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scoot — a grumpy ginger cat about to swat a window sidewaysscoot

Screenshots and screen sharing

Share your screen in a Meet call, or screenshot a region into ~/Pictures. Both are on with the profile, through the standard portals. Chrome, Meet, OBS and Telegram work with nothing extra to start.

configuration.nix and home.nix
programs.scoot.desktop = {
  enable = true;
  # Share without being asked which screen (kiosk: one fixed output):
  # capture.chooser = "none";
  # capture.outputName = "eDP-1";
  # No screenshots or sharing at all on this box:
  # capture.enable = false;
};

What runs: the portal backends system-wide (xdg-desktop-portal-wlr 0.8.4 or later for ScreenCast and Screenshot, xdg-desktop-portal-gtk for the file chooser and the rest; a too-old backend fails evaluation naming the floor), the scoot backend selection beside them (ScreenCast and Screenshot to wlr, everything else to gtk: the same file the home-manager side installs per user, which wins where both exist), PipeWire running for the cast, grim plus slurp for the screenshot binds, and the output chooser xdpw asks through before each cast. The portals start on demand over D-Bus and hold nothing until a cast asks, so nothing runs when you are not sharing. The profile installs no Push backend and no installed backend advertises the Push portal, so a pure scoot session runs no push daemon at all.

Three binds, each plain (fire once, never behind the lock screen):

Press Does Lands
Print screenshot every output dated files in ~/Pictures (scoot-20261005-143022.png)
Shift+Print screenshot a picked region dated file in ~/Pictures
Ctrl+Print screenshot a picked region straight into the clipboard (wl-copy)

The region picker dims the screens and draws the pick with the look’s ring and accent (slurp’s own style without a look, or with theme.targets.capture.enable = false).

Before each cast, xdpw asks which screen: a dmenu list of every output through the profile’s menu, the same --dmenu contract the clipboard picker and the launcher speak, themed from the look. The list works from the keyboard, where a click-picker needs the pointer on the right screen first. chooser = "slurp" picks by clicking a screen, and chooser = "none" casts outputName (a connector name as wayland-info lists it, e.g. "eDP-1") with no picker at all (leave it null and any output casts). Casts are capped at 30 frames per second (maxFps, 0 lifts the cap). The menu, in the moonrise look, over a call:

The output chooser over the session: a dmenu list naming each output, in moonrise navy and cream

One limit: scoot captures outputs only. There is no per-window capture source, so a call’s window picker falls back to screens; share a screen, not a window. The window list itself is still live (taskbars and Alt-Tab see every window).

If you drive scoot from an agent or a script, skip the portals: scoot msg screenshot captures an output over the privileged IPC socket with no portal, no picker and no clipboard involved. See Screenshots.

Every value is an option, applied on rebuild/switch (the chooser file and the binds re-render; no re-login):

Option Type Default Meaning
desktop.capture.enable bool true with the profile the backends on their bus names, PipeWire running, the tools on PATH, the chooser file written, the three binds bound
desktop.capture.chooser enum ("fuzzel", "slurp", "none") "fuzzel" the output picker before each cast (dmenu list, click a screen, or no picker)
desktop.capture.outputName string or null null (any output) the output chooser = "none" casts (a connector name, e.g. "eDP-1"); read only with chooser = "none"
desktop.capture.maxFps int (at least 0) 30 most frames per second on a cast; 0 means no limit
desktop.capture.grimPackage / .slurpPackage / .menuPackage / .wlClipboardPackage package or null grim / slurp / scootlaunch / wl-clipboard (Linux-only: null off Linux) point at your own builds; null with the switch on fails evaluation naming it (grim below 1.5.0 and the wlr backend below 0.8.4 fail the same way)
desktop.capture.portalWlrPackage / .portalGtkPackage package or null xdg-desktop-portal-wlr / -gtk (NixOS side; Linux-only: null off Linux) the backends themselves; null with the switch on fails evaluation naming it
desktop.theme.targets.capture.enable bool true theme the chooser and the region picker from the look; false keeps their own style
desktop.keys.binds.captureOutput.enable / .captureRegion.enable / .captureClipboard.enable bool true bind that screenshot (false leaves its combo unbound)

Troubleshooting, by symptom:

  • Meet’s share dialog offers nothing, or the request fails at once. Check the chain in order: the portals are up (systemctl --user status xdg-desktop-portal xdg-desktop-portal-wlr; both are D-Bus activated, so a dead one here means activation itself failed and the logs name it), the session names scoot (echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP must print scoot, and the D-Bus activation environment must carry it too; the launcher imports it past the display import, and a hand-started session needs dbus-update-activation-environment --systemd WAYLAND_DISPLAY XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP XDG_SESSION_TYPE), and PipeWire runs (wpctl status lists sinks).
  • Chrome shares a black screen, or offers windows it cannot capture. Chrome is on its X11 capturer: it picks the portal capturer only with XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland in its own environment (echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE in the terminal that started it; Chrome blanks its own /proc/PID/environ, so reading that file shows nothing either way). Every launcher login exports wayland, greeter or console; a hand-started session needs the three-var activation line in the entry above, and a Chrome started outside the session (over ssh, from another desktop’s terminal) needs a restart from inside it.
  • The share starts but shows the wrong screen, or never asks. The chooser is none (casts outputName, or any output when that is null): set chooser = "fuzzel" for the list. With two outputs, check the compositor sees both (scoot msg outputs).
  • Print (or Shift+Print, Ctrl+Print) does nothing. The slot renders those binds only with capture.enable beside the keymap (both on with the profile); either off leaves the combo unbound. Then check the tool: grim -o eDP-1 /tmp/t.png from a terminal. Outside the session it names grim’s own cause.
  • The call’s window list is empty. Expected: outputs only (above). Share a screen.
  • A screenshot taken while locked shows the lock, not the desktop. While locked the compositor draws nothing but the lock client’s own surfaces, so a capture holds no locked pixels. The portal Screenshot and grim see the same frame scoot msg screenshot does.
  • Two portal configs fight. The per-user ~/.config/xdg-desktop-portal/scoot-portals.conf (the profile’s) beats the system’s /etc/xdg/xdg-desktop-portal/scoot-portals.conf (also the profile’s, for sessions without home-manager); read the user one first. A hand-written file in either place wins over both only if it sorts earlier in the lookup, so avoid that.
  • kunifiedpush-distributor sits in the session at ~15 MB. It rode in with Plasma 6, not this profile: nixpkgs installs it unconditionally beside Plasma and it starts in every graphical session. A pure scoot session never installs it. If this box also runs Plasma, systemctl --user mask kunifiedpush-distributor.service stops it (unmask restores it); nothing the session needs breaks. The mask is per-user, so it covers that user’s Plasma sessions too, where push would stop with it.