Author Topic: No more tabbing: Watch the chat while you multitask (For OpenGL only)  (Read 3148 times)

Offline Morgra

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There is one basic task when you’re in the game as a moderator: keep your eyes on the chat. (And just so you know when it comes to us mods ;) )

So, I thought I’d share a little trick to how I watch the chat when I have other things to do at my PC or want to watch some Netflix or YouTube while monitoring the chat! Normally I have two monitors and just leave the FH window open on my secondary monitor but I currently do not have that luxury. And this method will help for those of you that only have one monitor, or do have more than one but don’t want FH to take up a lot of space on your screen when you are multitasking.  Alt + TAB is simple enough but with this method you won’t even have to bother.



NOTE: You must be able to use the OpenGL rendering system. This will not work with Direct3D9. When Direct3D9 is not the active window it pauses what is on screen so you won’t get a feed of the chat.

What you will need:
OBS: https://obsproject.com/download
DeskPins: https://efotinis.neocities.org/deskpins/


Step 1 - Install OBS and DeskPins
If you have any problems with this, let me know down in the replies.
DeskPins is used to keep the chat window on top of the other windows.

Step 2 - Set up OBS
1. Open up OBS

2. In the Sources pane, click the + icon and add a Window Capture


3. Once the Properties window opens, find your FeralHeart window and then click OK. You should now see FeralHeart open in OBS


Step 3 - Crop OBS to your chat box
1. Right click the Window Capture button in the Sources pane and select Filters


2. Once the Filters window opens, click on the + in the bottom left and select Crop/Pad


3. Type in the number of pixels you would like to crop from each side. This depends on your monitor resolution and size of your FeralHeart window but don’t think too much about it. Just type in random numbers and you will see for yourself and be able to fine tune it to your liking.
I cropped 15 pixels from the left, 400 off the top (left a little bit of room to expand chat window in FeralHeart), 1185 from the right and 290 from the bottom.
Once you are done cropping, you can go ahead and close the window.


This is important: Now to resize your preview window so that way all you see is what you just cropped.
4.  Right click anywhere on the preview area in OBS and Select “Resize output (source size)”


5. Once it asks if you want to continue, click Yes

Step 4 - Pop out OBS preview window and pin it on top of other windows
1. Right click OBS’s preview window area again and select “Windowed Projector (Preview)”


It should end up looking like this.
NOTE: Leave the other, main OBS window open otherwise it will close out of your preview window too.


2. Make sure DeskPins is launched. You should see it down on your taskbar.

3. Left click the icon on your taskbar and your cursor should turn into a little pin
(Alternatively you can right click the DeskPins icon and select “Enter Pin Mode”)


4. Find your preview window and click the top of the window that shows the title.
Your window is now pinned and will sit on top of all other windows! Resize the preview window as you please.
If you want to get rid of the pin, you can hover over it until a little X appears or just close the window entirely.
NOTE: You can leave FeralHeart running in the background but do NOT hit the minimize button or OBS won’t see the window anymore.


Once you close out of OBS or FeralHeart, it should still save these settings for the next time. The only thing you will have to do again is "Resize output (source size)"

I hope this is useful to the few of you who want to watch what's going on without tabbing in and out. Let me know if you have any questions in the replies!
Morgra
« Last Edit: June 04, 2020, 07:44:57 am by Morgra »
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Offline Dark_heart

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I love it! Thank you so much Morgra <3
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Thank god for this to be honest ~ I am ALWAYS multitasking when playing and I've always hated that the game would "freeze" when you weren't actually on it.

Offline Garfield.

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This is an interesting trick and very helpful! I think I won't be able to do it because I use Direct but others will enojoy this x) thanks for sharing Morgra!

Offline Silvestria

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This is a great trick Morgra! Thank you for sharing this.

Offline Kerriki

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Morgra the FH tech guru over here! Lovely tutorial c:
Farewell everyone<3

Offline VortexAlive

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Very nice tutorial, Morgra! This should help a lot when doing other things with only one screen! :D
For the sake of my own health and interests, I've left FH and I won't be looking back.