The name PyHoca is a word play combining two powerful entities: Python and Phoca (mascot of X2go, Latin species name for seals).

PyHoca-GUI is a client implementation for X2Go using the project's Python X2Go client API (a Python module). PyHoca-GUI uses wxPython for rendering graphical desktop elements (menus, dialog boxes etc.).

PyHoca-GUI is designed as a very minimal GUI that behaves very similar to GNOME's network manager applet (nm-applet). It appears as a small Phoca icon (a little seal) that docks to your systray panel (also called notification area) and allows you to manage multiple X2go sessions simultaneously.

PyHoca-GUI has a man page. Considering that it actually is a GUI there are quite some command line options to choose from.

On your GNU/Linux system execute

   $ man pyhoca-gui

An always up-to-date html version of the pyhoca-gui man page can be be retrieved from the X2go Git repository: man pyhoca-gui.

You can launch PyHoca-GUI by typing pyhoca-gui on the command line (from a terminal) or by starting it from your desktop's application menu (topic: Internet).

PyHoca-GUI will appear on your desktop as a small icon that docks into your systray (as the GNOME applet for Network Manager does). Find this icon—it looks like a little white seal on grey background.

Note that on Ubuntu 12.04 or later, the Unity interface does not allow PyHoca-gui to create the systray icon. To enable this, we need to edit the gsettings. To allow all applications in the systray, type this in the terminal.

  $ gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Panel systray-whitelist "['all']"

If you would rather whitelist a set of applications, use this command instead, where YOUR_APPLICATION is 'pyhoca-gui'

$ gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Panel systray-whitelist \
      "['JavaEmbeddedFrame', 'Mumble', 'Wine', 'Skype', 'hp-systray', 'YOUR_APPLICATION']"

PyHoca-GUI on Linux uses the same configuration files as X2Go Client. (The Windows version of X2Go Client writes its session profiles into HKCU of the Windows registry). Thus PyHoca-GUI should work out of the box for most setups and user profiles on a (Linux) system with a working X2Go Client configuration.

If you are new to X2Go and try PyHoca-GUI for the first time, then you have to add a session profile for your (first) X2Go server by right-clicking on the PyHoca-GUI systray icon.

If you right-click on the PyHoca-GUI icon you are offered a sub-menu called Profile Manager. From there, you can create new X2Go session profiles and access all your already defined X2Go session profiles, as well.

The usage logic of PyHoca-GUI is a little bit different from that of X2Go Client. In PyHoca-GUI you first authenticate to an X2Go Server and then you start/resume sessions. It takes a little time to get used to that different concept, but you will soon get to like the advantages of this two-step session startup logic.

To start a PyHoca-GUI session left-click on the PyHoca icon and then choose Authenticate X2go Server to be presented with a list of existing session profiles.

After you have authenticated against one of your configured server session profiles, you can access the authenticated session profile by left-clicking the PyHoca-GUI icon. Navigate through the GUI's menu from there, most of it should be self-explanatory.

For further readings, please also consult the README and TODO documentation files in the PyHoca-GUI source tree on the X2Go upstream Git site.