[HN Gopher] Deskreen - Turn any device with a web browser to a s...
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Deskreen - Turn any device with a web browser to a second computer
screen
Author : maydemir
Score : 536 points
Date : 2021-01-24 12:23 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| simplecto wrote:
| Neat idea. Do you have a video demo somewhere?
| avipars wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmg5tZ4iSx8&feature=emb_titl...
| MayeulC wrote:
| For those interested in something similar with sway, you can:
|
| - Add a headless display with `swaymsg create_output SOME_NAME`
|
| - Configure its resolution and position like you do for other
| outputs
|
| - Start a VNC server on that output with `wayvnc
| --output=SOME_NAME`
|
| - Start a VNC client somewhere else you want to use your second
| screen (there are some that are browser-based)
|
| Unfortunately it is somewhat undocumented:
| https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/5553 but you can find some
| info on the net:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/swaywm/comments/k1zl41/thank_you_de...
|
| I saw in that readme that they wanted ways to get rid of dummy
| adapters. That above is one such possible way for sway.
| RMPR wrote:
| Thanks for the tip, that's definitely something I'll try out.
| pdxandi wrote:
| > with sway
|
| This made me think, "Sway. Sway. Sway. Sway in the Morning."
|
| Not sure how many hip hop fans there are here...
| phlofy wrote:
| Same! Made me smile :)
| mjcohen wrote:
| I'm so much older that it made me think of Dean Martin.
| 12bits wrote:
| I know we'll be downvoted to death for this.
|
| Sway is so deeply rooted in the game and remains a solider
| for the culture to this day. Always a positive beam of
| positivity from him.
| gambiting wrote:
| For those on windows(and with an Intel WiFi card) there is a
| hidden but an extremely useful feature - "project" can be used to
| turn any other windows PC/Laptop/Tablet into a second screen,
| just enable "cast to this PC" in settings, then from the host PC
| press Win+P from anywhere and the second machine becomes a
| secondary display instantly. To windows it appears as a normal
| display, without any hackery involved.
| pjc50 wrote:
| I remain annoyed that an Intel driver update _took away_
| Miracast from one of my laptops. It worked fine and then it was
| gone.
| martyvis wrote:
| Similar here, my 5 year old laptop doesn't support it. I'm
| willing to accept lower performance if a nonaccelarated
| software route could be made to work
| ianai wrote:
| How laggy is it over Wi-Fi?
| mlacks wrote:
| Nothing to measure it with but i never think about the lag
| when i do it over hotel wifi
| nickysielicki wrote:
| I _believe_ this exclusively uses WiFi direct and skips the
| AP completely, but I can 't completely confirm with a quick
| google.
| gambiting wrote:
| Yep, it does - the underlying technology is based on
| Miracast and works only with Wifi adapters made by Intel
| because it's point-to-point. Sadly it doesn't work
| through an AP connection at all.
| tmashb wrote:
| Works simultaneously here, Intel and most phones support
| multi-role.
| gambiting wrote:
| Yes, I just mean it doesn't work _over_ your WiFi
| connection, so you can 't connect another device
| elsewhere on the network, it has to be in range.
| orev wrote:
| It's best used for desktop apps and things like PowerPoint.
| It starts to lose frames and have tearing when doing video. I
| doubt it would be acceptable for any gaming.
|
| It works well enough, but it's not going to satisfy people
| who are concerned with things like benchmarks and FPS.
| [deleted]
| jeroenhd wrote:
| If I remember correctly, this feature is based on Miracast
| which means that it also works for most WiFi-enabled TVs.
|
| Very useful for presentations, if the Intel drivers and TV
| manufacturer code have mercy on you that day and work without
| crashing, artefacts or random disconnects.
