If you wish to then use your iOS device strictly as a keyboard or a touchpad for maneuvering around your external display you simply need to enable Presentation Mode under External display (This option is Disabled by default)
Settings > Display Options > Presentation Mode
NOTE: The Presentation mode option only becomes available when External Display is enabled.
External display is not recommended on anything lower than an iPad-Air or iPhone 5c due to the amount of processing power required by the device.
Auto-Fit Screen - The Auto-fit Screen setting crops the session screen to the display size of iPhone. On iPad, Auto-fit Low/Medium/High will adjust the resolutions as 768x1024/1152x1536/1536x2048 and make applications and desktops fit the screen.
Settings > Display Options > Auto-fit Screen (on iPhone)
Settings > Display Options > Auto-fit Low/Medium/High (on iPad)
Extended Keyboard - is the ability to use all windows key combinations in your Citrix session that the iOS virtual keyboard does not provide for example the key combination Shift + F2 which is commonly used to break out of seamless windows and requires the use of the Windows function keys F1, F2, F3, etc…
Citrix For Iphone
Each individual keyboard combination can be enabled or disabled through the extended keyboard option. (Most of these combinations are Disabled by default)
Settings > Keyboard Options > Extended Keys
Use Custom Keyboards - this option is available for users who would like to use a full physical keyboard rather than the virtual keyboard of the iOS device and is typically connected with the devices Bluetooth pairing option. (This option is Disabled by default)
Setup Citrix Receiver For Iphone
Settings > Keyboard Options > Use Custom KeyboardsNOTE: This feature when enabled since it is an external device as noted by the above pop-up message is less secure than using the iOS devices virtual keypad so please keep that in mind.
Audio - If your organization enables audio for mobile devices, listen to audio from meetings, training sessions, and webinars with applications in Receiver by enabling the Audio setting. This setting lets you listen only. Receiver for iOS does not offer bi-directional audio.
Setting > Audio
Session Sharing - is the ability for a single user session to host multiple applications. This option is always set to enabled as it usually provides a better user experience.
helpful if you needed to disable session sharing just for a specific iOS user and not all users. (This option is Enabled by default)
Settings > Advanced > Session Sharing
Auto-add favorites - The option creates a shortcut for any application that is launched by the user for easy access the next time they launch their Citrix receiver it will be listed as a favorite for receiver so they do not have to browse to find the application again. (This option is Enabled by Default)
Settings > Advanced > Session Sharing > Auto-add favorites
WorkSpace control - allows users to roam from 1 device to another and have their existing session follow them. While the iOS receiver does not support all of the functions of WorkSpace control it does support the following (These options are Disabled by default)
Settings > Advanced > WorkSpace Control
Which has the following 2 options:
- Reconnect during account logon
- Reconnect during refresh
Reconnect during refresh - Will automatically reconnect a user to an existing session if it exists during a refresh on a different device logged in with the same user account.
Caffeine - allows the iOS device not to go into a sleep mode which the Citrix receiver is in use, so for example if the user is idle for 'X' amount of time the iOS device will not shut the screen off. (This option is Disabled by default)
Settings > Advanced > Caffeine
Smartcard Support
This setting is for in-session smartcard recognition. Receiver for iOS 7.x provides support for SITHS smart cards for in-session connections only.
Settings > Advanced > Enable Smart card
Smartcard Support for authentication - allow users to connect to a Citrix environment using their company's smartcard accompanied by a pin number. This feature while available is only supported by the following products and configurations : (This option is Disabled by default )
NOTE: The option has to be configured during the setup of the account for the iOS device, if not selected you must create the account again to add smartcard support.
- iOS 7.1 support
- SHA2 certificate support
- Support for single FQDN access implementation
- Precise Biometrics Tactivo for iPad Mini Firmware version 3.8.0
- Precise Biometrics Tactivo for iPad (4th generation) and Tactivo for iPad (3rd generation) and iPad 2 Firmware version 3.8.0
- BaiMobile® 301MP and 301MP-L Smart Card Readers
Supported VDA Smart Card Middleware:
- ActiveIdentity
- PIV cards
- Common Access Card (CAC)
- Smartcard authentication to NetScaler Gateway with StoreFront 2.x and XenDesktop 5.6 and later or XenApp 6.5 and later.
