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Do you create gaming videos or livestream? Open Joystick Display seems like an incredibly useful free, open source and cross-platform tool to display your inputs on-screen.

It supports Linux, macOS and Windows, it can work with a lot of different gamepads, you can add in custom themes and mappings, there's an easy to use broadcast mode that hides everything but the animated image to show your inputs for easy recording and it even has a client/server mode if you stream/record from a different PC.

Very cool! Love seeing FOSS projects like this that benefit everyone. It works perfectly on Linux too, there's basically no setup needed. Download, run, pick your gamepad style and then it should just work.

They have plans to continue improving it, as you can see on their public roadmap here. Would be interesting to see if more developers are interested in contributing, it's missing certain pad imagery like the Steam Controller.

Check it out in action, in the below (very bad) demo video I did earlier today:

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Game: Broforce.

To properly capture it without a background colour is quite easy too. What you need to do is change the Chroma Key colour (bottom left in the article screenshot), then in OBS Studio right click on the Window Capture you're using to grab it and go into Filters. From there, add a Chroma Key with the same colour as the one set in Open Joystick Display like this:

Want to try Open Joystick Display yourself? Since it's FOSS, you can just click on over to the official site here, GitHub here and get going right away.

Hat tip to ятнєяєη.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Apps, Open Source
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky.
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6 comments

leillo1975 Dec 18, 2019
Awesome. I hope in Future supports Wheels!
BrazilianGamer Dec 18, 2019
That's the best piece of news I got today
14 Dec 19, 2019
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Ooo, this is really neat.
Laboratoryo_ni_Neil Dec 19, 2019
How do I remove the black background of OJD when using OBS?


Last edited by Laboratoryo_ni_Neil on 19 December 2019 at 7:10 am UTC
Liam Dawe Dec 19, 2019
How do I remove the black background of OJD when using OBS?
What you need to do is change the Chroma Key colour, look in the screenshot in the article -> bottom left. Then when in OBS Studio, add a Chroma Key filter to the Window Capture (right click window capture -> Filters) and make sure the colour matches :). Edit: Added to the article in case anyone else needed to know.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 19 December 2019 at 5:52 pm UTC
TheSyldat Jan 22, 2020
Maybe I'm doing something wrong but I can't seem to be able to launch it other than with using a terminal.

Been able to just click on an icon in my activities menu would be great ...

Anyone has any how could I add a program to the gnome menu manually ?
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