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| Sounds marginally better than the third party implementations
| of AirPlay that I've used.
| jpalomaki wrote:
| Also this requires support from the WiFi chipset. Most
| laptops likely have support, but not all desktop WiFi
| dongles.
|
| I understand it's not the usecase, but would be cool if this
| also worked over ethernet.
| zeusk wrote:
| My team at Microsoft works on the underlying code, I'm not sure
| if it is strictly Miracast but it definitely makes use of
| Indirect Display.
|
| We use Indirect Display driver model for lots of other things
| such as RDP, Graphics over USB etc..
| efdee wrote:
| Does that ever work reliably? I've tried it on a number of
| different systems, and half the time it just does nothing, and
| when it does, the screen updating is quite choppy to the point
| of being unusable.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| I have tried this many times over the years on plenty of
| different computers and have never once got it to work a single
| time.
| Arelius wrote:
| Agreed, I've never gotten it to work, or when I have, it very
| quickly failed, and disconnected thereafter.
| zeusk wrote:
| Next time it doesn't work for you, please file a report with
| Win+F (Feedback hub) and we can take a look at what's failing
| underneath.
| Arelius wrote:
| It feels trying to get troubleshooting for Windows is like
| shouting into the void, so I, as well as I think many
| others, have long since just given up.
|
| I for instance bought "Assure Software Support" at $99 a
| year to try to get support for an unrelated (usb-c dock)
| issue. And there seemed to be no way to actually use it,
| and I just gave up, resentful that I paid Microsoft a
| support fee.
| eznzt wrote:
| There should be a better way of reporting a bug on Windows
| than posting it on a public forum full of spam that is only
| accessible from a Metro app which does not come with LTSC.
| tmashb wrote:
| To add, gpu accelerated, low to non cpu usage as well with
| recent drivers, unlike the 99% other solutions, no more whiney
| fans. It reliably works with recent hardware only, you may see
| few performance profile options to choose from, that is an
| indication of HW accel.
| negativegate wrote:
| Huh, I never knew about this.
|
| Go to Settings > Projecting to this PC to enable it. You may
| need to install the Wireless Display optional feature first.
| chx wrote:
| WOW this is huge, thanks so much!
| bjoli wrote:
| I have a 2016 iMac which has an amazing screen, but sadly apple
| removed target display mode in 2012, which makes it useless for
| me. It has been collecting dust, since I can't stand Mac OS
| except when I really have to use it (mostly some sound production
| things at work).
|
| I am very much looking forward to try this.
| rasengan wrote:
| You could also try Shells [1] to breathe life into an old
| computer.
|
| [1] https://shells.com
| tootie wrote:
| I can't fully vouch for this setup but there are some dirt
| cheap HDMI-to-USB devices on Amazon (got mine for $15) now. You
| can run HDMI out from your main machine to the USB of your iMac
| and then capture the input with OBS and run it full screen. A
| little hacky but it should work.
|
| I've been using one to pipe an old Android phones camera to a
| virtual cam on my laptop.
| bjoli wrote:
| This is amazing. Thank you.
| tootie wrote:
| Here's the doodad: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08Q7V4V4
| L?ref=ppx_pt2_mob_b_...
| DenisM wrote:
| Why not dual boot Windows or Linux? VMs work fine too, been
| using them for a decade now.
| bjoli wrote:
| Because I have a Linux workstation and I want to have 2
| screens. The iMac screen is waaay better than my main screen,
| which is why I want to use it. In daylight, those extra 150
| cd/m2 really help
| kbouck wrote:
| Not sure if this helps the dual-screen desire, but to make
| more use of it, couldn't you install linux directly on the
| iMac? I did that (install pop os) recently with a Macbook
| Air 2012, and it works flawlessly as far as I can see. All
| special keyboard buttons, sound, sleep/wake, battery,
| trackpad (minus gestures), etc. etc.
| kbouck wrote:
| If you want to go further down the rabbit hole, here
| someone tinkering to get target display and linux to work
| together:
|
| https://floe.butterbrot.org/matrix/hacking/tdm/
| adrianmonk wrote:
| The hardcore option (within my ability to conceive of, possibly
| beyond my ability to execute):
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/117066/Can+I+Mod+an+earl...
|
| This will involve some kind of DisplayPort-to-LVDS board (or
| HDMI/DVI/VGA-to-LVDS). LVDS is the type of input on LCD panels.
