One keyboard,
two machines.
Beamer lets one keyboard and one mouse or trackpad drive a Mac and a Windows PC on the same network, in either direction. Push the pointer off the edge and it carries on onto the other machine. It is coming soon, for macOS and Windows, free.
Push through the edge
Push the pointer off the edge that faces the other machine, through a corner, or up through the MacBook’s notch, and it carries on over there at the same point along the border. The edge lights up as you push, and the trackpad ticks at every quarter of the way through.
Or press a key
Double-tap or hold a trigger key to switch without moving the pointer. Right Option on the Mac and Right Ctrl on the PC to start with, and on the Mac it can be any key you like.
Either way round
The Mac’s keyboard and trackpad can drive the PC, and the PC’s keyboard and mouse can drive the Mac. Each machine has a switch per direction, so you can turn one way off and keep the other.
The clipboard comes with you
Copy on one machine and paste on the other, text and images, in both directions. It moves at the moment you switch. Files stay where they are.
Your shortcuts still work
Cmd becomes Ctrl on Windows, so Cmd+C copies there too, and the PC gets the reverse on the Mac. Play, pause, skip and volume go to whichever machine you are on.
Mac gestures on Windows
Three or four fingers up for Task View, down for the desktop, left and right to change virtual desktop, all from the Mac’s trackpad.
Make it yours
The edge as a glow or a beam, five colour schemes, the notch as a beam or an island with a meter, and how hard you have to push before it crosses.
Out of the way when it should be
A full-screen app holds the edges so a game or a film never loses the pointer, and the trigger key still works. Switch to a PC that is asleep and Beamer wakes it.
Your network, nobody else’s
Nothing goes through a server. The two machines talk to each other on your own network, encrypted, and you pair them once with a six-digit code the PC shows you.
Free and open source
No account, no subscription. MIT licensed, with every line of it on GitHub.
What you need
- A Mac on macOS
- A PC on Windows 10 or 11
- Both on the same local network
Coming soon
The downloads go up here when it launches. Until then the code is already public, if you want to read it first.