Feature Requests / Suggestions

[JSRRosenbaum]

A few Suggestions

• Automatically download IDD from GitHub (Could prompt, if not detected)
• Include required files inside of EXE - Single EXE format, potentially including sunshine integration?
• Link to source via button / option in gui, but not needed to download in most cases - most users probably won't have AHK installed
• Install via winget
• Save preferences incl backups to appdata folder
• Create IDD folder on root during driver creation / removal, and delete afterwards (clutter in C:\ is gross imo!)

Let me know if you want me to split these into separate items / bugs. I'm usually more of a lurker than a contributor here but I'd love to help w/ this project!

Also -

Have you looked at this project?

https://github.com/MolotovCherry/virtual-display-rs

They have a very interesting GUI. It is still WIP and they are doing things differently - yours is much more straightforward and quick / easy to use, but could use some polish.

This new control panel in flutter looks really cool:

MolotovCherry/virtual-display-rs#101

[JSRRosenbaum]

e2d5f3f

Wrote and tested this one
"Automatically download IDD from GitHub (Could prompt, if not detected)"

Created Pull Request

[SoFMeRight]

Thanks for sharing! I am mostly a lurker too! Same boat! This is my first project! I have not contributed in the past, not officially at the very least! I definitely welcome contribution, my main goal here was to make the drivers easier to navigate for people who are less savvy than us! That's the number one priority, help is always appreciated!

• Dynamically Remove IDD folder. ~ Good catch! "C:\ clutter is gross imo" I agree another system gen backup "LastUsed" or something to hold the state of the drivers while it is deleted until the user removes the whole folder.
• Source via button. I bundled the way I did so that users who choose not to trust the exe can delete it and vice versa. If this is useful for regen the source file after its deleted it can be an easy add; Id probably do it as a tray icon option.
• Sunshineintegration.bat is a temporary option and also a bit of an example as any of the commands can be piped similarly through a user made .bat. I could make them self contained on launch but I feel like its more simplistic to just contain it all in a .zip as we'd have to make it possible to delete it without it getting created at the next launch.
• Push to appdata, I think this would make it a little opinionated and I prefer to let the user choose the storage location. I prefer portable apps style philosophy (and also generating the least amount of folders. I recommend making the "Backups" folder hidden (also if you like you can unpack the whole app in app_data if you like). This does however draw my attention to how BUSY the folder is with the drivers unpacked there, def can put those files in a sub folder! Kinda like you did in the pull request. I want to implement that definitely!
• I have plans for an interactive installer, if that ever is accomplished I don't see why any of these couldn't be achieved without becoming too opinionated via Global variables and a config for this. (Exec_Inte was built to allow other GUI flows, currently its hardcoded to Exec_Inte = GUIs_Adva if its not ran thru CMD but it could be put GUI_Insta or sum similar and add a config and if the config gives that its already done install flow it can go to GUI_Adva. Mentioning this in case you wanna mess with it)
• Install via Winget - I did want to do an auto updater for the project, if this is what this would accomplish I'd say its high priority.

I will commit the changes you made soon and add a Msgbox to confirm! Downloading the drivers automagically is great as long as we prompt just as you said! I don't want to do anything in the background unannounced. Also wanna investigate and see if theres a way to make it check for updates and offer the latest! Let me know what you think of my philosophies of course! I think just leave this open as is its a good list no need to split into separate entries!

[SoFMeRight]

Have you looked at this project?

https://github.com/MolotovCherry/virtual-display-rs

They have a very interesting GUI. It is still WIP and they are doing things differently - yours is much more straightforward and quick / easy to use, but could use some polish.

This new control panel in flutter looks really cool:

MolotovCherry/virtual-display-rs#101

I had not seen this!!! Its a shame that the last update was 2023. The only one id seen similar to this was the project I linked in the readme is the fork by timminator. I didn't know there was yet another project. Sadly tbh I am a terrible front end dev. It would be a fun project to rebuild this in a modern UI but I am not readily capable! This is really cool, however sad it looks like it was abandoned!

[JSRRosenbaum]

I had not seen this!!! Its a shame that the last update was 2023. The only one id seen similar to this was the project I linked in the readme is the fork by timminator. I didn't know there was yet another project. Sadly tbh I am a terrible front end dev. It would be a fun project to rebuild this in a modern UI but I am not readily capable! This is really cool, however sad it looks like it was abandoned!

They are pretty active in the developer's discord, but I hadn't noticed that the actual project isn't updated.

Do you use a dummy plug? I keep wasting time trying to see if I can work around needing one, the parsec virtual display driver does it somehow but I can't get that to pass through moonlight. There is a project here that accesses / controls that driver:

Timminator has a project with that driver here:
https://github.com/timminator/ParsecVDA-Alwa

Sunshineintegration.bat is a temporary option and also a bit of an example as any of the commands can be piped similarly through a user made .bat. I could make them self contained on launch but I feel like its more simplistic to just contain it all in a .zip as we'd have to make it possible to delete it without it getting created at the next launch.

Thats a good point, its a useful example. It could be an additional command for simplicity - Reso_Set
If everything is auto-install then the folder contents won't really matter as much.

Push to appdata, I think this would make it a little opinionated and I prefer to let the user choose the storage location. I prefer portable apps style philosophy (and also generating the least amount of folders. I recommend making the "Backups" folder hidden (also if you like you can unpack the whole app in app_data if you like). This does however draw my attention to how BUSY the folder is with the drivers unpacked there, def can put those files in a sub folder! Kinda like you did in the pull request. I want to implement that definitely!

