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DeskPad – A virtual monitor for screen sharing

github.com

151–160 of 167 posts

Re: DeskPad – A virtual monitor for screen sharing

#151

I bought an LG monitor as it has "side-by-side" split screen, but of course, it doesn't work. Just let me config my screen in sections at the hardware or driver level, and accept them as different monitors

This is a bad idea. You'll end up stuck in driver hell. Screen-splitting is best done at an OS/app level.

Re: DeskPad – A virtual monitor for screen sharing

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notched MBPs can't do HD through resolution changing. (I would love to be proven wrong on this. See my other comment for hoops I jump through to get around this.)

What exactly do you mean by "can't do HD?" I can set my display to 1728x1080. That's HD. I can also output my Mac to an HD TV, Projector, etc. And I have the notch on my MacBook Pro. Do you have some other definition of HD that I'm not understanding?

1920x1080

Re: DeskPad – A virtual monitor for screen sharing

#153
You can achieve something similar using vlc + slop on Linux, here's the script I usually use (I run i3 typically).

    selection=$(slop -f %w,%h,%x,%y)
    width=$(echo "${selection}" | cut -d , -f 1)
    height=$(echo "${selection}" | cut -d , -f 2)
    top=$(echo "${selection}" | cut -d , -f 4)
    left=$(echo "${selection}" | cut -d , -f 3)

    cvlc --no-video-deco --no-embedded-video --screen-fps=20 --screen-top=$top --screen-left=$left --screen-width=$width --screen-height=$height screen:// &
Then "just" share the VLC window instead of your desktop.

Re: DeskPad – A virtual monitor for screen sharing

#154

You can achieve something similar using vlc + slop on Linux, here's the script I usually use (I run i3 typically). selection=$(slop -f %w,%h,%x,%y) width=$(echo "${selection}" | cut -d , -f 1) height=$(echo "${selection}" | cut -d , -f 2) top=$(echo "${selection}" | cut -d , -f 4) left=$(echo "${selection}" | cut -d , -f 3) cvlc --no-video-deco --no-embedded-video --screen-fps=20 --screen-top=$top --screen-left=$left…

Brings to mind the infamous comment about Dropbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

EDIT: As noted below by @cole-k, the situations aren't the same, because the parent comment here is talking about approximating DeskPad-like functionality on a platform not (currently) supported by DeskPad.

Re: DeskPad – A virtual monitor for screen sharing

#155
post #78

After trying various solutions - including DeskPad - I came up with a custom cross-platform (I'm on macOS, but assume it'll work elsewhere) solution that worked incredibly well on my 40" ultrawide monitor: OBS[1]. Having never used OBS before but knowing it was popular among streamers, I wondered if I could use it to (1) only share the specific applications I wanted to share and (2) share them at a resolution that pe…

Blacklisting falls into badness enumeration territory. It's good that you can blacklist sensitive windows, but it would be more useful to have a whitelist feature. If I want to share my browser tab and a game I'm playing, I could simply tell it that, and not have to worry about whatever other sensitive information may pop up randomly at any given time.

Re: DeskPad – A virtual monitor for screen sharing

#156

You can achieve something similar using vlc + slop on Linux, here's the script I usually use (I run i3 typically). selection=$(slop -f %w,%h,%x,%y) width=$(echo "${selection}" | cut -d , -f 1) height=$(echo "${selection}" | cut -d , -f 2) top=$(echo "${selection}" | cut -d , -f 4) left=$(echo "${selection}" | cut -d , -f 3) cvlc --no-video-deco --no-embedded-video --screen-fps=20 --screen-top=$top --screen-left=$left…

Brings to mind the infamous comment about Dropbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 EDIT: As noted below by @cole-k, the situations aren't the same, because the parent comment here is talking about approximating DeskPad-like functionality on a platform not (currently) supported by DeskPad.

I feel this is a little unfair to the parent as they are offering a solution for an unsupported platform.

Re: DeskPad – A virtual monitor for screen sharing

#157
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brings to mind the infamous comment about Dropbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 EDIT: As noted below by @cole-k, the situations aren't the same, because the parent comment here is talking about approximating DeskPad-like functionality on a platform not (currently) supported by DeskPad.

I feel this is a little unfair to the parent as they are offering a solution for an unsupported platform.

Point taken; I edited my comment.

Re: DeskPad – A virtual monitor for screen sharing

#158
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often call into meetings where I am also presenting twice. Once on my phone and once from my computer. I use my computer for sharing, audio, video, etc. I use my phone to see what the other people see. Shared screens are always difficult to predict. If you have a 4K screen, it will almost always get downsampled somehow for meetings… it can be too slow otherwise. In my experience, the problem isn’t that the font is…

+1 to learning how to share a window, doing it fast when you’re changing windows, and reducing the size of the window. It shows that you care for the audience.

The UX for window sharing is just too crappy for this suggestion. I do this, and the single hardest part is locating the window in the list of windows to share.

Combine that with a workflow that involves 2 or more windows (e.g., switching between a terminal & a browser … or just wanting to display them both at the same time¹), and it's not really workable.

¹… and while there's no technical reason I couldn't share two windows … there's no support for it.

Re: DeskPad – A virtual monitor for screen sharing

#159
post #88

Linux/X11: #!/bin/sh new_disp=:2 size="1600x900" unset XDG_SEAT XMODIFIERS GTK_IM_MODULE set - "$@" \ -noreset -br -ac -dpi 120 \ -xkb-layout us \ -screen "$size" \ "$new_disp" \ # Xephyr "$@" & sleep .5 export DISPLAY="$new_disp" metacity & urxvt & Metacity is kinda deprecated but still my "simple WM" of choice. You may need to set an xauth key for :2. ("xauth add :2 . ") (Script slightly edited & shortened, probabl…

> Metacity is kinda deprecated

See the MATE project. It's a continuation of GNOME before GNOME stopped being what made it wonderful. The fork of Metacity, specifically, is named "Marco".

Re: DeskPad – A virtual monitor for screen sharing

#160
post #83

I wonder if something like this could be done on Linux with xorg hackery (probably involving xvfb?). Definitely seems handy.

You can just start Xephyr, it gives you an X server in a window. Needs a few lines of setup around it to get a window manager or desktop session on that window.

Nested X sessions aren't quite the same as TFA's tool; you wouldn't be able, I don't think, to drag a window from one to the other. You'd need to restart a copy of anything you want to present in the nested X session.

It could "work" in the same vein, but the UX isn't as nice as what TFA's tool is, I think.

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