|
| If "amazing screen" means retina, one question is whether there
| is even a board available that can output high enough
| resolution for good results.
|
| This page seems to have good info:
| https://jared.geek.nz/2015/apr/driving-fpdlink-displays
|
| Anyway, the advantage would be you can plug directly into it
| and get full performance (no lag, full bandwidth) because
| you've basically converted it into a monitor.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| For those on Mac, there is Sidecar to use your iPad as secondary
| display for Mac (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210380).
|
| So, combined with @gambiting saying something similar exists on
| Windows, I'm struggling to see the utility of Deskreen given the
| two main OS's already have such functionality built in.
|
| I guess cross-platform might be the only use ?
| mjs7231 wrote:
| To me, this project seems much more useful than these platform
| specific apps. ANY screen with a browser means much more
| compatibility than iPad only for the second screen.
| jimsmart wrote:
| Sidecar is only possible if your Mac and iPad are fairly new
| models. Also, it doesn't allow one to use e.g. another MacBook
| or iMac as a screen.
| mibzman wrote:
| I use YAM display[1] with a 2012 macbook and an ipad mini
| from 2015, which works great!
|
| I don't think you can use another mac as a second screen
| though.
|
| [1]: https://www.yamdisplay.com/
| manojlds wrote:
| What about my Mac and my Android tablet?
| bennofs wrote:
| On Linux, I've used https://github.com/rhofour/evdi-vnc to make a
| secondary screen that you can connect to with any VNC client.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| I guess I'll have to get a dummy display connector for my current
| video card. I'm still wondering how Duet Display is able to do so
| without it.
| f430 wrote:
| is it possible to output the image buffer to a file or stream it
| over the internet? I have favorited this submission.
| z3t4 wrote:
| You could also use built in browser screen share. (instead of
| electron app)
| d99kris wrote:
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25820533
| blittle wrote:
| Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmg5tZ4iSx8
| asiando wrote:
| I did not expect this kind of performance. Neat!
| chii wrote:
| sucks that to get a non-mirrored screen you'd currently need a
| fake dongle. Kinda takes the value proposition away a lot.
| [deleted]
| midwestemo wrote:
| I really want something that's like spacedesk (another one of
| these) but without using a HDMI dummy plug, spacedesk is glitchy
| however doesn't need a plug and can support many devices.
| edward wrote:
| I corrected some spelling mistakes.
|
| https://github.com/pavlobu/deskreen/pull/34
| amrrs wrote:
| This demo has got latency at the end of the video
| https://youtu.be/adY2SnGT358 (very small latency)
| beyondcompute wrote:
| "Dummy Display Plug" sounds like something from Neon Genesis
| Evangelion. :)
| apricot wrote:
| Baka! You're the dummy, Shinji! Now get in the robot!
| ducktective wrote:
| Anyone knows how to have the same functionality using X window
| system?
| aruggirello wrote:
| Looks like Weylus is what you're looking for:
|
| https://github.com/H-M-H/Weylus
| yoz-y wrote:
| https://xpra.org/trac/wiki/Clients/HTML5 this seems like a
| start. Never tried it though.
| avipars wrote:
| requires a dummy hdmi dongle, but far cheaper than DUET
| amrrs wrote:
| Not required for Mirroring but if you want to use as a second
| new screen then it's!
| ignoramous wrote:
| See also Vysor: https://github.com/koush/vysor.io by the creator
| of ClockworkMod.
|
| It streams Android and iOS UI to desktops with actionable
| controls.
| Causality1 wrote:
| How's the latency on that? I've been looking for a good "dock"
| solution for my phone but as it's type-c port is only USB 2 it
| doesn't support video out with charging.
| cfn wrote:
| Pretty good. I used it for a couple of years doing mobile
| development from a Windows machine and it was very
| responsive. The setup was a bit odd (licensing issues) and I
| ended up switching to scrcpy which is free and also very
| good:
|
| https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy
| unnouinceput wrote:
| Is this a TeamViewer/AnyDesk level of interactivity or just a
| Twitch level of interactivity from 2nd screen? As in 2nd screen
| can be used to control the main source screen or just to watch
| what happens there?
