
Screen sharing comes to Slack video calls - fahimulhaq
https://slackhq.com/screen-sharing-comes-to-slack-video-calls-cd9afe732014
======
bluetidepro
As someone else mentioned, they are finally doing some more with their
purchase of Screen Hero most likely.

However, one major feature that Screen Hero had that I don't _THINK_ this new
screen sharing built in Slack has, is the ability for the other person to
control the mouse/keyboard on your screen. I could be wrong, but if that is
the case it's a huge feature missing. That was one of my favorite things that
Screen Hero had, being able to click for the other person or type while they
were screen sharing to help them out on a task, if needed. If it's not in
there for this release, I hope it gets added soon.

~~~
misiti3780
If anyone from screenhero is reading:

I love screenhero and use it all the time but the one feature I need the team
to add is the ability to disable another people's control of my screen. I
think this feature is useful, but sometimes I'm giving a demo and just dont
need it (or want it). I have fucked up multiple demos because someone
accidentally clicked off my browser tab while I was controlling the screen.

~~~
soggypopsicle
They aren't working on Screenhero anymore.

~~~
dkersten
That is really sad. I like SH waaaaaay more than I like slack (which to me is
a passable but not great chat app.. it eats my RAM and CPU and sometimes the
css formatting breaks....) and use it all the time for remote pair
programming.

------
latortuga
Still no linux support for video and now no linux support for screen sharing.
Here's to hoping Google ramps up whatever Slack competitor they're trying to
roll hangouts into.

~~~
owaislone
Lack of Linux support is the only thing preventing our organization from
ditching hangouts.

~~~
joeblau
What's wrong with Google Hangouts? (I don't have any perspective, just asking)

~~~
ajmurmann
Hangout's encoding also it's a real performance hog because most devices don't
support H.264 in hardware. Every time I'm in a hangout the fans come on and
the battery rapidly drops towards zero.

~~~
izacus
Most devices DO support H.264 encoding. Hangouts however uses VP9 in Chrome
and that's not HW accelerated. If you use Safari on Mac it'll switch to H264
and that will stress CPU less.

~~~
dzhiurgis
I'd love to see someone do the math how much CO2 is Google unnecessarily
produce by enforcing VP9 because they are fussy about licensing fees.

I've tried to run 4K60 VP9 (and h.265 for that matter) video from youtube on
the latest top spec MacBook Pro and it's completely impossible to watch.
Transcoded to h.264 and computer barely gets warm.

~~~
samtoday
Maybe you could rephrase that. How many years of human progress and CO2
emissions have been caused by the uncooperative licensing situation caused by
these software patent owners?

~~~
dzhiurgis
Well by that logic we can ask anyone for free stuff and point at CO2. Google
is not giving away their data for free, the lend it to you.

------
mikelinington
I see mentions of Screen Hero in a way that makes it sound like it's dead, but
my team still uses SH daily (via Slack's `/hero` command). It's easily the
best _remote pairing_ tool that I've found.

This new Slack feature seems like something different, for presenting content
to everyone on a call, not for collaborating on code.

~~~
bluetidepro
You are correct that Screen Hero still works and all, but it is technically
"dead." No one new can sign up for the service. You can only use it if you
already had it setup. I would personally consider that "dead" if it's now
closed off for anyone to signup with. It's not like you can recommend this as
alternative to what Slack is doing with their screen sharing.

On [https://screenhero.com/login](https://screenhero.com/login) they even say
"New signups are closed while we integrate with Slack." \- I consider that
"dead."

~~~
piptastic
I typed /hero in slack It gave a link to "add the Screenhero Integration" I
clicked that link and it took me to a Slack prompted me to create a "free
account", which it did using my Slack information. Then I was able to download
screenhero.

So, anyone new can sign up for the service via Slack.

~~~
yxhuvud
No, when I try I get

You do not have a Screenhero account for your Slack email <redacted>

~~~
manigandham
Do you have a paid slack account? If so, the add app screen will include a
link to setup and link the screenhero account.

