Improvements for new teams

We've been building Remotion to seamlessly get out of your way while you're working in apps like Xcode, including a way to “click through” the call view. But although power users got the hang of it, the interaction left new users struggling to find basic actions such as leaving a call.

We’re solving this in two steps: Now, the companion mode always exposes controls for your mic & camera, sharing, and leaving calls. Next, we’re redesigning our call controls to a scalable surface that doesn’t compromise any screen real estate. If this sneak peek catches your interest, let us know what you think.

Beyond that, we spent a cycle fixing issues that users experience in their first 10 minutes with Remotion. Here’s the full list of fixes. Thanks to our new teams for their generous feedback!

Fixes & improvements

• Added a prompt to ask users taking shared control for Accessibility permissions. These allow Remotion to transmit inputs like CMD+TAB.

• Added Accessibility permission as an optional onboarding step. New users nearly always want to test remote control, which requires it.

• Added an item to the launcher to open controls for the current call.

• Added support for opening the launcher by clicking Remotion in the macOS dock or app switcher. This prepares for making Remotion behave like a normal macOS app by default, instead of an accessory app (which is hidden from the dock and app switcher).

• Added UI to show when the someone stops sharing control.

• Adjusted default rooms to “Pairing” and “Standup” to suggest what Remotion is best for.

• Adjusted onboarding for permissions to better explain what they are used for.

• Adjusted the onboarding window level to no longer float above all other windows. This makes it easier to use the browser to authenticate, or to enable permissions in Settings.

• Disabled the keyboard shortcut for sharing when two people are already sharing. Currently, Remotion only supports two shares at a time.

• Fixed a crash occurring after shared control sessions.

• Fixed an issue causing long draws to lag.

• Fixed an issue where a the cursor chat tutorial would intermittently disappear.

• Fixed an issue where CMD+W didn’t close some windows.

• Fixed an issue where cursor chat cursors would flicker when overlapping.

• Fixed an issue where share thumbnails would stay visible after unminimizing the share’s window.

• Fixed an issue where some buttons in the launcher didn’t reflect hover state in macOS 13.

• Fixed an issue where the share picker was occluded by full screen apps.

• Fixed an issue where the share picker disappeared when using an external display.

• Fixed an issue where viewers could see their cursor twice when viewing an app or screen that was being controlled.

• Fixed shortcuts to share feedback.

• Mitigated a memory leak in the Zoom SDK by restarting the app between calls if memory usage is too high.

• Reduced app install size by 50MB to 220MB by removing support for Agora calls. This reduced the download size to 96MB.

• Simplified onboarding by removing questions about role and operating system, as well as the step to take a live selfie from web onboarding.