[HN Gopher] CoScreen: Screen Sharing for Engineers
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CoScreen: Screen Sharing for Engineers
Author : mmettler
Score : 130 points
Date : 2021-03-25 16:49 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.coscreen.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.coscreen.co)
| SmilerRyan wrote:
| It's such a nice tool, I like it a lot.
| coscreen wrote:
| Thanks so much @SmilerRyan. Please keep the feedback coming!
| kbd wrote:
| I've been using meet.jit.si for pair programming because it's one
| of the few collaboration tools that allows multiple people to
| share screen at once. I'll put my coworkers screen on my 2nd
| monitor, and that setup has been really productive.
|
| CoScreen is the rare tool that would also fit into this workflow.
| coscreen wrote:
| Great to hear! We're huge Jitsi fans and it's actually the
| video backend of CoScreen.
|
| If you want to know the whole story, watch the conversation
| between CoScreen CTO Jason and Jitsi mastermind Emil Ivov which
| we published a couple of days ago:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nODpF8JjHE
| mempko wrote:
| Looks amazing. I love that you guys have Doug Engelbart
| subtly in your demo video on the main page. Finally we can do
| something Doug was able to achieve 53 years ago! No
| seriously, great work. This is what computers are meant for.
|
| As a Linux user I have to ask, when is the Linux release? As
| soon as that's out I'm throwing zoom away.
| thedracle wrote:
| CTO of CoScreen here: It has been a grueling labor of love
| to get where we are, and there still is a lot of work ahead
| of us. And we can only acknowledge the shoulders of the
| giants we obviously stand on, like Doug Engelbart.
|
| Linux is definitely on our roadmap.
|
| We want to know which distros are you most interested in
| for us to officially support first?
| aarongray wrote:
| Ubuntu LTS vote from me
| mempko wrote:
| I'm an Ubuntu user but Debian in general is good. I'm
| sure others will chime in.
| thedracle wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback: Ubuntu LTS will definitely be
| one of our first supported targets.
|
| We hope to provide some universal binary, but ultimately
| our testing and in-house resources for verification are
| limited, and we dogfood our solution every single day on
| every one of our supported platforms.
|
| It will be interesting to see how widely adopted Wayland
| will become: CoScreen is very dependent on a lot of
| display server/OS level wizardry that honestly was
| unexpectedly difficult to achieve.
| mempko wrote:
| One option is to go with snap and/or FlatPak as a
| distribution method which could cover more distros.
| shaicoleman wrote:
| Flatpak
| randunel wrote:
| The eternal answer "on our roadmap", translates from PR-
| speak to actual-speak: "no significant userbase to
| justify any work".
|
| I guess we'll stick with gnu-screen and tmux for the time
| being.
| thedracle wrote:
| I realize your skepticism to my original answer, but I am
| 100% earnest about our intentions regarding Linux. It
| isn't a secondary concern for us, and we know how
| important it is for engineers.
|
| Most of the developers on our team are avid Linux users.
|
| My previous job was writing eBPF security drivers and
| device drivers, and I have used Linux for years.
|
| Linux is very near and dear to our hearts, and when I say
| it's on our roadmap, I mean it.
| coscreen wrote:
| Totally understand your frustration. We started with
| macOS, then delivered Windows in around 3 months (just
| launched) and will tackle Linux next but granted that it
| is a ton of work given our deep integration into
| operating systems and we want to get it right.
| mimixco wrote:
| Engelbart was a terrific Easter egg.
| [deleted]
| thedracle wrote:
| Coincidentally we're based on 8x8.vc, and good friend with the
| folks at Jitsi.
|
| It's an amazing product.
|
| We're considering in the future opening up the ability to point
| CoScreen to your own private Jitsi deployment (Technically this
| is possible today, but through our unsupported inspector tool).
|
| So your video won't touch any of our infrastructure.
| afarrell wrote:
| When I start a session, there is a comfort tone in the
| background. It sounds like static even when I turn my microphone
| off and there is nobody else there. This fuzzy sound is also one
| of the most irritating things about Zoom.
|
| Is there any way to get rid of it?