------
Uhhrrr
I worry that this could cause Slack to use a lot of memory.

~~~
waleedka
LOL. I'm guessing you're sarcastically jabbing at Slack for the known issue
that their desktop app uses a lot of memory.

~~~
dzhiurgis
I don't get why people use Slack app.

The whole Slack deal is to get away from desktop apps and run on the browser.

This opens up freedom to start Slacks where corp is blocking app installs (but
not zealous enough to be blocking/MITM'ing network yet).

~~~
BinaryIdiot
Multiple tabs in a web browser flat out sucks for multi-tasking. macOS,
Windows and many flavors of window managers for Linux provide many ways for
switching between windows, seeing what's open, hiding things, etc. In a
browser they're just straight tabs.

Have you ever need to switch between multiple tabs semi regularly while
keeping other tabs open? Have you ever wanted two tabs to be side-by-side?
It's a usability horror show.

Wrapping Slack in its own app let's me use the windowing manager my operating
system came with.

~~~
npolet
I wouldn't call tabs a usability horror show with the reason you stated.
Surely you can just drag a tab off the tab line and then you have it in its
own window. Ready for you position however you want, in the full control of
the window manager.

It's so easy to separate tabs into their own window and utilise the window
managers control.

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
Unless you explicitly enable separate tasbar buttons in Windows you still have
all of your browser windows accessible only through a single 32px-wide button
on your screen. And the default thumbnail preview delay is also equally
frustrating.

------
dyeje
Can't believe it took them 2.5 years integrate ScreenHero.

~~~
paulcole
a mean and lean team of hacker news readers could probably knock out the
integration in a weekend or two.

~~~
khaledtaha
Just because something could be built it doesn't mean it should be. I, for
one, applaud the fact that they rolled it out when they were good and ready.
Shows a steady hand at the steering wheel.

------
pbw
It says you can only share your entire screen. That's fine from a laptop, but
if you have a 4k/5k display sharing to people with laptops, wouldn't the text
be unreadable? Sharing just a single window is the standard solution here.

------
zeptomu
I always wonder if people would be interested in a small SAAS providing a
terminal demonstration and sharing service with web and terminal client. Users
could on one hand share step-by-step demos for common tasks on the terminal
(say "Let's build $foobar on Ubuntu 16.04 optimized for the following
infrastructure") similar to asciinema.org and on the other hand share there
terminal _read-only_ to demonstrate live-debugging or development operations.

Obviously this is already possible using a setup involving tmux and ssh (or
pixel-screen sharing via Slack), but maybe a streamlined service that has both
a powerful terminal and web-client would be an interesting addition to some
documentation-heavy workflows or remote debugging sessions. There is also
shellshare.net, which is also a nice little project.

~~~
dgellow
So, you want tmate[0] with a web interface?

[0] [https://tmate.io/](https://tmate.io/)

~~~
zeptomu
In essence, yes. Furthermore I guess that it could be a feature to _not_ have
the ability to _write_ to the terminal and/or accompany recorded sessions with
additional documentation.

------
benwilber0
Can someone explain why slack web app always turns my MacBook video indicator
light on when I'm on a call even when I'm not sharing video? I don't like them
accessing the camera unless I actual want to share video.

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tankerdude
I'm curious. I've used Screen Hero, Webex, Google Hangouts, and GotoMeeting
extensively.

People evoke a lot of love for Screen Hero and I can never figure out why.
Video quality is pretty awful and pixellated.

I don't see a single feature in Screen Hero that isn't in the other ones and
the other ones have many more features that I use.

~~~
yohann305
i wonder why people down voted you. you're asking valid questions... I'm
starting to see a recurring pattern on HN. If you say something that somehow
goes against "HN ideology", you get downvoted. Anyone else see this too?

oh wait... watch me get downvoted too...

~~~
briandear
It's because "I don't see a single feature in Screenhero that others don't
have."

