4 ms·

Is there a way to share a portion of the screen if I want to? Or is it just entire windows?

coscreen 4y ago
Currently only entire displays and specific windows (one or multiple of them). But happy to look into this - what would you share only partially for example?
- mrleinad 4y ago
  Specifically, I have a 49" ultrawide monitor and a VM in it. If I share the entire VM, other people with smaller monitors see it too small and have to zoom. If I resize the VM, I have to reposition my windows inside it. It's easier to share a portion of the screen, it's what I do in Zoom. A portion of a window would work too.
  - seinfish 4y ago
    Max here from CoScreen. I'm with you, sharing a portion of the screen or window would be very useful for this scenario. I can also imagine running CoScreen from the VM itself, but that would only work for Mac and Windows VMs at this point (Audio and video could still go through your physical machine —— i.e. you would connect with two users). We also have a headless Linux client in the pipeline that could serve to connect the VM directly.
    - mrleinad 4y ago
      Connecting with 2 users would work. I would still need to resize the window I'm sharing (the reason I have that big ass monitor is to use VS maximized and have everything open), but it's easier than resizing all windows.
- rkagerer 4y ago
  I do this all the time in Zoom, to share PowerPoint presentations at the correct scale and without exposing my speaker notes, and to share YouTube videos from Firefox without showing the "chrome" portion surrounding the video. My side monitors are oriented vertically, so if I put those windows in fullscreen and try to share the whole monitor it doesn't come out correctly proportioned. This also provides a smoother experience without the "flicker" of going fullscreen and back (which can happen when you switch focus between windows). It's a similar use-case to the one bentcorner described above. The "share region" solution is admittedly a bit of a hack but it works. Love to find an easier solution to this scenario (especially a way to break out speaker notes into a floating window I could position right under my webcam). BTW apropos to nothing, I always loved the way the old Spy++ tool let you drag a reticle onto a control hWnd (reminiscent of how "Select an Element" works in Chrome DevTools) - that was a neat mechanism to quickly select a perfectly carved out region of an app without having to draw a box, but alas these days with so many going Electron, and other non-standard presentation surfaces, it wouldn't be as useful anymore.
  - coscreen 4y ago
    Fascinating, thanks for the detailed context. We'll look into it!
bentcorner 4y ago
I do this using OBS + a dummy plug on my GPU (I run Windows). 1. My dummy plug "monitor" is to the top right of my main ultra-wide - I do this so it's impossible to get "real" windows into it. 2. I have a scene in OBS that has the display capture of my main desktop as a source, and top/left align it with the window. 3. I set my output to 1920x1080 (1366x768 works too but it's a little too small). 4. I set the resolution of my dummy plug monitor to 1920x1080. 5. I use PowerToys FancyZones to set a 1920x1080 zone on the top left of my ultrawide main monitor that I can snap windows to if I shift+drag windows. Workflow: In a meeting I make sure to start OBS, and do a Fullscreen Projector of that scene to my dummy plug monitor. (You can add another scene + display capture of your dummy plug monitor if you want to ensure everything looks identical). I then snap whatever window I want to the 1920x1080 zone. I then share my dummy plug monitor to the meeting. That way you can share what looks like just a window in your meeting but also have the capability to move other windows into the "view" for others as discussion continues and you need to pull other things up without any awkwardness of re-sharing. This whole setup would be a shitload easier if I could use some kind of simple "transparent window" app and then share that app to the meeting. Or if Teams had "share a region" functionality.
- vxNsr 4y ago
  Yea this is kinda nutty as a solution. How often does it break?
  - bentcorner 4y ago
    Actually works great (as far as I know, haha, I can't see what I'm sharing). Getting it just right was sort of fiddly, and starting up OBS before meetings is a bit of a hassle but it only takes a few seconds. I'm probably not explaining the entire thing too well but honestly I find it to be an ideal solution to sharing a region of my desktop.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Currently only entire displays and specific windows (one or multiple of them). But happy to look into this - what would you share only partially for example?

mrleinad 4y ago
Specifically, I have a 49" ultrawide monitor and a VM in it. If I share the entire VM, other people with smaller monitors see it too small and have to zoom. If I resize the VM, I have to reposition my windows inside it. It's easier to share a portion of the screen, it's what I do in Zoom. A portion of a window would work too.
- seinfish 4y ago
  Max here from CoScreen. I'm with you, sharing a portion of the screen or window would be very useful for this scenario. I can also imagine running CoScreen from the VM itself, but that would only work for Mac and Windows VMs at this point (Audio and video could still go through your physical machine —— i.e. you would connect with two users). We also have a headless Linux client in the pipeline that could serve to connect the VM directly.
  - mrleinad 4y ago
    Connecting with 2 users would work. I would still need to resize the window I'm sharing (the reason I have that big ass monitor is to use VS maximized and have everything open), but it's easier than resizing all windows.
rkagerer 4y ago
I do this all the time in Zoom, to share PowerPoint presentations at the correct scale and without exposing my speaker notes, and to share YouTube videos from Firefox without showing the "chrome" portion surrounding the video. My side monitors are oriented vertically, so if I put those windows in fullscreen and try to share the whole monitor it doesn't come out correctly proportioned. This also provides a smoother experience without the "flicker" of going fullscreen and back (which can happen when you switch focus between windows). It's a similar use-case to the one bentcorner described above. The "share region" solution is admittedly a bit of a hack but it works. Love to find an easier solution to this scenario (especially a way to break out speaker notes into a floating window I could position right under my webcam). BTW apropos to nothing, I always loved the way the old Spy++ tool let you drag a reticle onto a control hWnd (reminiscent of how "Select an Element" works in Chrome DevTools) - that was a neat mechanism to quickly select a perfectly carved out region of an app without having to draw a box, but alas these days with so many going Electron, and other non-standard presentation surfaces, it wouldn't be as useful anymore.
- coscreen 4y ago
  Fascinating, thanks for the detailed context. We'll look into it!

bentcorner 4y ago

I do this using OBS + a dummy plug on my GPU (I run Windows). 1. My dummy plug "monitor" is to the top right of my main ultra-wide - I do this so it's impossible to get "real" windows into it. 2. I have a scene in OBS that has the display capture of my main desktop as a source, and top/left align it with the window. 3. I set my output to 1920x1080 (1366x768 works too but it's a little too small). 4. I set the resolution of my dummy plug monitor to 1920x1080. 5. I use PowerToys FancyZones to set a 1920x1080 zone on the top left of my ultrawide main monitor that I can snap windows to if I shift+drag windows. Workflow: In a meeting I make sure to start OBS, and do a Fullscreen Projector of that scene to my dummy plug monitor. (You can add another scene + display capture of your dummy plug monitor if you want to ensure everything looks identical). I then snap whatever window I want to the 1920x1080 zone. I then share my dummy plug monitor to the meeting. That way you can share what looks like just a window in your meeting but also have the capability to move other windows into the "view" for others as discussion continues and you need to pull other things up without any awkwardness of re-sharing. This whole setup would be a shitload easier if I could use some kind of simple "transparent window" app and then share that app to the meeting. Or if Teams had "share a region" functionality.

vxNsr 4y ago
Yea this is kinda nutty as a solution. How often does it break?
- bentcorner 4y ago
  Actually works great (as far as I know, haha, I can't see what I'm sharing). Getting it just right was sort of fiddly, and starting up OBS before meetings is a bit of a hassle but it only takes a few seconds. I'm probably not explaining the entire thing too well but honestly I find it to be an ideal solution to sharing a region of my desktop.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]