I3: Feature Request: Enabling Capture from other workspaces with OBS

[zenny]

Please make it possible to capture the windows open in other workspaces than in the one where obs (obsproject.com) is running.

The discussion is here:
http://infra.in.zekjur.net/archives/i3-discuss/2015-September/002197.html

Thank you.

NB: Posting this feature request as Michael advised to.

[stapelberg]

@zenny, to make this more appealing for volunteers to pick up, can you provide the steps to reproduce? I.e. if I’ve never used OBS before, help me understand what to do in order to see what you’d like fixed.

[zenny]

Sorry for delay. To reproduce.

1) Start OBS (say in workspace 3)
2) Add a Windows Xcomposite as a source to any scene
3) Under the drop-down list of that specific source, choose any apps that is running in the workspace (say workspace 1) other than from where you launched OBS (workspace 3 as above §1).
4) You will get a just get red blank image in the placeholder for the source (See http://picpaste.com/4oD57Mu1.png). However, any other applications that is running withing the workspace running OBS (in this example workspace 3) works perfect.
Hope this helps.

[ccryx]

I tried to reproduce this issue with obs-studio-0.12.3 from the AUR. I also experience the redscreen with windows that are currently not visible but as soon as they become visible (or if I add the source while they are visible) OBS dies. This happens in awesome, openbox and i3 both with and without compton running. So I guess this is an obs bug rather than an i3 bug.

[Airblader]

The link provided in the original i3 mailing list thread actually received a comment between the mail thread and opening of this issue which describes both the reason and a workaround[1]. Also see [2].

I very much doubt we are going to change the entire foundation the i3 workspace concept is based on (which is unmapping windows on invisible workspaces and not rendering those workspaces); @stapelberg correct me if I'm wrong. Hence I don't think we can do anything about this and I'll close this ticket.

[1] https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/workspace-screen-capture-issues-ubuntu-gnome-14-04.35811/#post-165955
[2] https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/red-screen-when-using-xcomposite.18522/

[stapelberg]

Correct, having workspaces map/unmap windows is the standard way of implementing workspaces, and we won’t diverge from that.