| flaxton wrote:
| Works the same as an additional monitor- which is what it is.
| The Dummy Plug creates the second monitor thru native support
| in the OS. Deskreen connects your additional device to it via a
| web browser. I installed it on Ubuntu and had it working in two
| minutes, using my iPad Pro 12.9" as a second monitor ;-) Looks
| and works good and decent latency.
| unnouinceput wrote:
| Twitch does the same. Run Twitch in browser and broadcast
| with OBS your main screen. Then any device can see your main
| screen
| em-bee wrote:
| can that second monitor be controlled with the mouse and
| keyboard from the device where the browser is running?
| m-p-3 wrote:
| I tried and I couldn't.
| Krasnol wrote:
| The main issue I see here is the interaction on the "customer"
| side. There are too many buttons to click.
| vyrotek wrote:
| Would it be possible to run a 2nd screen as small PIP on the
| desktop?
| dheera wrote:
| It might be super interesting if someone could make a native
| Android/iOS app for this since mobile web browsers can't do
| "real" full screen. Would be useful for turning spare tablets
| into displays and also perhaps for quickly checking color
| calibrations of photo adjustments on mobile displays.
| amelius wrote:
| What are people using their second screens for?
|
| And why not use a virtual workspace manager instead?
| auggierose wrote:
| That's like asking, what do you use your 3-room apartment for?
| Can you not just do with 1 room and a large cupboard?
| amelius wrote:
| Well, I wouldn't own a 3-room apartment if I could change
| those rooms with a keystroke and effectively own a 9+ room
| apartment.
| vnxli wrote:
| But your real estate doesn't change, you just redecorate
| your 1-room apartment each time you want to do something
| different
| markbnj wrote:
| Guess I'll jump in too :). I have two 27" 4k monitors, the one
| directly in front holds work, the one off to the left has docs,
| chat, email, etc. I also use virtual desktops and I could
| arrange all this stuff with those, but having to switch back
| and forth is a minor cognitive hurdle I choose to avoid.
| supermatt wrote:
| The web browsers inspector is my main use at the moment. The M1
| MBP display is simply too small to have the inspector and the
| browser comfortably on screen simultaneously, and its not
| possible to flick between virtual desktops (or application
| windows) without losing the context (some targeting stuff is
| hover-based, for example). Plus its annoying tweaking a css
| style, flicking back and forth all the time instead of seeing
| your change reflected as you change it.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| It's more screen estate. Where it's usefuld depends on what you
| are doing.
|
| I often have one screen for "actual" work and the other screen
| for chat/mail/... then checking for something going on there
| isn't a full context switch, but a short look.
|
| Sometimes in development a second screen can be useful to have
| a screen full of different code files and second screen for
| documentation or the app or logs or whatever.
|
| During video chat i have the faces of the others on one screen
| and notes and other things on the other screen or during social
| videoconfs during covid I have faces in one screen and second
| screen for a (board) game we are playing ...
|
| It always depends on what you are doing. Things one can do are
| many.
| ec109685 wrote:
| I grew up on programming on a Mac SE, so layering feels natural
| to me versus needing to have everything on screen at once. That
| said, a 26" 4K monitor "above" (with the resolution increased a
| bit) my 15" MacBook Pro has been a good setup in WFH mode.
| tetha wrote:
| I've seen this question a few times and have been looking for
| hard sells, especially because I spent quite a few workdays
| during summer in a hammock without a second screen.
|
| I've found about two hard sells so far:
|
| Online presentations and demos to people. For example, showing
| some slides to some people, with some jumps to code or
| terminals. In this case, it's extremely valuable to have the
| call with webcams open on a second monitor so I can keep tabs
| on the expressions of the audience in order to adjust tempo.
| Switching the contents of the presentation screen / shared
| screen without warning is jarring and confusing to the
| audience. And commonly used communication programs do not
| support sharing one virtual desktop easily, only screens and/or
| windows.