| londons_explore wrote:
| I can imagine that when sharing a text editor, each user really
| wants their own cursor, so both can type together and not make
| gibberish...
|
| And then you start looking towards a google-docs like model...
| [deleted]
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Please forgive me if it's been answered, but how does CoScreen.Co
| compare to Screen.So?
| MrProduct wrote:
| This is very interesting, I'll have to check it out with my team.
| I think it will be good tool for pairing!
| coscreen wrote:
| Awesome, let us know what you think! (till@coscreen.co, CEO &
| Co-founder of CoScreen)
| tyingq wrote:
| _" Stop giving up your privacy by sharing your entire screen."_
|
| Good point. I've lost track of the number of times I've noticed
| some "dodgy" background icon, other browser tab, or application
| on someone's desktop during a Zoom/Teams meeting.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| I'm not sure how to ask this question in a way that doesn't sound
| snarky, so having said that I'll try:
|
| At the end of the day, is this beneficial enough to justify a
| completely new product versus just sharing your screen/window
| over Zoom (etc.)?
|
| When I'm pairing, I prefer to have a single "driver" where the
| pair is there to work through the bigger ideas and course correct
| code level decisions. I've never really wished that I could make
| edits in a window on my end that the remote peer can see in real
| time, but again, maybe I am missing out on some life altering
| ProTip to my remote pairing technique :p
|
| Sell me on it! I'm sure the product creators are here watching
| this discussion, change my mind :)
| thedracle wrote:
| CTO of CoScreen here.
|
| I think it's a really good question and not snarky at all.
|
| This is honestly one of the biggest hurdles I think we have
| towards adoption.
|
| We have bet a lot on the benefits of producing frictionless
| remote app-level sharing.
|
| At the moment you can share one application, or your entire
| desktop with other tools. Then there is the friction of
| allowing sharing, asking for sharing, or even down to just
| knowing where the remote user's cursor is at.
|
| CoScreen eliminates all of that. Anyone can share any window at
| any time. You see their shared cursor over your window that is
| translated into the adjusted coordinate space for that window.
|
| You can be discussing a piece of code, share vim in Alacritty,
| or iTerm. The remote user looks up some documentation, and
| immediately shares it with you. Or you have a Android/iOS
| emulator that you want to immediately preview your work in.
|
| Basically you're working in a shared working space more
| analogous to what you would experience in the office.
|
| It's a paradigm shift from video conferencing, and traditional
| screen sharing tools that I think has to be experienced to be
| understood.
|
| That being said it's going to be a great challenge to make this
| experience more transparent, and we are actively working on
| different scaling modes, the ability to move windows
| independent of remote users, and other concerns that we think
| will take it to the next level.
|
| Our goal is to facilitate things like pair programming by
| fading into the background and just letting you continue with
| your normal workflow while not thinking about the tooling
| behind it.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| Thanks for taking the time to answer my bad question
| sincerely!
|
| Here's a situation that actually comes up all the time in my
| remote pairing sessions. Both peers have mutli-screen setups
| where a terminal (tailing logs, etc.), an IDE, and a web
| browser (perhaps even the browser dev tools) are all in
| separate windows, where some windows are on one display, some
| on another. With CoScreen, would "hey, can we check the logs
| real quick?" become as simple as the other peer clicking the
| window to add it to the session? That could be pretty big on
| its own IMO!
|
| Also really useful, as the non-driving peer is looking up
| documentation and adding it to the session for group
| reference.
|
| I'd love to try this out eventually, joining a new team soon
| and perhaps I can pull it off there if/when pairing needs
| arise!
| thedracle wrote:
| "Thanks for taking the time to answer my bad question
| sincerely!"
|
| No problem! It's actually a great conversation starter.
|
| "With CoScreen, would "hey, can we check the logs real
| quick?" become as simple as the other peer clicking the
| window to add it to the session?"
|
| Basically yes, there is a tab that shows above your window.
|
| At the moment we have a shared context space, so your
| windows have a relative location that is based on the
| layout of the remote screen.
