Discover

Yet another Discord overlay for Linux written in Python using GTK3.

Discover-Overlay is a GTK3 overlay written in Python3. It can be configured to show who is currently talking on discord or it can be set to display text and images from a preconfigured channel. It is fully customisable and can be configured to display anywhere on the screen. We fully support X11 and wlroots based environments. We felt the need to make this project due to the shortcomings in support on Linux by the official discord client.

Considerably lighter on system resources and less hack-and-slash included than discord-overlay.

Usage

Easy user instructions can be found on our User website

Got a question about development, bug reports or a feature request? Join our Discord! or open an issue on GitHub

Terminal usage

On top of graphical options there are multiple ways to use this program from the command line

Start the overlay

You can start the overlay by running
discover-overlay

This will close out any already running discover overlay for this user

Close the overlay

discover-overlay --close or discover-overlay -x

This closes the process running the overlay, hence any --rpc commands sent afterwards will do nothing

Open configuration window

discover-overlay --configure or discover-overlay -c

Log debug to file

discover-overlay --debug or discover-overlay -d

This will redirect all debug to the file ~/.config/discover-overlay/output.txt

Hide the currently shown overlays

discover-overlay --rpc --hide

This will not stop the process running the overlay. This means the --rpc commands sent afterwards continue working as expected, and the --show is much quicker than starting the overlay from the start.

Show the overlays

discover-overlay --rpc --show

Note that if the process running the overlay has stopped or crashed then this will do nothing

Mute yourself in voice chat

discover-overlay --rpc --mute

Unmute yourself in voice chat

discover-overlay --rpc --unmute

Deafen yourself in voice chat

discover-overlay --rpc --deaf

Undeafen yourself in voice chat

discover-overlay --rpc --undeaf

Attempt to join voice channel by room ID

discover-overlay --rpc --moveto=X

Using a Room ID from Discord to replace X, this will attempt to join the voice channel.

Populate the channel RPC file with a list of guilds

discover-overlay --rpc --refresh-guilds Requests a list of guilds. Once collected, it will write them to ~/.config/discover-overlay/channels.rpc as a JSON object

Populate the channel RPC file with a list of channels from a guild

discover-overlay --rpc --guild-request=X Using a Server ID from Discord to replace X, this will request a list of channels (text & voice) from the given guild. Once collected, it will write them to ~/.config/discover-overlay/channels.rpc as a JSON object.

Force SteamOS compatibility mode

discover-overlay --steamos Forces the overlay to start as if it was started in a Gamescope & SteamOS session. Intended for testing against Gamescope while still nested in a generic desktop environment

Once Gamescope is started, get the DISPLAY variable for it and run as env -u WAYLAND_DISPLAY DISPLAY=:X discover-overlay --steamos Which will disallow it drawing to the outer desktop and instead connect to Gamescope

Installing

Flatpak via Flathub

Visit our Flathub page or install via commandline

flatpak install io.github.trigg.discover_overlay

Stable

python3 -m pipx install discover-overlay

Latest Testing

git clone https://github.com/trigg/Discover.git
cd Discover
python3 -m pipx install .

Externally Packaged

Note that while we list links to other locations to download, the version provided is unknown and often untested by us. Report bugs in these implementations to their respective project, not here.

Arch AUR

Stable Latest

Fedora

sudo yum copr enable mavit/discover-overlay
sudo yum install discover-overlay

Gentoo

sudo eselect repository enable guru
sudo emaint -r guru sync
sudo emerge net-voip/discover-overlay

Dependencies

Most requirements should be handled by pip.

A compositor is strongly advised but there is compatibility for X11 sessions without a compositor

It is advised to install python-gobject from your system's own package manager.

Debian/Ubuntu

apt install python3-gi python3-gi-cairo libappindicator3-dev

Libappindicator might conflict with other installed packages, but is optional

with Wayland support

apt install gtk-layer-shell libgtk-layer-shell-dev

Arch

pacman -S python-gobject libappindicator-gtk3

with Wayland support

pacman -S gtk-layer-shell

Fedora

dnf install python3-pip python3-gobject gtk3-devel python3-cairo python-devel python-gobject python-gobject-devel

with Wayland support

dnf install gtk-layer-shell

Usage

Run discover-overlay to start the overlay. Note that by default it will show nothing until you join a voice channel.

Comes with sane-enough default but has a configuration screen to tweak to your own use. Configuration can be reached by running discover-overlay --configure

Desktop shortcuts for both of these are added at install time.

Debugging

See Wiki

Translations

For developers and translators translation information can be found on our Wiki.

Incorrect translations and missing translations

We welcome pull requests and bug reports about missing or wrong translations, but don't have the resources to get it all right. Please be patient with us and alert us if any translations are wildly inaccurate.

A note on terminology

I often use some terms interchangably:

Guild, Server : the leftmost pane in Discord.

Channel, Room, Chat: The next level in, these are all the same thing internally.

Why do you keep making Discord Overlays?

I feel like I shouldn't have to at all! Until we get an official one I might just create a new one every few months. Look forward to Rust/Vulkan version coming in a few months. /s

Are you serious?

Generally, no.