|
| And sometimes, it is valuable to be able to display more
| information at once. Sometimes, during larger outages, it helps
| to be able to display more key metrics of the system on one
| screen and poking the system on the other screen. This one can
| be done with virtual desktops, yes, but it has less overall
| cognitive overhead for me to just have a stable screen with the
| monitoring data and/or logs on it available instead of
| constantly flipping between desktops.
|
| And again, during screen sharing, people hate it and get
| confused if I flip the main screen around too much between
| monitoring data and shells. So having a work screen to share
| with people on a call and another screen for information helps
| reduce that.
|
| A lot of other use cases are convenient with more screen space,
| but good virtual screens with hotkeys work almost as well I've
| found.
| gregmac wrote:
| When I'm coding, I generally have code on one, and the other
| has a browser with documentation, notes, issue tracker, or just
| used for searches etc. Usually that monitor is split and also
| has chat visible.
|
| When I'm testing/debugging, one monitor might be the web app
| I'm working on, the other is the code I'm stepping through. Or
| I'll be tailing a log file or watching something in a database
| while using the app.
|
| I do lots of client/server stuff, so sometimes I have a monitor
| showing the server-side (web UI and/or logs) and the other
| showing client-side (cli, logs, and/or local UI). The key
| useful thing is seeing the client do an action and send
| something to the server, and seeing the server instantly react:
| that's not possible when you can't see everything.
|
| In some cases, I'm debugging remotely, and a monitor will be
| partly or completely dedicated to ssh/rdp/vnc to the remote
| system(s), with the other used for browser or cli app I'm
| testing. Usually chat, documentation, source, issue tracker is
| mixed in there too.
|
| There's a couple things I work on that have long running builds
| (10+ minutes) or integration tests that takes a bit over 30
| mins. Both are long enough that I'll do something else while
| waiting and suddenly 2 hours pass before I remember, so I like
| keeping the build status page visible somewhere to avoid that.
|
| Even for non-work/coding sometimes I just have YouTube or
| Netflix open (either 1/4 window or full-screen) while I'm
| browsing the web on another.
|
| To me, working on my laptop is doable, but feels like having
| one hand tied behind my back when compared to working with
| multiple monitors and a proper keyboard and mouse.
| op03 wrote:
| Looking at the matrix. Encoded ofcourse cause theres way too
| much information and the image translators only work for
| construct program.
| emeraldd wrote:
| I tend to run both. The second screen let's me have
| source/editor on one and reference material on the other. My
| daily driver is a three screen setup( laptop display and two
| external monitors). There's usually some combination of logs,
| app ui, source, and refence material across all three so I can
| switch between them without having to think about which virtual
| display they are on. In support situations, I'll have a screen
| share running on one, chat on another, and likely reference
| material on a third. You could do it with a single huge
| display, but it would need to be _huge_ and have a way to
| subdivide it into reasonable slices for easy window snapping.
| Plus, you aren 't going to get that in anything that can be
| used as a laptop ...
| varjag wrote:
| Some of us use multiple screens _and_ virtual workspaces, it 's
| not mutually exclusive.
| bloopernova wrote:
| I have 4 screens on my desk. From left to right:
|
| Vertical oriented 1080p: chat windows, sometimes replaced by
| multiple command line windows.
|
| Horizontal 4K: Emacs, Visual Studio Code, Browser with
| repositories/jira, command line windows.
|
| Horizontal 4K: Browser with documentation, secondary VS Code
| windows, Outlook, Teams.
|
| Macbook Pro screen: Finder, calculator, more command line
| windows.
|
| Most of my "main" work takes place in the 2 horizontal 4K
| screens. The other 2 screens are "secondary" information.
| Having that much screen real estate allows me to more easily
| collect and arrange the information I need to do my job.
|
| If I could change anything, it would be getting a 24 inch 4K
| screen to replace the vertical one, and having a higher refresh
| rate than 60Hz on all my screens.
|
| I hope that one day 8K screens become affordable, because I'd
| love even sharper text. Reading on the vertical 1080p screen
| seems fuzzy compared to the 4K screens. (Which is definitely a
| "first world problem"!!)