Hmm. Thats a good point. I see software very frequently inquire about whether to store files in appdata or within the folder. As frequently as I reinstall OS, you'd think I would have realized that doing that would significantly cut down on the need to reconfigure applications. I've got to think about that. I guess the best case would be something akin to a dotfile that can reload settings dynamically for any application I use, maybe by symlinking. 🤔

I didn't look too deeply in the code to switch the hooks for looking for those files, so I just had the script download, extract the files, and move them into the root, and then delete the zip and the folder. I agree it would be better to have the files contained in a folder, maybe you could even ephemerally unzip them and then delete the folder after using the files, just keep the zip downloaded.

AutoUpdater shouldn't be too difficult, you could set a file in the repo to a version number, and have it dl the file to compare it to the current version, and overwrite the files with the new set if it is. Would be tricky / weird to hand off to a separate process so you can replace the current one, and I'm not sure about security implications of that, but I don't think it is a huge problem at this level.

Mostly winget just makes it way faster to get the application on a new system - could go to a terminal and do
winget install sofmeright.vddw and be up in a few seconds. beats the hell out of using a search engine or even loading off local storage. If that is set up, then there is an update function baked in someway - most of the time you can just run winget upgrade [] There is probably a way to do that from within the app, as long as the app exists in a standard way or can be located from a reg key or something.

[SoFMeRight]

I don't use a dummy plug at all. I use sunshine and the indirect display drivers http://sh.uni2.cc/pgznj This is a general write up of my setup.

…

On Fri, Sep 13, 2024, 9:20 AM Joe Rosenbaum ***@***.***> wrote: I had not seen this!!! Its a shame that the last update was 2023. The only one id seen similar to this was the project I linked in the readme is the fork by timminator. I didn't know there was yet another project. Sadly tbh I am a terrible front end dev. It would be a fun project to rebuild this in a modern UI but I am not readily capable! This is really cool, however sad it looks like it was abandoned! They are pretty active in the developer's discord, but I hadn't noticed that the actual project isn't updated. Do you use a dummy plug? I keep wasting time trying to see if I can work around needing one, the parsec virtual display driver does it somehow but I can't get that to pass through moonlight. There is a project here that accesses / controls that driver: Timminator has a project with that driver here: https://github.com/timminator/ParsecVDA-Alwa Sunshineintegration.bat is a temporary option and also a bit of an example as any of the commands can be piped similarly through a user made .bat. I could make them self contained on launch but I feel like its more simplistic to just contain it all in a .zip as we'd have to make it possible to delete it without it getting created at the next launch. Thats a good point, its a useful example. It could be an additional command for simplicity - Reso_Set If everything is auto-install then the folder contents won't really matter as much. Push to appdata, I think this would make it a little opinionated and I prefer to let the user choose the storage location. I prefer portable apps style philosophy (and also generating the least amount of folders. I recommend making the "Backups" folder hidden (also if you like you can unpack the whole app in app_data if you like). This does however draw my attention to how BUSY the folder is with the drivers unpacked there, def can put those files in a sub folder! Kinda like you did in the pull request. I want to implement that definitely! Hmm. Thats a good point. I see software very frequently inquire about whether to store files in appdata or within the folder. As frequently as I reinstall OS, you'd think I would have realized that doing that would significantly cut down on the need to reconfigure applications. I've got to think about that. I guess the best case would be something akin to a dotfile that can reload settings dynamically for any application I use, maybe by symlinking. 🤔 I didn't look too deeply in the code to switch the hooks for looking for those files, so I just had the script download, extract the files, and move them into the root, and then delete the zip and the folder. I agree it would be better to have the files contained in a folder, maybe you could even ephemerally unzip them and then delete the folder after using the files, just keep the zip downloaded. AutoUpdater shouldn't be too difficult, you could set a file in the repo to a version number, and have it dl the file to compare it to the current version, and overwrite the files with the new set if it is. Would be tricky / weird to hand off to a separate process so you can replace the current one, and I'm not sure about security implications of that, but I don't think it is a huge problem at this level. Mostly winget just makes it way faster to get the application on a new system - could go to a terminal and do winget install sofmeright.vddw and be up in a few seconds. beats the hell out of using a search engine or even loading off local storage. If that is set up, then there is an update function baked in someway - most of the time you can just run winget upgrade [] There is probably a way to do that from within the app, as long as the app exists in a standard way or can be located from a reg key or something. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#2 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AH2UFZNTYEMQ236UZMX5GWDZWMGD7AVCNFSM6AAAAABOD2VYMCVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDGNBZGMZDIMBRGE> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[SoFMeRight]

I merged your pull request and tidied the code a little and pushed it above the block where detection of the IDD configs happens. Lets leave this open as it has great ideas I just do not feel like implementing a few of the more challenging items for awhile. Auto-updater is definitely next. Thanks again!

[SoFMeRight]

Also if you need help with removing your dummy plug could definitely troubleshoot that with you some time via discord if you weren't able to figure it out still. I use sunshine/moonlight and I have no dummy plug (I run my gaming rig fully headless) so I know it should be possible AMD/Nvidia. Pretty sure Intel GPU should work as well.

It may come down to needing to specify the Indirect Display as the streamed screen explicitly in sunshine's settings if you have additional monitors attached while using the Virtual Display driver.

[JSRRosenbaum]

Yes that would be great!

Check my profile for discord info