Users don't know when to expect audio from screensharing

[robintown]

Steps to reproduce

Try to screenshare with audio

Outcome

We're not clear enough about the fact that some browsers (Firefox) don't do audio with screensharing. As a result, users blame the application when they are unable to share audio in these environments. Chrome does its own expectation management around sharing of audio (when you're trying to share a tab versus a window), but we need something additional to this.

On the other hand it's not clear what we could do. A warning pop-up every time you go to share your screen could be a bit over the top.

Operating system

No response

Browser information

No response

URL for webapp

No response

Will you send logs?

No

[bblacher]

Should Element Desktop allow screen sharing with audio?

[fkwp]

Should Element Desktop allow screen sharing with audio?

that's very hard to get right since you need to get:

• access for system-audio output
• Being able to "subtract" the actual video-conference audio such that it is not constructing an "echo/feedback" signal

Getting access to system audio is already a challenge depending on the platform (Windows, Linux, macOS). Going forward those platforms restrict access more and more due to privacy...

I think that is also the reason why Chrome "only" allows sharing audio from Chrome-tabs...

[bblacher]

Alright, thanks :)
I think discord just got that right for Linux/Wayland in one of their latest nightly builds. Shame that their solution isn't open source.

[Half-Shot]

I think discord just got that right for Linux/Wayland in one of their latest nightly builds. Shame that their solution isn't open source.

Finally, it's been broken for such a long time!

[Destinyg133]

Now we need similar thing in element to beat discord at it 🗡️