| amelius wrote:
| You must feel seriously under-equipped when working anywhere
| else than your desk ;)
| bloopernova wrote:
| I sometimes have to rough it with only a single exterior
| screen! Once I had to work on only the laptop by itself.
| _The Horror!_
|
| ;)
|
| But, more seriously since this is HN: While the extra
| screens are great, as is the mouse and mechanical keyboard,
| it's not much of a hassle at all to work in a different
| location. I think the extra screens, desk space,
| peripherals, all go towards making me more comfortable
| rather than efficient. Which for me, rocking the oh-so-
| annoying ADHD along with nerve and back pain, means I can
| focus on work for that much longer in one session.
|
| I should be working from home at least until mid 2021,
| hopefully much longer or even permanently. A good working
| environment can really improve your mental health at a time
| when, in the USA especially, things are incredibly
| stressful.
| Gene_Parmesan wrote:
| Hello from another ADHD sufferer. Interestingly though I
| fall on the other side of the remote work issue - I
| cannot wait to return to the office. My brain is quite
| stubborn about categorizing spaces; my computer room at
| home is where I do some side project programming and a
| fair amount of gaming. Having to try to recategorize it
| as a working space has proven impossible, and I don't
| really have any other space in this house, with my wife
| also working remotely.
|
| Besides, more generally the drive to the office helps put
| me in work mode. The whole office building is a place
| where work happens. Then the drive home helps put me in
| leisure mode. Without those neatly coded space/time
| contexts I have been seriously struggling.
|
| Everybody that keeps talking about how the world is going
| remote has been giving me a fair amount of anxiety. If I
| lose my office I'm not sure how I'm going to function.
| Besides, my coworkers and I miss seeing each other and
| being able to work together in person. We don't do _much_
| pair programming, but when we do, trying to do so over
| screen share has proven to be significantly less
| productive.
|
| But then again, I am lucky to have an amazing team of
| people who I genuinely enjoy being around, and who are
| all very respectful of quiet time to work when needed.
| I'm also definitely an introvert but maybe less so than
| the average dev.. I miss social contact!
| forty wrote:
| Sometimes I feel like in a diferent world than everyone else.
| I'm really happy with my 1080p devices, and upgrading them to
| higher resolution would feel like a waste of resources to me
| (I don't have especially bad eye sight, but on 1080p things
| are already small enough to my taste)
|
| (Of course I'm talking only about computer monitor, for very
| big TV screens or for screens that I have 10cm from my nose
| it's a different story)
| ec109685 wrote:
| I find that I am more sensitive to low resolution when I
| don't have my contacts in since it takes a blurry image and
| makes it blurrier.
| bloopernova wrote:
| For me personally, it is only really noticeable when I
| shift my eyes from one of the middle 4K screens to the
| 1080p screen.
|
| I _am_ a little picky about fonts and their display though.
| The higher resolution the screen, the better. I have my
| Emacs configuration using a bunch of different fonts and
| sizes /weights/etc for my Org-mode, Terraform, TypeScript,
| and other editing. For example, when a todo item is put
| into "in progress" the heading is slightly larger and
| bolder, and when that item is complete, marking it "done"
| changes the text to italic, extra-light, and grey to reduce
| its visibility.
|
| Time spent messing around with fonts is definitely an
| expression of ADHD and active procrastination, but I do get
| a pleasing effect from it! :)
| pbalau wrote:
| Just got (as in, 2-3 hours ago) a new 4k display (32") to
| add to my 2x22" setup. My eyes are already happier. I'm
| using windows with scale set to 150% (for the 4k display)
| and 100% for the other 2.
| jacob019 wrote:
| When I do purchasing for my ecommerce business I keep a
| spreadsheet in one screen and a browser in the other.
| Occationally I do from my laptop with one screen and it takes
| longer and I make more mistakes because the spreadsheet is huge
| and there is too much cognitive overhead when I have to keep
| flipping between windows/virtual desktops.
|
| Also when coding. I keep docs and messaging apps on one screen
| and I can keep the other screen clean with only code. It really
| is faster and easier with two screens.
