefox web browser
• A decent microphone or headset (a phone is a last resort, and not recommended)
• A quiet spot, free from distractions and background noise – a café won’t cut it.
   

We recommend:

• Webcam
• A second monitor; use one to follow the Trainer, and the other for your DaDesktop Virtual Machine labs.
• Turn off any VPN before joining the course
• Disable any security software that might interfere with the network connection, if you can
• Use an Ethernet connection if possible; if you’re on WiFi, run a speed test beforehand (for example, at speedtest.net).

You might like to have a go at joining your course and checking out your DaDesktop virtual classroom before the course kicks off. Just be aware you can only access the Desktop for 15 minutes on days before the course start time.

 

Course Access

Outside of course days, access to your Course is limited to a 15-minute window.

On course days, you can access it all day. Previously, it was only open for about an hour before the course started.

 

Keep Desktop after Course finishes

A brilliant feature of DaDesktop is that course participants can keep using their machine after the course wraps up. 

Check out the link above for all the details on how to do this.

Joining a Course

Open the link the facilitator sent you (e.g., dd4t.dadesktop.com/da/join/xxxxx).

 

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If you’re a first time user, pop your details under “Account” and click “Sign Up”. You can enrol via the form or by signing in with your Google or LinkedIn account.

If you’ve already got an account, just log in.

That’ll take you to the Management Console for your course.

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Using the Management Console

Click the “TRAINING ROOM” tab.

Click the “Join Training Room” button.

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The Virtual Training Room will open in a new browser. A pop-up will appear asking you to allow copying to the clipboard. Click “Allow”.

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Navigating the Training Room as a Participant

The Training Room has a tab at the top of the screen with links back to your course.

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Controls available at the bottom of the screen

• From here you can ‘pop out’ the screen to another monitor if you need, and maximise the browser window to fill the screen.
• Also, at the bottom right there’s a small blue toggle for accessing DaDesktop support chat.

 

Using the new Clipboard function

To get text like web links, functions, etc across from your own computer into the Virtual Machine, we use the ‘Clipboard’.
 

When you connect to your Online Course or Stand-alone Desktop, a pop-up like the one shown here will appear. Click ‘Allow’. Just a heads-up, images can’t be copied to the clipboard on DaDesktop at the moment.

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Clicking the small clipboard icon in the address bar lets you change the clipboard settings for this site.

How to use it

• On Windows and Linux VM Desktops, copy and paste as normal with Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V.
• On a Mac, copy as usual and then press Shift + Ctrl + V, or middle-click your mouse, to paste.

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Please reach out to us if you need more help using this feature.
 

Original Clipboard (only for browsers that don’t support the newer Clipboard, like IE, or as a fallback)

• To copy text between your machine and the virtual DaDesktop machine, type or paste it into the clipboard area at the bottom left of the screen.
• On the virtual machine, middle-click (or press the mouse wheel) to paste the clipboard contents onto the desktop. This works anywhere in DaDesktop where text can be entered, assuming you’re using the standard Linux DaDesktop virtual machine.
  Mac users – use Command c or ⌘ c to copy, Command v or ⌘ v to paste. Once pasted into the dd4t clipboard, inside dd4t you’ll use Control X, C, and V to cut, copy, and paste.
• If you’re using the Windows virtual machine, right-click to paste from the clipboard.

To resize the clipboard area, click the green and white arrow icon at the bottom left of the screen.
 

 

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Using the mouse in a multi-user scenario

This feature shows the username of whoever’s controlling the mouse right next to the cursor when more than one person is connected to the same desktop. It’s particularly handy for multi-user setups and training sessions where different people take control of the mouse at different stages.

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When multiple users are connected, their usernames appear in the centre at the bottom of the screen.

 

 

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You can turn this feature on or off by clicking the green ‘Info’ button down the bottom of the screen.