The ext-image-capture-source-v1 and ext-image-copy-capture-v1 screen copy protocols build upon wlroots’ wlr-screencopy-unstable-v1 with various improvements for better screen capture support under Wayland. These new protocols should allow for better performance and window capturing support for use-cases around RDP/VNC remote desktop, screen sharing, and more.
Merge Request: Create ext-image-capture-source-v1 and ext-image-copy-capture-v1
Pipewire works well enough for sharing screen even though it isn’t well supported by removed software like Slack. Would this replace it?
No, most likely Pipewire would be used to implement the protocol for various compositors.
Think of the protocols as high-level descriptions of interfaces (or designs) that specify what needs to be implemented to support a particular feature (in this case capturing images of a “screen”). Looking at this one, it describes a
ext_image_capture_source_v1object that has various methods such ascreate_sourceanddestroy. Different compositors could then implement or support this interface with whatever technology they wish (most will rely on Pipewire).This is already the case with the existing screensharing protocol. For instance wlroots uses pipewire buffers in xdg-desktop-portal-wlr.