The Citrix X1 mouse - is the only mouse that will allow you to smoothly operate your virtual windows sessions. It supports right click, left click, scrolling , all the typical mouse operations now available in a Citrix session.
Once you have purchased the device and paired it to your iOS device using Bluetooth the next thing you need to do is enable it in Citrix Receiver. (This option is Disabled by default)
Settings > Citrix X1 Mouse
Once enabled start your Citrix session and you will now be able to use the Citrix X1 mouse with your applications even a published desktop.
NOTE: For full details on this product and how to buy 1 refer to the following document.
Citrix X1 Mouse
iOS Receiver Logging - this option is avalible to help Citrix technical support troubleshooting issues with the Citrix iOS receiver when connecting to a XenApp/XenDesktop environment. (this option is Disabled by default)
NOTE: There is an existing article that goes into detail on how to set this up so I will only be showing the location where it can be enabled if needed.
For full details please review
CTX136380 - How to Enable and Collect Advanced Logs for Receiver for iOS
Settings > Support > Log Options
At a glance
Cons
Our Verdict
I’m not going to be shy about this—I was excited when Citrix Systems announced last summer that it was releasing a client for the iPhone and the iPod touch. Don’t get me wrong, there was no dancing in my cubicle, and I wasn’t under any misapprehensions about sitting on sunny beaches getting hours worth of work done on my little iPhone screen. What I was thrilled at was the prospect of resolving those office tech support calls that come at the most inconvenient times: The soccer field, the Yankee game, in the car on the way to dinner—anything that required me to politely excuse myself so I could drive back to the house and log in to the office.
I’m happy to say that, at least for me, that was not misplaced excitement. Gold minergamefort. For day-to-day work, though, Citrix Receiver is severely limited.
Pinch, drag, or swipe the screen and you can get to anything on your Windows desktop with relative ease. Press Citrix’s Scroll Mode button and you can swipe up, down, left, or right to see the contents of open windows. Tap once to left click; twice to open an application, document, or folder; double-tap and hold to right click; or triple-tap and drag to drag items where you want them. Everything works as expected when navigating the Windows environment. But, depending on which applications you’re using, Citrix on the iPhone can either be amazing or amazingly frustrating.
Amazing are apps that don’t require much in the way of typing or that don’t require you to see the majority of the screen to use them. For example, Microsoft Excel and Citrix’s AccessConsole, used by administrators to manage Citrix servers and the users and resources on those servers, work quite well because they don’t need much screen space all at once. Candy quiz!. In most cases, you can do everything you have to in a small, focused area with one or two clicks, a small swipe, and a few characters typed into a field. In fact, I was able to use the AccessConsole to shadow a remote user and resolve a problem using the Citrix app without any issues
But programs like Microsoft Word, that use—and in most cases, require expansive screen real estate to be usable, are studies in frustration. Yes, you can type and edit documents in Word using the Citrix app, but formatting text is nearly impossible as the Citrix environment doesn’t (and quite possibly can’t) use any of the iPhone’s text selection features. In fact I couldn’t even triple-tap to select a paragraph, so I was limited to double-tapping individual words to individually change their formatting.
Furthermore, once the iPhone’s keyboard is on the screen—especially if you have to have the function keys displayed, as I do for day-to-day work—there’s very little real estate left for typing. This is exacerbated by the fact that the Citrix app has no awareness of where your insertion point is when you’re typing, so when you type past the edge of the screen you have to swipe to see what you’re working on. For me, with Word’s zoom level set to 100 percent and the Citrix screen pinched to the point where the text was legible on the screen, I was able to type about ten words before my text slipped off the edge. Not impossible to use, but nothing you’d want to use for more than five or ten minutes worth of work.
In the end and for the average user, Citrix Receiver is good in a pinch where small amounts of work need to be completed and there’s no chance of performing the same task on a full-sized computer. But it’s nothing you’d want to use for more than a few minutes. For the Citrix administrator or anyone involved in supporting users in the Citrix environment, this app offers a much longer leash, giving the administrator access to all of Citrix’s administration tools without requiring the administrator to be tied to a desk.
Citrix Receiver is compatible with any iPhone or iPod touch running the iPhone 2.2 software update. Game listobey games.
[Jeffery Battersby is a writer and IT Manager for a New York-based law firm.]