OBS suggestions

General

• Show startup/shortcut flags

  • Sometimes users will set a strange launch flag that causes OBS to behave oddly (such as --startstreaming). While it doesn't happen often, this information could be invaluable for troubleshooting. (Potentially fixed by: https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio/pull/1151)

• Better plugin management for supporting modules

  • Browser Source, for example, has a bunch of supporting .dll files that OBS tries to load, leading to errors in the log file (while harmless) that confuse end users into thinking something is wrong. Maybe add a search path to the data directory instead for supporting libraries?

• Better source error logging

  • I could go on for days about this one, and I've opened a few mantis cases about it (specifically for DirectShow sources and Media sources). Sources should log errors better, and often times they fail silently which makes troubleshooting very difficult.

• Delete log file when OBS is attempted to be launched twice, but exited

  • The log file when OBS is attempted to launch twice, but closed (example), contains no valuable information and should just be deleted. This causes issues with the Upload Current/Last Log menu options when providing support.

• Simply sanity checks for settings

  • Too often we see users trying to stream 1080p 60fps at 1500 bitrate. These kinds of simple sanity checks as a popup to new users could help a ton.

• Hotkeys being disabled when source is selected

  • I see this commonly. Users don't understand that their hotkeys are disabled when a source is selected in the sources list. This is kind of a bad situation in general. Reserved shortcuts in the application should not be allowed to be set as a hotkey. Many other applications already do this. At the very least, perhaps a notice that "Hotkey ignored! Please deselect your source to re-enable hotkeys" or something like that when someone presses a hotkey while they are temporarily disabled.

• ASIO support

  • Yes, I know, I know. But we get requests for this all the friggin time. ASIO devices are becoming much more common in the prosumer and entry-level "production" equipment that streamers are using. Support for these devices would be a huge win for features over stuff like Bebo and xSplit.

• Source stats

  • xSplit provides per-source usage statistics to help identify which sources could be taking up too many resources. Something similar could be very useful in OBS.

• Recording/live overlay

  • This is requested all the time. We have a lot of users with only a single monitor, and there is poor indication that OBS is active in general. Some kind of overlay that can be drawn on top of a window/display (a simple icon, similar to how NVIDIA share does it) would be useful.

• Hotkeys to enable/disable filters

  • We see this request fairly often, and it makes sense for folks who have been using VST filters for effects on their microphone or plenty of other similar use cases. Problem is that the hotkeys UI is such a hot mess this would just add clutter. (Potentially fixed by: https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio/pull/1133)

Main UI

• Hotkey for swapping to last active scene

  • While you can set hotkeys to swap between scenes, it's been requested fairly often for a quick way of swapping between two scenes. This can be worked around by using Studio mode and transition, but a dedicated hotkey for this could have many uses.

• Better remux options

  • Many users don't know the remux option exist, and what it's capable of. There should be an option in settings that allows you to automatically remux files after a recording is complete. Since we push people so hard to avoid mp4 (which doesn't really work), it would be great if the remux feature itself was a little cleaner from a UI perspective. Selectable output format instead of having to changing file name to a known supported extension would go a long way as well.

• Filters needs to be easier to find

  • The filters submenu is difficult to find. A dedicated button in the main UI, or a dedicated shortcut key, could be very useful here. I know space is at a premium, but filters are such an integral part of OBS that a large portion of the userbase doesn't even know exist. This makes me very sad.

• Better grid alignment tools

  • While there are some options for aligning sources, they are significantly lacking. A toggleable grid (with adjustable sizing) to overlay the preview, with snapping to that grid would be friggin' awesome.

• Source Folders (accordion-style)

  • Please.
    • No, really. Please :(

• Color-coded sources

  • This goes alongside the source folders. Someone made an interesting suggestion to allow for color-coding of their sources to help with organization. This seems like a neat idea.

• Settings missing from simple or advanced mode

  • This comes up pretty often, and honestly stems from the fact you can't do multi-track audio in simple mode. I think we should either allow multi-track audio for recordings in simple mode. I don't see there being much fallout for this, it's pretty straightforward, just only enable when a supported format is selected.
  • I'd also like to see a "Copy to Advanced" for the simple mode recording presets. They are a great base for users getting started, and being able to see what's actually going on is a great learning tool for users who want to take that extra step.

• Audio Input/Output bounding box

  • These sources draw a bounding box in the preview. Why?

• Image source naming convention consistency

  • The terms Visible and Active in the context of sources have very explicit definitions. Why does the checkbox for image source abandon this consistency and just say the ambiguous "unload when not showing"?

• Scroll wheel changes settings when mouse hovers over an option

  • This is absolutely maddening. Any time you scroll through any options, if your mouse catches a setting that is changeable with a scroll wheel (value or slider, whatever), the scroll stops and the value starts changing even when it's not highlighted. This should be prevented from happening unless the object is first clicked on or selected in some other way.

• Simple UI mode

  • This could hide more of the advanced settings, and even include some kind of guided setup where it doesn't allow the user to attempt to stream/record before completing X steps (see: quickstart guide). Initial impressions of OBS are very poor in general. There's a ton of options and buttons and settings and no real direction on what they should be doing. We still get users who very commonly complain about "black screen" because they don't understand OBS captures no sources by default, and have no idea what a source is.

• Transition options for source show/hide

• Preview undo

  • Store the changes to scenes and allow undo of any edits/transform changes.

Studio Mode

• Transitions in general are confusing and hard to understand. Moving these to their own sub-window where things can be conveyed easier I think is the right move here, with only the single drop down to chose active in the main UI itself.

Settings UI

• Hotkeys page
  • This entire page is, frankly, a UX disaster. It's perfectly functional, but when you start adding scenes/source, this list gets very cluttered, very quickly. Suggestions I have here is collapsible accordions and sort all sources by their main scene, and open a sub-menu (properties?) for each objects relevant hotkeys. This would significantly cut down on the clutter. Also, having dedicated buttons for revert and clear are unnecessary, in my opinion. Escape can be used to revert, and Del can be used to clear. This is all standard application UX that users should be very familiar with. Dedicated buttons is just a waste of space.

Properties UI

• The properties window
  • I'm pretty sure you already know about this one, and we've spoke about it before, but wanted to include this as I voice my support for scrapping the automatically generated properties template system in favor of a much cleaner method. I don't know Qt well enough to know what would be feasible here, but from a concept side I do have a few ideas I can go over.

Resolved suggestions

• Projector menu option

  • This one is just a consistency thing. In studio mode, you can't even right click the main preview to project it, you have to right click the edit view, which is very confusing and backwards. I understand the menu option says (Preview), but this is still very confusing as that's not the object you're right-clicking on. Update 11/2: Potentially resolved by RytoEX's projector work.

• Ability to disable video capture device audio

  • Why does my webcam have to show up in the mixer? This is just silly it's not an option to disable audio for a directshow device. Or, at the very least, if it's not technically possible, just lie to us and have "disabled" hide it from the mixer and mute it. Update 11/2: Potentially fixed by: https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio/pull/1002 but should still be allowed to disable the audio in the device properties if possible.

• Multi-view for Studio mode. Nuff' said.