Which is just incorrect. Screenhero has interactive screen sharing while the
others don't. Or course he qualified it with "I don't see.." however, that
tells me that he never used Screenhero and thus really doesn't have much
credibility when critiquing it.

Express all the opinions you want, but they ought to be based on facts.

~~~
detaro
What do you mean by "interactive screen sharing"? AFAIK both WebEx and
GotoMeeting allow for remote control of a PC.

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zwieback
We're a Microsoft shop so we use Skype for Business, which seems to work well
for talk/IM/screen sharing. Now we're getting "Teams" to be slacker.

I'd be curious to hear how the Slack video/screen sharing compares to Skype
Business, after a rocky start it's working pretty smoothly for us now.

~~~
cygned
We tried Teams and returned to Slack.

Broken notifications and horrible SharePoint magic behind the scenes. The way
Teams is organized confused some of my team. Interestingly, we also had a lot
of problems with Skype for Business.

The dark theme and the way Teams formats while you type was great, though!

~~~
hndl
We're trying it out now (since it's included with o365) and I find it mostly
usable. It has most of the things I need (group (video) calls, screen share,
search, files tab etc). My biggest complaint has been the random glitches you
run into every now then (repeatedly being logged out for no reason comes to
mind). That and the slowness (i'll often see a lag between when I've hit
return and when my message shows up in the conversation). Hope someone from
Teams is reading this :).

------
brightball
I'm really surprised this took so long. Hipchat has had this available for a
couple of years now.

If they aren't adding the pairing features that made Screenhero so good (dual
mouse pointers, dual control, resolution adjustment and scrollaround
windowing) then what's the value add?

~~~
amelius
I'm more surprised about the fact that the masses didn't switch to a more
capable chat service in the meantime.

~~~
theblang
To what service? I don't know of any others that allow the multiple cursors
when screen sharing.

------
iamdave
Our team is equally parts remote and in-office and we've had so many issues
with hangouts for our daily stand-ups. Not picking up audio, screen just stops
sharing, links outright breaking for unknown reasons. We're a slack house
already and will be very likely switching to this after some internal testing
to see how we like it.

------
harisamin
So I'm glad they're doing something with the purchase. I LOVE screenhero. But
right now...holy crap this is bad. Really crude benchmarks but I'm seeing an
ADDITIONAL ~3.5gb of ram usage when screensarhing via slack. Checkout
screenshots here.
[https://twitter.com/harisamin/status/864908004176658433](https://twitter.com/harisamin/status/864908004176658433)
I know its beta, plz help improve this. I love both products

------
dy
Curious if anyone has an idea how the multi-mouse system worked. My guess is
that on the screen being shared, a transparent full-screen window is overlaid
that just draws in the second mouse and that when this proxy mouse is clicked
the event gets simulated on the sharer's side.

This effect was so cool and would love to see an open-source library that
shows the effect over WebRTC. Curious if it's anything more complicated than
that and why it's never been replicated by other packages.

------
pfista
I keep finding myself wanting to use slack more and more for customer calls.
Generally the audio quality has been pretty great compared to Google Hangouts
/ Uberconference / Gotomeeting. Screensharing makes me want to use it more.

The only issue is that you can't just invite any random person to a call, they
already have to be within your slack organization. I wonder if they'll end up
pulling this out as a separate product.

~~~
jordigh
I rather like appear.in

Just give someone a url and you can start chatting with them. No plugins, no
logins, all WebRTC. It seems to try to load some flash, but it looks optional.

~~~
coob
Like the idea of appear.in but it really pegs CPU

------
coldpie
Strikes me as a poor future when we use proprietary protocols on other
peoples' servers to facilitate all of our communications.

~~~
koolba
That's been the present for the majority of most people's lives. Even with
email there wasn't much, if any, time where the majority of people ran their
own servers.

~~~
bogomipz
Email wasn't a proprietary protocol though. Xmpp wasn't a proprietary either
and that 'present' wasn't that long ago.

~~~
koolba
That's why I mentioned running your own server.