|
| Ultimately this helps in like the pair programming scenario
| you make above, but is a weakness in other situations: we
| are working on a model that will let you break all of the
| window locations apart, or relatively translate the
| position of another user's windows wherever you want.
|
| "I'd love to try this out eventually, joining a new team
| soon and perhaps I can pull it off there if/when pairing
| needs arise!"
|
| We'd love to hear your feedback. We rely heavily on our
| community to determine our development path, so please
| reach out to us when you do, and leave feedback!
| dfee wrote:
| In sincerity, can this stand on its own as a corporate line
| item? Likely. Therefore, why shouldn't this business exist?
| corytheboyd wrote:
| Whoa whoa whoa I am not saying the company should not exist.
| I was simply trying to poke at it to get some more in-depth
| answers!
| mempko wrote:
| Watch Doug Engelbart sell you on it 53 years ago in 1968.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY
|
| The fact that this isn't a reality in our every day computer
| use is sad. Glad to see CoScreen picked up the ball which
| Microsoft and Apple dropped long ago.
| bmcahren wrote:
| I hate to say it but this sounds fairly close-minded.
|
| Does this need to be a new product? Yes.
|
| There are no great collaboration tools for developers I've ever
| seen like this. I'm immediately willing to pay _whatever_ it
| costs to get this for my team. No more awkward calls trying to
| communicate complex concepts that don 't often have terminology
| unless you make it up. Quickly highlight and explain a conflict
| without back and forth or frustration about how and where it
| fails over 5 minutes, just kindly ask if they wouldn't mind and
| start editing in the use-case or failure-case to explain the
| concept instantly.
|
| Have you ever had to grab someone's mouse and keyboard
| awkwardly to get to the point of a conversation or feature? You
| never have the need to do that again.
|
| Ever had the displeasure of trying to explain something that
| couldn't be explained by text / call in person over their
| shoulder ending up back-seat driving? Never again.
| threatofrain wrote:
| Does your product support iPad with drawing? Because
| difficulty of explaining is often relieved with visuals, as
| opposed to merely gesturing at something with the mouse. It's
| something that's keeping me on Zoom vs the competition.
| coscreen wrote:
| The way we're doing this is that we use Miro
| (https://miro.com) on an iPad, open the same file on the
| desktop and share that window using CoScreen.
|
| That way you can draw on the iPad, share the content via
| CoScreen with your peers and they can even draw at the same
| time - all while sharing & interacting with other windows
| in parallel. Does that address your needs?
| corytheboyd wrote:
| I mean, you can say it it's okay! I can't encapsulate my
| ENTIRE way of thinking into every comment I make, which has
| the unfortunate side effect of sometimes coming across as
| "close-minded".
|
| For the record, as you can see from my reply to a sibling
| comment from the CTO, I am legitimately interested in
| CoScreen and products like it.
|
| So why did I ask what I did? I know the CoScreen people are
| watching, so I took advantage and asked for some reasoning
| about why "this time, it's different." And I got a good
| answer, too!
| seinfish wrote:
| I couldn't have said it better myself @bmcahren! Perfectly
| summarizes the pain points we've experienced that led us to
| build this. (CPO of CoScreen here)
| woah wrote:
| There used to be an app called ScreenHero, which did. this, and
| it was really great. For some reason Slack bought it and killed
| it, but I think it validated the use case
| DEGoodmanWilson wrote:
| First, as employee number one at Screenhero...thank you for
| the kind words :D I'm immensely proud of the tech we built
| there.
|
| Second, if you liked Screenhero, you're going to love
| CoScreen. Instead of sharing one computer's entire desktop,
| CoScreen lets each participant share their own windows onto
| everyone else's computer, effectively creating a shared
| desktop. It's pretty magical.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| I was a huge ScreenHero fan, and will never forgive Slack for
| killing it
| hactually wrote:
| The original founder went on to create https://screen.so
| which is what we use for our team. Free since Covid too
| macintux wrote:
| Yep. ScreenHero was the absolute bomb for a remote-only
| company like the one I worked at at the time. A sad day
| indeed when Slack pulled a MS/Skype on it.