| Nursie wrote:
| Because I can't see what's going on on a virtual desktop out of
| the corner of my eye? Because I can't easily play a game on one
| virtual desktop and have a browser open to glance at a guide,
| or a discord server or ...
|
| I don't know why you wouldn't want two screens, personally.
| I've worked with three before and found them useful. Virtual
| desktops never felt natural.
|
| The closest I came to adopting them really was during the
| "compiz" era, using the desktop cube effect. That metaphor
| seemed to play into my brain's spatial awareness quite well.
| But still not quite as well as a separate screen.
| amelius wrote:
| > The closest I came to adopting them really was during the
| "compiz" era, using the desktop cube effect. That metaphor
| seemed to play into my brain's spatial awareness quite well.
| But still not quite as well as a separate screen.
|
| This makes me wonder how your brain can handle multiple
| browser tabs ;)
| Nursie wrote:
| Honestly I have limits with those too. Any more than fit
| across the screen and I start to lose track. I find it mind
| boggling when people say they have dozens and dozens of
| tabs open at a time.
| Gene_Parmesan wrote:
| For me personally (not who you responded to), honestly not
| very well. I'm always losing track of which tabs are which.
| When the tabs are simple content it's mostly okay; mentally
| it's just like having a tabbed notebook. But if the tabs
| are interaction- or app-centric, my brain begins to slowly
| jam up.
|
| My ADHD almost certainly takes a lot of the blame for that.
| [deleted]
| GordonS wrote:
| Virtual desktops are useful, but often a physical screen is
| better. For example, it's much more convenient to glance to and
| fro from code and logs/stack trace.
| amelius wrote:
| But keeping track of where the mouse pointer is is much
| easier using a virtual desktop.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| This is why cursors on text terminals would blink.
|
| But I'm not sure making a mouse pointer blink is the right
| thing to do.
|
| The whole Windows-Icons-Mouse-Pointer environment was
| developed when 640x400 was a high resolution and 22"
| monitors were considered huge. So easy to pick out the
| pointer at rest, but I can see how you can get lost on
| basically a 4K resolution TV.
| jaredsohn wrote:
| You can set up accessibility features to help with this.
| Make it larger or configure it so shaking it makes it much
| larger for a short time.
| kowlo wrote:
| I think, for most, the advantages of a second physical
| monitor outweigh any mouse tracking disadvantages!
| zadler wrote:
| I think that having multiple screens might use less cognitive
| resources than having virtual workspaces, since it is very
| natural to move your head / mouse whereas the workspace manager
| is a more high level construct.
| BossingAround wrote:
| Does this add any sort of touch capacity to the OS if the input
| device has touch screen?
|
| In other words, can I use this app to draw from a tablet to
| something like Gimp on my main computer?
| supermatt wrote:
| No, it is just for display.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| If you're on Linux, Weylus will let you use your tablet as an
| input device for Gimp.
| bloopernova wrote:
| Thank you very, very much for putting an architecture and state
| diagram in the README.md. Nice work!
| aidos wrote:
| Came here to say the same. If everybody included just a single
| high level picture like that, you'd give newcomers a real head
| start in understanding the code.
| tomcam wrote:
| Amazing accomplishment. Does anyone know if it works on Kindle
| Fires?
| zenlot wrote:
| For those lucky to have VGA port, I've recently did a setup with
| iPad 3 as second display for laptop [0] with VGA and a few
| resistors to create dummy display.
|
| [0] https://blog.zenlot.xyz/post/ipad_second_display/
| jstanley wrote:
| Cool hack, but is that seriously the easiest way to ask Windows
| for a second display? That is nuts!
| jackbrookes wrote:
| You can buy dummy headless display dongles very cheaply,
| e.g.: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Headless-Display-Emulator-
| Headless-...
| jstanley wrote:
| But why do you need hardware for this? Surely this is a
| purely software problem.
| pbalau wrote:
| https://github.com/microsoft/Windows-driver-
| samples/tree/mas...
| dmingod666 wrote:
| Yea, they want to get rid of that but need to know more
| about how to handle it in the lower levels of the OS
| (mentioned on the github page).