------
socialist_coder
On Windows 10 whenever I click the "Start a call" button it causes the entire
slack app to become extremely blurry. Other apps do this too sometimes. It has
something to do with how they are being rendered, maybe related to high-dpi
support or something. I've tried disabling the high-dpi support and enabling
compatibility mode but it doesn't have any effect.

Even after I close the "start a call" dialog the blurriness persists. It
doesn't go back to normal until I restart Slack.

Any ideas what is going on? I can't find any working fixes for this in Slack
or any other apps where this also happens.

An interesting thing I noticed was that in Unity (game dev IDE) when I set the
render method to anything but DX9 it causes this same blurriness. Only DX9
makes it render sharp. DX10, DX11, etc all cause the blurriness.

I just have a normal Windows 10 desktop, latest drivers & updates, GTX 1080
GPU.

------
shmerl
Do they use WebRTC and do they work in Firefox on Linux?

~~~
Crespyl
According to the article, it's only available for the Mac and Windows desktop
apps.

~~~
cdogl
It's perplexing that it's not built using cross-platform web technology. If
you're not going to leverage that, why saddle users with the signicant
resource and latency impact of an Electron app?

------
omginternets
At the risk of being confrontational, is usable VoIP going to come at some
point?

Not only do I systematically get dropped calls, but also enraging UI bugs,
e.g.: interrupting calls from other apps (whatsapp, phone, google hangouts,
etc.) fails to put the slack call on hold and renders the "hang up" button
ineffective.

------
ryanmarsh
Slack finally integrates Screen Hero

FTFY

~~~
brightball
Hope so. Screen Hero was really well done.

~~~
WestCoastJustin
Yeah, the dual mouse cursors was a 10x improvement.

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hobarrera
Isn't slack videocalling in beta and still macOS only? I wish they'd finish
implementing a feature [on all platforms] before moving onto other features.

As a team, we can't really use videocalling until _the entire team_ can use
it. It's really all-or-nothing.

------
devin
No one else has mentioned zoom.us here. For my money, it's easily the best of
its kind for multi-person video chat. The UI could be made a bit easier to
navigate, but beyond that, it's a fantastically well-built piece of software.

~~~
simplehuman
The zoom mobile app is truly a disaster

~~~
alanh
their UI in general is a nightmare. Ugh.

------
reconbot
This is great. I hope they're able to stay on top of other things like cpu
usage and general bug fixes while they add these new features. On OSX it
hovers around 20% cpu while idle.

~~~
intoverflow2
Make sure it is actually idle, the gif reactions under messages use up a lot
of CPU. I often switch to the slackbot channel when not using it to save CPU/

------
djhworld
Have never been able to get Slack calls working behind our corporate proxy,
gave up after many attempts, changing network settings, "noproxy" settings
etc.

------
falconman
I try to use Slack voice as much as possible with my team but I find it quite
unstable in terms of call quality with lots of dropped calls. Is this the case
for others?

~~~
kinduff
I can confirm some bad connection and sometimes unstable, but at the moment is
much more stable than it was a couple months ago.

------
maxpert
There goes Lync and Skype Pro down the drain...

~~~
nvr219
I work for a 75-staff company on a pretty tight budget, and we have office
365. For us to use slack with SSO and have more than 10k messages, we'd have
to pay about $11k/yr. Teams, we're already paying for with o365 (and even if
we weren't on o365 yet, E1 plan is approx $7k/yr and includes teams,
exchange... sharepoint (not that I'd use that)). That's what's going to
prevent Lync/s4b from going down the drain.

------
thinbeige
OT: Do the video calls work on mobile?

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kiddz
we loved Screenhero too, but now switched to aws chime and find it even better
(except for funky UI) because you can have multiple video calls and control
presenters screen.

~~~
Zaheer
Be sure to give them feedback on the UI. I recently gave em feedback and
they're fairly receptive.

------
badosu
A shame this had priority over firefox support over a year.

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ProMarc
Did this work also with the App?

