Share a zone for video conference apps

[Pagerojohan]

Summary of the new feature/enhancement

It would be great to be able to share a zone in Fancyzones in Teams/Skype

crutkas: strongly believe #279 is the correct solution here

[jerryjoseph-net]

+1

This is very essential while using UltraWide or Super UltraWide monitors.

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/40498960-integrate-with-ms-powertoys-fancyzones-to-share-a

[crutkas]

This would be very much ala "virtual monitor"

[crutkas]

Issue #422

[enricogior]

Closing in favor of https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/279 since they both require the same architecture changes to FZ in order to work.

[djelom]

I'd have to strongly disagreen on the resolution in favor of the suggested bug.. these are two very different issues we're talking about:

• sharing one zone only when doing screen sharing (original req. #6826) has the purpose of supporting 4 or 8k resolution while screen sharing. You want to split your 4k into smaller so that your friends can actually see something on their 14'' laptop. Sharing only one window is cumbersome because mostly you will want to show several softwares, so you want to share only a zone of your screen.
• issue #279 is about maximizing the window to full screen or to zone so not related imo. Can you then reopen issue #6826?

[enricogior]

@djelom agreed, it can be done with a different approach, it doesn't have to be part of FZ but it can be.

[RicardoNiepel]

For reference - the feature request on Microsoft Teams side: https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/38834104-share-custom-area-of-screen

with ~2k of votes this gives a clearer picture of demand

[baudl0815]

Why not create for each Zone a virtual monitor, which can be used by any sharing tool (zoom, webex, skype, teams) as screen to share. If this would mean too many monitors, at least one virtual screen would be enough, which can be chosen in FZ options or Zone Editor as virtual screen.

[gov-sanap]

anyone working on this feature? It will be great if someone can explain an approach to implement this. Can we make each fancy zone as virtual display?

[vicfergar]

anyone working on this feature? It will be great if someone can explain an approach to implement this. Can we make each fancy zone as virtual display?

Creating a virtual screen is a nice way to solve it for sharing, but it can cause some issues because OS will think that another screen is available and some windows or even the mouse can be moved to that display.

Another option is to create a window that mirrored the content inside a particular zone, most meeting programs support sharing only a window so it should be a valid option for most of the cases.

[rgruebel]

Thats how i solved the issue. I wrote a small winform application with a picturebox. A timer checks every 100ms which window is in the foreground. I then take a screenshot of this window, place it as an image in the picturebox and position my window exactly behind the application in the foreground. Now i can share my application in teams and my current active window is always visible in the correct size. Regardless of which zone I am in at the moment. I need to do some more tests but so far it seems to work quite well.

[rfilippelli-uol]

I have 4k monitor, its so complicate to share screen, because all the screen its to small for others.. If i share only an APP and i need to change, i need to unshare and share a specific app again.. again.. again..

[baudl0815]

Thats how i solved the issue. I wrote a small winform application with a picturebox. A timer checks every 100ms which window is in the foreground. I then take a screenshot of this window, place it as an image in the picturebox and position my window exactly behind the application in the foreground. Now i can share my application in teams and my current active window is always visible in the correct size. Regardless of which zone I am in at the moment. I need to do some more tests but so far it seems to work quite well.

Are you willing to share your app? I am curious. Can you imagine to make a variant which is taking a screenshot of a Desktop section only? There I would move the app I want to share.

[janschreier]

Inspired by @rgruebel I wrote a similar app in WPF. you can find it here: https://github.com/janschreier/PartialScreensharer Hope that's of use for some of you until that feature is finally implemented

[baudl0815]

Will test it if I get disappointed by [https://www.actualtools.com/multiplemonitors/](Actual multiple Monitors) it has various mirroring capabilities. Also for areas which can be predefined. CPU usage isquite small. But sofar so good

[NancyFolsom]

I'd have to strongly disagreen on the resolution in favor of the suggested bug.. these are two very different issues we're talking about:

* sharing one zone only when doing screen sharing (original req. [[FancyZones] Zones as screen sharing target #6826](https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/6826)) has the purpose of supporting 4 or 8k resolution while screen sharing. You want to split your 4k into smaller so that your friends can actually see something on their 14'' laptop. Sharing only one window is cumbersome because mostly you will want to show several softwares, so you want to share only a zone of your screen.

* issue [Maximize/Full Screen window within a zone (virtual monitor) #279](https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/279) is about maximizing the window to full screen or to zone so not related imo.
  Can you then reopen issue [[FancyZones] Zones as screen sharing target #6826](https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/6826)?

I adamantly agree. Thank you for making the point. It might be that creating a virtual monitor will be the solution to the problem of being able to share multiple apps in one region/zone/whatever in a Teams meeting on a wide screen, hi-res monitor, but it is NOT the same thing as requested.

[NancyFolsom]

555103

Sadly the link to the user voices request is 404. :-(

[egonl]

This works quite well for me: https://github.com/egonl/PortionOfScreen/releases

[albertwoo]

I also made a tiny application for this purpose and it works well with PowerToy: https://github.com/slaveOftime/Fun.Focus

[RicardoNiepel]

For reference - the feature request on Microsoft Teams side: https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/38834104-share-custom-area-of-screen with ~2k of votes this gives a clearer picture of demand

Is now: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/forum/ad198462-1c1c-ec11-b6e7-0022481f8472

Correct link: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/3ab620d5-2299-ec11-b401-002248312b6b

[egil]

This works quite well for me: https://github.com/egonl/PortionOfScreen/releases

The latest version of PortionOfScreen works really well. It would be great if @egonl's tool was included in PowerToys out of the box!

[RadoslawPoprrawskiNeighbourhoodExcel]

Hello, any news on this topic?

[asjones987]

People are already using the combination of Fancy Zones and RegionToShare so things snap to the right size etc. Seeing if Tom Englert would merge his code or if you all would do something similar would be a very nice feature all tied together. Very helpful as Ultra Wide Screen Monitors are more and more popular.

this may be better than a virtual monitor

https://www.reddit.com/r/MicrosoftTeams/comments/u28mec/ultrawide_share_region_of_screen/

[asjones987]

Similar issues

https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/25179 https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/279

[ChadThomsen]

People are already using the combination of Fancy Zones and RegionToShare so things snap to the right size etc. Seeing if Tom Englert would merge his code or if you all would do something similar would be a very nice feature all tied together. Very helpful as Ultra Wide Screen Monitors are more and more popular.

this may be better than a virtual monitor

https://www.reddit.com/r/MicrosoftTeams/comments/u28mec/ultrawide_share_region_of_screen/

This would be great as I use both tools all the time with my ultrawide monitor. Hopefully this will happen.

[lsch0lz]

Any updates on that feature? I'm on a mac and cant use PortionOfScreen, since its only for windows..

[egil]

I heard @jongalloway mention on the asp.net community standup yesterday that the feature is now built-in to FancyZones, so should this issue be closed?

[egil]

Any updates on that feature? I'm on a mac and cant use PortionOfScreen, since its only for windows..

Sorry for my ignorance here, but aren't FancyZones also Windows only?

[lsch0lz]

Oops, well that's unfortunate ...

[RadoslawPoprrawskiNeighbourhoodExcel]

I just installed / updated to the newest powerapps however fancy zone is still not registering in teams

[codaroma]

Any updates on that feature? I'm on a mac and cant use PortionOfScreen, since its only for windows..

Try DeskPad https://github.com/Stengo/DeskPad