[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)
 
web link (github.com)
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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(page generated 2021-01-24 23:00 UTC)