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Show HN: Coscreen.co – a radically different remote collaboration tool

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Re: Show HN: Coscreen.co – a radically different remote collaboration tool

#41

Post by coscreen »

nicoburns wrote: post #16
apetresc wrote: post #4

This looks like an amazing idea executed brilliantly–reminds me of Dropbox in that way. But I've been thinking about it for the last five minutes and I cannot figure out how you guys actually managed to implement this. What sorcery is at the root of this? How do you composite windows from two different machines into a single desktop on macOS?

I assume it's not a real desktop, but a full-screen window of their app. And I guess it basically works via two-way machine control. Each person's computer is actually driving their own windows, but the software allows everyone to control everyone's (shared) windows, just like one-sided remote-control apps. It's a pretty clever idea!

Thanks both - here's how it works: 1. CoScreen captures each of your window to be shared individually. 2. It sends them across in a combined video feed per user with window positions & sizes. 3. On the receiving end, it creates actual native windows which are filled with the video streams of the corresponding windows. That way they look and feel like actual local windows. E.g. you can move & resize them like any other native windows. 4. Whenever you click or type into a remote window, the input is send across to the origin of the window and applied there.

Re: Show HN: Coscreen.co – a radically different remote collaboration tool

#42

Post by coscreen »

zlsa wrote: post #35

This is a great idea, and your implementation of it looks awesome! I don't have a use for it at the moment, but I'm bookmarking it for later. A bit of feedback on your website: the yellow you've chosen is nearly impossible to read on my monitor, especially with the thin font used in "Sign up".

Thanks for your feedback, we'll fix that asap...

Re: Show HN: Coscreen.co – a radically different remote collaboration tool

#43

Post by coscreen »

zimbatm wrote: post #38

This looks like a cool product if both people have a secondary screen. A similar but much more low-key solution that I love using is tmate[1]. Tmate is a tmux session that can be shared over SSH. It's super easy to install and anyone who has a SSH client can join in two seconds. It's great for pairing sessions if both developers are into vim or emacs editors. Or just to show a quick thing. [1]: https://tmate.io/

Thanks for sharing! It's true that CoScreen works best with multiple screens but it also works with just one screen (details in a comment on this thread). Tmate is indeed awesome as long as you're working within Terminal.

Re: Show HN: Coscreen.co – a radically different remote collaboration tool

#44

Post by coscreen »

andy_ppp wrote: post #40
coscreen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, here's the direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHI5-ne2F2I&feature=youtu.be...

I thought this was vapourware. The best video you can show for this is your JIRA board where everyone can update it in realtime in a team meeting with remote teams. Don't bother with the animations, they make your product look not real! Very impressive.

Thanks for your feedback. We felt that it's hard to get the concept across without showing both clients. But thanks again for the input, we'll show the real interactions more prominently.

Re: Show HN: Coscreen.co – a radically different remote collaboration tool

#45

Post by jedberg »

coscreen wrote: post #39
jedberg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you see that? I can't find that on the page. Also, how?

Great question - here's how it works: If you only have one display (e.g. while you're on the run) it can still share the windows on this desktop but you can share/unshare all of them with a single click on the display icon next to your user. You can also auto-minimize all your windows when joining a room.

Ok so it's an all or nothing type thing? I'm either sharing my whole screen or none of it?

Still definitely useful! Just trying to learn the limitations.

This is awesome by the way, I'll definitely be checking it out!

Re: Show HN: Coscreen.co – a radically different remote collaboration tool

#47

Post by mbreese »

coscreen wrote: post #29
igetspam wrote: post #8

MacOS only. Leaves me (Linux) half our devs (Windows), all of our execs (Windows) out.

Yes unfortunately and yet only for now. We just started with Mac (coin toss) and now we'll do our best to cover all of them soon.

That's sad -- from your demo video, I thought you were supporting Windows too (the minesweeper window). You might want to make that more explicit.

Re: Show HN: Coscreen.co – a radically different remote collaboration tool

#48

Post by JoshTriplett »

coscreen wrote: post #23
fimdomeio wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a great idea. One question is visual data only shared among peers or does it pass through your servers?

Thanks! It goes through a central server so it can make it through corporate firewalls. This adds latency unfortunately but makes it more reliable for folks behind strange proxies and scales better for >2 users. But in any case, we'll enable P2P connections shortly so it won't go through the server if it doesn't have to, stay tuned. Sign up on our website and we'll let you know once it's out.

If you haven't already, you might consider adding end-to-end encryption, which will make people more comfortable with it going through your servers in the cases where it still needs to.

Also, I'd assume you use video compression; keep in mind that encrypted video still reveals some information through sizes, especially if you have some idea of the kinds of applications users typically use.

Re: Show HN: Coscreen.co – a radically different remote collaboration tool

#49

Post by coscreen »

jedberg wrote: post #45
coscreen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great question - here's how it works: If you only have one display (e.g. while you're on the run) it can still share the windows on this desktop but you can share/unshare all of them with a single click on the display icon next to your user. You can also auto-minimize all your windows when joining a room.

Ok so it's an all or nothing type thing? I'm either sharing my whole screen or none of it? Still definitely useful! Just trying to learn the limitations. This is awesome by the way, I'll definitely be checking it out!

Exactly - all your windows on your screen to be specific, so e.g. not your desktop background or files on your desktop. We're considering adding the ability to pick individual windows but feedback welcome...
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