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| 'screen -x' is screen sharing for engineers.
| thedracle wrote:
| CTO of CoScreen:
|
| I use TMux/Vim like this, and I totally agree if everyone is
| using similar tooling, screen/Tmux is good enough for sharing
| code.
|
| Try CoScreen for non-invasive video/audio chat in that case,
| and don't use the screen sharing features.
|
| It's made to get completely out of your way, to be persistent
| in the background.
|
| And if you want to share an emulator, or documentation in
| Chrome, it's a click away.
|
| Eventually we will build integrations with VSCode livesharing
| and other IDEs as well.
|
| We want to help developers get things done they way they want
| to.
| rabidrat wrote:
| tmate.io these days, but yeah.
| martinni wrote:
| Looks promising. I've used and enjoyed VSCode Live Share before
| https://code.visualstudio.com/learn/collaboration/live-share
|
| Two great features they have are:
|
| - The ability share a local service to your peer by simply
| forwarding a port.
|
| - Remote debugging. Participant 1 can start a debugging session
| and Participant 2 has access to the full debugging introspection
| without interfering with the host's session.
| coscreen wrote:
| We also use VSCode quite a bit at CoScreen and it works great
| in combination with it. The issue is that VSCode Live Share
| alone only enables you to collaborate on code and partially on
| CLI.
|
| But if you need to debug e.g. in Chrome inspector, review logs
| in some other browser, explore a design in Figma, etc., you
| need a tool like CoScreen to go beyond code.
| mwcampbell wrote:
| VS Code Live Share is one example of what I hope the future of
| remote collaboration will actually be: sharing of high-level
| semantic data rather than mere pixels and input events. The
| former is way more accessible with screen readers and other
| assistive tools, for one thing.
| mwcampbell wrote:
| To the CoScreen folks watching this thread: Have you thought
| about possible ways of handling the special case where one of the
| collaborators has a disability and needs to use a screen reader,
| magnifier, voice input, or some other accessibility tool? I have
| expertise in this area, so maybe we could discuss it more
| privately.
|
| Of course, this is also a challenge when everyone is together in
| the same place.
| thedracle wrote:
| CTO of CoScreen here.
|
| One of my first forays into video conferencing was programming
| nTouch Mobile for Sorenson Communications:
| https://www.sorensonvrs.com/ntouchmobile
|
| Which was a video conferencing application for performing VRS
| for deaf and hard of hearing users, originally on the first
| Android G1, and the first iPhone.
|
| I'm extremely interested in accessibility, and I can say seeing
| people get together, laugh, chat, and play, via nTouch was one
| of the most fulfilling moments of my life.
|
| People make products greater than the sum of their parts, and
| if CoScreen could be helpful in one of these avenues, we would
| love to explore it.
| prpl wrote:
| I heard the test techs there were some real assholes,
| especially the physicist ones :)
|
| (Hi Jason)
| thedracle wrote:
| <.< Oh no, my past is catching up with me...
| coscreen wrote:
| Thanks for bringing this up. We have discussed this a few times
| but don't have much expertise in the area so I'd love to chat
| as we actually believe CoScreen could make a difference here.
|
| Please drop me a mail at till@coscreen.co!
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Why is this free? What data is being collected?
| coscreen wrote:
| Good question. It is entirely free today because we wanted to
| make it available to as many teams as possible as quickly as
| possible. And to be frank, we focused on building out the first
| version of the app and simply didn't get to building out the
| billing integration yet.
|
| Even once we start charging, we're intending to enable most
| users to use it for free up to a certain threshold and feature
| set. We're planning to charge 18 USD per user per month for the
| Pro version and any feedback is welcome! Details:
| https://www.coscreen.co/pricing
|
| Last but not least and to be clear: we have never sold and will
| never sell your data. Here's our policy:
| https://app.termly.io/document/privacy-policy/f8dd1607-7755-...
| offtop5 wrote:
| Not bad at all, the next time I work on a side project I'll try
| to see if I can get my teammates to collab using this.
