Give desktop sharing its own button

[TheLastProject]

Desktop sharing is impossibly hard to find and so badly advertised only power-users would be able to find the feature and even they would have trouble with it.

My proposal:

• Remove "Desktop" from "Video device" in Video settings
• Add a big button in the chat view for desktop sharing, right next to the video option for your webcam

This has the following advantages:

• Desktop sharing becomes easier to find
• People will not accidentally share their webcam instead of desktop or the other way around because they forget to switch an option back

The only thing that needs to be discussed is how this would work for the person answering. What will they share?

[PKEv]

Get out from the settings do not need anything - it will be interesting for power-users

For the person answering, need to provide the opportunity to:
1.Video camera
2.video screen
3.no video - only audio
4.no video and no audio

[ProMcTagonist]

@TheSpiritXIII is working on the advanced video UI and may have useful input.

Also remember https://wiki.tox.chat/developers/gsoc/2015/ideas#multimedia_streaming is a goal.

[zetok]

In order to have parallel video streams support in toxcore is needed. I'm not sure if new API tackles this..

[ProMcTagonist]

@zetok qTox could simply composite and send a single video stream, no?

I didn't mean to derail. It's just good to have eventual experience goals in mind when designing things like this.

[zetok]

@ProMcTagonist while that would be doable, it would be bad, considering that other client might want to display desktop stream independently (e.g. in a separate window) from "main" video chat, not to mention that "hardcoding" how video is supposed to look on the other side is counter-intuitive - e.g. why would someone want to waste space for watching both video chat and desktop stream..

E.g., imagine a scenario where someone streams their 1920x1080 desktop + their video chat, composition is desktop | video chat. Receiving side is cheap 1368x768 laptop - now, receiving side has to look at both of those, and cannot select just one of them to get slightly better (bigger) view of what the check is going on. No way to select and view just desktop stream so that there would be any chance of seeing what is actually happening there.

Composed video stream would be simply annoying as hell for receiving side.

[PKEv]

if you make a separate button, what to do if the user does not have a camera?
I think it is more correct to do drop-down list next to the button to select a video stream from each available device

[zetok]

if you make a separate button, what to do if the user does not have a camera?

It's irrelevant when it comes to streaming desktop.

I think it is more correct to do drop-down list next to the button to select a video stream from each available device

Is that even the case when you stream desktop?

[zen2]

I think too that share desktop should be a distinct button.
It's definitively not intuitive to go to Settings/Video options since for most people that means webcam.

Another option is to have a slide icon on the video button like tje screen shot option that slide from "send attachment" icon.

[zetok]

Another option is to have a slide icon on the video button like tje screen shot option that slide from "send attachment" icon.

Yes, that's how it's supposed to be done.

[zetok]

Huh, looks like I forgot to link to it here before: #773 ← idea that one might want to consider when designing screen sharing button.

[glow12121]

I agree screen sharing should have its own button.
Another good addon here would be the option to share particular windows, not only a full screen or selected area.
Thanks.