My scripts for the recording and streaming software OBS Studio, for the rare times when I fail to find a plugin or script that already does what I want on Linux. None of these are tested rigorously, and they might cause your computer to gain sentience and reclaim dominion over your household. Or crash OBS.
It automatically alternates between 2 scenes of your choosing based on the position of the active window (specifically its top-left corner) on your dual-monitor setup. Concretely, I made it so I could have Firefox on a monitor and a terminal in the other, with each window having a scene that focuses on it, and have OBS naturally follow my workflow/Alt+Tabbing without having to think about it.
- The automatic one uses window titles to keep track, but Firefox and my terminal change titles every time I change tabs, so it can't keep track.
- The advanced one uses mouse position to keep track, but I Alt+Tab a lot and can spend a lot of time working without moving the mouse. (The Advanced Scene Switcher plugin has many switch triggers available and it's entirely possible that I simply missed the "active window" option, or if not, that such an option gets added in the future. In any case, that's more practice for me.)
- You need Linux, OBS Studio, Python 3.6 or later, and xdotool. Try this in a terminal:
obs --version
python --version
xdotool --versionOutput such as obs: command not found means you need to install something.
Get obs-studio, python, and xdotool from your distribution's package
manager, or their respective websites:
- Download the script
- Start OBS Studio and go to Tools > Scripts
- Click the "+" sign at the bottom left, find the script you just downloaded
- Click "Refresh scene lists", then select the 2 scenes you'd like to alternate between
- Fill in the other parameters and tick the "Active" checkbox
If you have a source present in multiple scenes, toggling its visibility (hiding/showing it by clicking the eye icon) in one scene will apply the change in all the other scenes that contain that source as well.
OBS and Python, check the prerequisites section for the script above if you need help.
Download the script, start OBS and go to Tools > Scripts, "+" button to add the script, tick the box.