| zenlot wrote:
| Thanks! I didn't find a way to create a dummy display with
| native Win10 tools. There was a way to do it in previous
| minor releases, but with recent Win10 updates Microsoft has
| removed it or disabled. So went for a hardware solution
| instead, as I didn't want to install any 3rd party software.
| That's quite reliable solution, just need to be careful if
| moving laptop too much :)
| numpad0 wrote:
| Yeah, "add virtual ___" is one of the hardest and most
| complicated thing in Windows, probably worse on macOS,
| definitely where FOSS OS shine.
|
| For Windows "software display" driver implementations, from
| top of my head there are DisplayLink, Fresco Logic FL2K
| driver, and a homebrew one by q61.org[1] but none are open
| sourced.
|
| 1: http://q61.org/en/chibimo/build/
| [deleted]
| 0x426577617265 wrote:
| Had to do this years ago for headless bitcoin miners with
| multiple GPUs.
| walrus01 wrote:
| for anyone that's interested in this general concept, also take a
| look at 'barrier', which is the continuation and fork of synergy.
| use one keyboard and mouse to drive multiple independent PCs at
| one desk, roll the mouse/keyboard off the edge of one screen and
| onto the other.
|
| sort of an inverse KVM. and without the ridiculous cost/licensing
| issues of the official synergy.
|
| https://github.com/debauchee/barrier
| hinkley wrote:
| Synergy dates back to Silicon Graphics hardware.
|
| An often overlooked feature of synergy is the ability to share
| clipboards between machines. You can copy a URL from your email
| and paste it into a browser on another box. Particularly useful
| if the reason you're doing synergy is to do cross-platform
| testing and validation.
|
| The thing that made me stop using it was that they punted
| security to be someone else's problem, so you had to set up
| some ssh tunnel and be sure to run it only over that. It's not
| so bad on Linux or OS X, but that's quite a bit of extra work
| on Windows.
|
| Does barrier take care of authentication or session encryption?
| walrus01 wrote:
| If I had to guess, no, barrier is much like VNC in that it's
| expected you have a ssh wrapper set up with public/private
| key authentication.
|
| I've only used it between macos and linux machines, so that's
| easy. An example of the very tiny shell script that I use for
| VNC-over-SSH to a remote machine.
|
| In which the VNC daemon on the remote machine only listens on
| its own localhost, and I use ssh to form the tunnel then use
| the vnc client on my workstation to connect to localhost:5902
| to access it.
|
| ssh -v -L 5902:127.0.0.1:5901 -C -N -f -l myusername -i
| ~/.ssh/my_ssh_id remotehostname.net
|
| echo "localhost port 5902 for the VNC client to
| remotehostname.net"
|
| I actually think this is better because for a very small open
| source project like barrier, that might literally be
| developed by one person, the workload and time/effort to be
| ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN you've implemented the crypto libraries
| correctly is a lot of work and worry.
|
| Whereas if you use ssh you can be fairly certain that it's
| been battle tested by a huge number of people who have a lot
| more time and resources than yourself.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I often have problems with barrier. Sometimes, it'll just
| refuse to stop when press "stop". It'll continue replicating
| the mouse to the other computer.
|
| Other times, it'll refuse to start working again, requiring me
| to restart one or both computers, with know way to know which
| is messed up.
|
| If I could guarantee one of the non-subscription ones would
| work properly, I'd probably pay. But since Barrier is
| apparently a fork of Synergy, I don't trust it. And most of the
| others have weird monetization, or I've heard bad things about
| their customer service... So I don't trust any of them.
|
| In the end, I'm still using Barrier and just dealing with its
| problems.
| cugs wrote:
| This is also compatible with different operating systems, I
| remember running this with OS X and Windows 10. Pretty wild.
| Tossrock wrote:
| I now regret paying for Synergy!
| Hnaomyiph wrote:
| I've tried this the past three times it's made it to the front
| page. Using both an iPhone and iPad with safari I was unable to
| even connect the server. It acts like it's loading then fails.
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