Matrix and Jitsi Meet are missing system-wide push-to-talk (PTT).
Updated post to add:
Tell Jitsi -> github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet-electron/issues/210
Tell Matrix -> github.com/element-hq/element-web/issues/15284
Tell SimpleX -> github.com/simplex-chat/simplex-chat/issues/2398
Instead of system wide PTT per-app you may consider some software that mutes your mic for all apps as PTT, then just leave the mic “active” per-app.
I don’t know if a tool that will do this but on my mouse I have configured a mic mute toggle. So I push to start and stop. However technically I don’t think there is any restriction to setting up PTT via this mechanism.
This is what I do, works wonderfully, and most DEs have a readily configurable mute mic keyboard shortcut you can just put on whatever convenient macro key you want. Plus it doesn’t even show you as muted in Zoom since it’s done externally and it just knows it’s getting silence.
I found https://github.com/cyrinux/push2talk implements this idea for proper PTT on all apps.
Many games only allow push-to-talk for in-game voice, so this would create double push-to-talk, forcing me to hold two keys together to talk in-game.
so this would create double push-to-talk, forcing me to hold two keys together to talk in-game.
Why not use the same key for the game and the local mic control? I used to have a single key to mute myself in mumble and talk in Overwatch, and it worked well. Does your OS prevent it?
Those is both the call and game at the same time will hear everything, either from the call or game, as the mic is never mute. Switching between apps isn’t push-to-talk. Also, I can’t use same key to open both mics, as I don’t want private chat blasted into a public game.
I think you’ve misunderstood again.
In my call, I left the mic open by default, and configured a key as push-to-mute.
In the game, I left the mic muted by default, and configured the same key as push-to-talk.This way, I could speak on the call or in the game, but never both at once, and the my was not open by default in the game.
Yeah, the nice thing about per-app is that you can configure it for each app separately. But I’ll be honest that isn’t something that I regularly do. If I am voice chatting with friends that will usually be a superset of what I want to send to a game’s voice chat.
You can’t have e2e encrypted anything without identifying information about unique users. Nothing reasonably secure anyway.
SimpleX does it but is missing PTT. Doesn’t Matrix do it too for server with optional registration.
SimpleX still has devices as users, you just don’t see it. If you’re just talking about some random PTT voice chat or something, I haven’t seen anything.
Email the devs, they’re really responsive
Great idea, actually found a similar issue on their GitHub.
You can’t have e2e encrypted anything without identifying information about unique users.
SimpleX does it
No, it doesn’t. It has IDs for unique users, but tries to mitigate the risks by keeping a separate set of IDs to use with each contact. (This is like having a separate Matrix/Jabber/Signal/whatever account for each contact.)
no email or phone number needed.
Okay, that clarifies what you want, but SimpleX still doesn’t do what @just_another_person said. You seem to have misunderstood them.
Also, what’s with the downvotes? Do you expect people to spend their time trying to help you when you respond like that?
No offense, votes help sort comments and we’re moving off topic but your other comment is more useful, thanks again!
What does system-wide push-to-talk mean?
The web browser needs to be in focus for Jitsi keyboard shortcuts, push-to-talk. I want it in the background, with my computer game in focus, overriding the game’s shortcuts. Push-to-talk opens the mic when a key is held: so they don’t hear shit in the background when my mouth is shut.
Ah, I see. I think I would describe that as background push-to-talk. “System-wide” implies something different to me.
I don’t know of one off the top of my head, but I imagine desktop Matrix clients will start implementing this once native group voip (aka Element Call) is out of beta.
You don’t need e2ee when you run your own server. Mumble is super easy to set up.
Even if they download Mumble, no one will do that after I hang up my call with them. They will go straight back to Discord to talk to everyone else.
Mumble isn’t call based. It works like Discord and has push to talk.
Reworded
You can do it yourself and let them use it?
This won’t get them deleting Discord. It won’t spread. I should just fix push-to-talk for myself externally, in PipeWire/WirePlumber, and keep promoting Jitsi, Matrix or SimpleX. If there’s a way to do that on Windows and macOS too, that would be a better workaround.
Also, they won’t get end-to-end encryption on my Mumble server, so I could still read all their private messages.
Better than Discord reading them all and feeding them and their voice comm. into Discord’s AI.
But look, if it was easy, we wouldn’t have this discussion. Somewhere we need to start and hosting your own Mumble server is such a small start.
I feel like this violates the Unix philosophy. I think a dedicated program that handles unmuting the mic would be a better solution that solves this issue more generally.
Jitsi, Matrix and SimpleX are cross-platform.
Since you’re collecting feature requests in various projects, here’s one for Mumble/Murmur:
