Presence User Manual

Most features are simple to use and not described here

Only some of Presence's features are described here. Many features are easy to use and don't require instructions; the best way to learn is to look at the available buttons and try them out. If you have questions or feedback, do get in touch.

Away from your Mac, but need to send files to someone?
Want to send files that are too big for email? Or share folders with others?
iPhone/iPad: Opening files in other apps
iPhone/iPad: Transferring files from other apps to your Mac
iPhone/iPad: Paste-to-your-Mac
iPhone/iPad: Editing with Pages, Numbers and Keynote

Away from your Mac, but need to send files to someone? Presence lets you email or share.

For example, a client might request a file while you're out of the office. Just connect to your Mac using Presence and send them the file.

There are two ways to send files:

Email: Good for small files
Create a share: Good for big files, sharing folders and much more, whether you're at your Mac or away from it. Shares are described in the next section.

Want to send files that are too big for email? Or share folders with others?

Presence lets you share files on your Mac with other people, just by sending them a link. Presence shares just the files you tell it to. This is useful for:

Sending large files: Email is only good for small files. For large files, create a share and send its link.
Sending multiple files and whole folders: A share can contain as many files and folders as you like. Emailing folders is a pain.
Browsing access: you can give other people access to browse a particular folder on your Mac - this is known as a "browsable share". They can have a look through the folder and just take the files they want. This might suit you better than sending a whole folder.

Each share has a link, like this: http://s.findpresence.com/ABCDEF. Once you've created a share, you just send this link to the person you want to share with.

A share can have a password which the receiver will have to enter before they can use the share. This is optional though - it's up to you.

You can create a share from anywhere - you don't have to be at your Mac.

The best way to understand shares is to create one, then access it yourself. You can always delete it later.

Creating a share

If you're at your Mac:

Select the files you want to share
Right-click (or control-click) and choose "Share in Presence". Depending on your setup, this might be in the "Services" sub-menu.
Presence will display the shares window and create the new share. You can change the share's settings if you like (see below).
Click the "Email Link" button to create a new email containing the share's link. Or, you can use the Copy Link button and paste the link somewhere if you prefer.

Via web browser:

Connect to your Mac as you would normally
Select the files you want to share
Click the add share button (top right)
Change the settings if you like (see below)
Click the Save button
You can now email or copy the share's link

Via iPhone/iPad:

Tap the Share button, then choose Share.
Select the files you want to share
(If you just have one file to share, it's quicker to just tap the file and choose Share)
Tap "Create share"
Change the settings if you like (see below)
Click the Save button
You can now email the share's link or paste it into another app

Share settings

Quick sharing using a standard password

To make sharing quicker, you can use a standard password, rather than having to type a password in every time you create a share. You only have one standard password, so all shares with the "standard password" option have the same password. If you change the standard password, the password for all these shares will change, so be careful.

Secure sharing for sensitive files

If you select this option, an encrypted connection is used to access the share. This is good for sensitive documents.

This option is off by default because it causes a warning in the receipient's web browser which might confuse them. Note that the warning is different in different web browsers, and it's particularly complicated in Firefox. (The warning is because Presence uses a self-signed certificate, which you can read about on the security page.)

You'll be familiar with this warning if you use Presence's web browser interface to connect to your Mac yourself, since your own connections are always secured.

iPhone/iPad: Opening files in other apps

Presence can fetch a file from your Mac and pass it to a different app on your device – think of Presence as a bridge between your Mac and other apps on your device.

This opens up endless possibilites:

Pass photos to an image editing app.
Pass documents to your favourite reading app, eg. Good Reader.
Got a file that Presence can't display? Find an app that can, and pass the file to it.
Whatever you can think of, as long as you can find the app. Use your imagination!

Tap a file, then tap "Open in another app" and you'll see a list of apps that can receive the file.

This only works for apps that are able to receive files. If your favourite app isn't showing up, write to the developer and tell them their app should be able to receive files!

iPhone/iPad: Transferring files from other apps to your Mac

Some apps share their files. Presence can receive any type of file and transfer it to your Mac. How you do this depends on the other app - it's often with a share button or an up-arrow button.

Only some apps share their files. If you think an app should, but it doesn't, you can always write to the developer and ask them to add this feature. In the mean time, you might be able to use Paste-to-your-Mac - see the next section.

iPhone/iPad: Paste-to-your-Mac

If you tap the paste button (in the second row of buttons), Presence will create a new file on your Mac containing whatever's in your clipboard, ie. whatever you last copied from another app. This could be an image, some text, or whatever.

This can be a good way to get files or data out of an app that doesn't share its files. For example, Hipstamatic doesn't have a share option, but you can tap and hold on a photo to copy it. Then you can open Presence and paste the photo to your Mac.

iPhone/iPad: Editing with Pages, Numbers and Keynote

Presence lets you do "round trip editing" of iWork documents - ie. grab a file from your Mac, edit it on your iPhone or iPad and upload it back to your Mac. Because the iWork apps don't share files (and you should complain to Apple about this) the procedure is different.

In iWork on iPad or iPhone, open one of your Mac's files

Click the Documents button to get back to the document list (if you're not there already).

Save an iWork document to your Mac

While editing a document: