Virtual Display/Canvas Regions

[ungodlyaura]

I want screen regions to share to Discord/OBS for the purpose of only showing a set region that I can move apps into/out, without having the region moved when I move my actual display.
This could also be a step into allowing window tiling in the regions. Instead of being free placed, if it's in the region, it will tile left/right for example with other applications.

Implementation Ideas:
1: A keybind like mod+shift+r, opens a draggable region to set as a monitor
2: Instead of only creating the region, have the mod+shift+r open a screen region editor that lets you drag the regions around, change size, etc
3: In config file set a defined position and size for it

[malbiruk]

Thanks for the suggestion, this fits the canvas model well and I'd like to do it.

The core idea: a virtual display -- a fixed rectangle of the canvas that appears to OBS/Discord as if it were a monitor, so you can share just that region. Since it's pinned to canvas coordinates, it stays put when you pan/zoom, and you can move windows in and out of it freely.

For the interface, I'm leaning toward the same external-tool + IPC pattern the screenshot feature uses, rather than a built-in editor:

• driftwm msg virtual-display create -g <geometry> / ... remove
• pair it with slurp and bind it to any key: create -g "$(slurp)", just like driftwm msg screenshot
• for a persistent one, put the create command in [autostart]

That covers your ideas 1 and 3 without shipping a region-editor UI (idea 2). The tiling-inside-a-region idea I'll leave out -- driftwm is intentionally no-tiling/no-workspaces, and the capture region stands on its own.

Accepting this and putting it on the roadmap. Honestly it's behind some committed work so it won't be immediate, but I'll follow up here when it lands.