|
| I don't know exactly how you're going to get bigger companies to
| bite though, the vast vast majority of companies have settled on
| a video conferencing solution which allows for screen sharing. To
| be completely realistic I don't imagine you'll be able to compete
| in the Enterprise space. It might make more sense for you to have
| a tip jar on the website for your free users to donate a few
| bucks whenever they find the service useful. Something super
| casual, for example if this helps me and my team get something
| done on the side I'll have no problem with giving you five bucks
| stsmwg wrote:
| FYI, looks like the link on the FAQs for Windows is messed up in
| the second question.
|
| Is CoScreen available on macOS, Windows, Linux, Mobile, or Web?
| macOS: yes (download - requires macOS Mojave 10.14.6 and above)
| Windows: yes(download - requires macOS Mojave 10.14.6 and above)
| Linux, Mobile, Web: coming soon, sign up for the wait list
| coscreen wrote:
| Oops, thanks for the note. Will fix right away...
| coscreen wrote:
| Fixed... This is what it should have said: - macOS: yes
| (requires macOS Mojave 10.14.6 and above) - Windows: yes
| (requires Windows 10 and above) - Linux, Mobile, Web: coming
| soon, sign up for the wait list
| stsmwg wrote:
| Thanks for the quick fix. CoScreen looks really great!
| xeno42 wrote:
| CoScreen has been great for our engineering standups, truly
| collaborative development and debugging etc; it's just removes so
| much friction for distributed teams
| seinfish wrote:
| Great to hear @xeno42! Exactly what we're trying to achieve.
| rjhacks wrote:
| For the CoScreen team, I'm curious how the existing competition
| (https://tuple.app/, https://screen.so/) factors in to your
| decision to build/position this - do you believe you have a
| different vision than they do? Features they can't match? A
| better team that will out-execute? Out-market?
|
| Startup founders are often told not to launch a product that has
| direct competitors already, so I'm curious to hear your take!
| cphajduk wrote:
| I've heard the opposite advice.
|
| Don't worry about competitors, worry about making your product
| the best it can possibly be (which if successful would be
| better than competitors).
| DEGoodmanWilson wrote:
| Screenhero engineer here, and currently working with CoScreen.
| TBH, Tuple adn Screen both seek to re-create Screenhero (and do
| an amazing job of that!) CoScreen, while using similar
| technology, has completely rethought the UI from the ground up,
| and is a huge step forward that the others are going to have a
| hard time catching up with. Instead of one person sharing their
| screen, with CoScreen, each participant can share individual
| windows into a shared environment that feels as natural as
| native windows. It's a fundamentally different vision for how
| to do remote collaboration.
| hypermachine wrote:
| Tech question: do you plug in to the native compositing UI
| system or do you have your own cross-platform UI compositing
| code?
| thedracle wrote:
| Venturebeat article on seed round funding, and general public
| release, including windows:
|
| https://venturebeat.com/2021/03/25/coscreen-exits-stealth-to...
| MrProduct wrote:
| This is cool, congrats guys
| [deleted]
| coscreen wrote:
| And here goes TechCrunch:
| https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/25/coscreen-launches-its-scre...
| DEGoodmanWilson wrote:
| Screenhero founding engineer here. I've been working with the
| CoScreen team for a few months now, and I am incredibly impressed
| with the product and the team. They've taken our idea and really
| pushed it forward--it's not collaborative screen sharing anymore,
| it's a shared desktop which anyone can drop a window onto. (I'm
| only a little embarrassed we didn't imagine this UX back in
| 2013).
|
| If you've never used something like this before, think back to a
| Zoom call you've had recently where someone else was sharing
| their screen, and you really wish you could have just driven for
| a moment instead of dictating instructions. Or just shared a
| window on your own desktop to illustrate a point. CoScreen lets
| you do all of this seamlessly.
|
| Anyway, absolutely endorse this product.
| ampdepolymerase wrote:
| What is your opinion on https://screen.so? They are made by
| your ex-colleagues.
| DEGoodmanWilson wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26584664
| chrisweekly wrote:
| ^ Direct comparison of CoScreen.co vs Screen.so and
| ScreenHero (RIP)
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(page generated 2021-03-25 23:01 UTC)