I made Deskreen, open source app to make any device a second screen for computer

https://www.deskreen.com

by pavlobu • 6 years ago

331 151 6 years ago

deskreen.com

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Meet Deskreen an app to make any device with a web browser a second screen for your computer.

You can download latest Deskreen-1.0.0 version on our website: https://www.deskreen.com/

Quick Demo Video On Youtube -- Tablet as Second Screen for a laptop | Using Deskreen: https://youtu.be/rmg5tZ4iSx8

Deskreen can be used not only for second screen use case, but also for screen mirroring through local WiFi, or single application window view sharing to other devices.

Features:

* works with WiFi or LAN

* use any device with web browser as second screen for your computer (using Display Dummy Plug)

* use any device web browser to mirror your computer's screen

* use any device web browser to view a single application window from your computer's screen

* supports multiple screen sharing sessions to as many devices as you want

* supports changing picture quality while sharing a screen.

* Picture auto quality change supported. (for performance boost while watching youtube video for example)

* End-to-end security

* dark mode UI support ;)

available for Win / Mac / Linux

Note: app is not Code-Signed yet, code signing is pricy. Any donations are highly encouraged. Donate on Patreon.

Links:

Deskreen on Github: https://github.com/pavlobu/deskreen Deskreen on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/deskreen

Thank you all for your attention,

mnw21cam• 6 years ago

No, I don't seem to be able to download the latest Deskreen-1.0.0 version from your web site, because your web site is just a blank white page.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

https://www.deskreen.com/

please try to visit that website

It may be a problem of Github CDN it is not able to catch up with so many users at the moment, probably

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

I see download counts rising with this command: curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/pavlobu/deskreen/releases | egrep '"name"|"download_count"'

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Or just go straight to github.com releases page and download it from there directly. Here it is:

https://github.com/pavlobu/deskreen/releases/tag/v1.0.0

ValentineC• 6 years ago

Thank you for making this open source. I hope you'll be able to find a way to make this worthwhile for yourself.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

You are welcome!

I know it is not absolutely encouraged nowadays, but I'm making it completely out of good will.

Making a good thing to the world you live in, is already worthwhile, isn't it? :)

Cheers

GordonS• 6 years ago

app is not Code-Signed yet, code signing is pricy

I've used K Software before (who resell Comodo certs for cheaper), but it looks like they are around $90/year now; I'm sure they were a good bit cheaper when I last renewed 2-3 years back :-/

Be prepared for a shitty and lengthy verification experience though, including having to put details on multiple online telephone directories of their choosing (wtf that is meant to prove, I don't know!), and possibly having to get your identity notarised by a solicitor/lawyer.

I really wish there was some kind of "Let's Encrypt for code Signing", but because of the verification requirements it's hard to see it happening. I suppose it might be technically possible to do for a selected set of countries if the right gov APIs existed.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Yep, code signing is a racket and a complete bs :/

ropp5• 6 years ago

your "meet the team" page seems pretty lonely, I hope there are people here, who are interested in contributing. I'm definitely going to look, if I find a place, where I can contribute some code, docu, translation or anything.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Hi, you are absolutely welcome to contribute and later I'll make an API to fetch and display contributors from github there.

Cheers

nextaccountic• 6 years ago

* use any device with web browser as second screen for your computer (using Display Dummy Plug)

Does this really need the display dummy plug to function? Isn't there any way to create a "virtual" software-only display on eg. Linux?

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

There are the ways to do it for every platform and commercial apps that have features like Deskreen prove that. But they don't disclose their solutions. It is beyond of my current knowledge at the moment how they made it.

The goal of Deskreen is to bring more attention to this problem from open-source community, so then we can all come together and build a really cool stuff!

Of course I wanted to make Deskreen an HDMI Dummy plug FREE solution from very beginning but could not find out how.

avipars• 5 years ago

Cool, from a cyber security perspective... can I access it from another network?

and does it communicate over TLS?

jdalgetty• 6 years ago

Great idea - though it doesn't seem like there are many options for USB-C based dummy display plugs.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Hey, thank you for your comment! There are USB-C type based plugs out there. At least I wanted to buy one on Aliexpres, but then I decided not to buy it because I already had a converter from USB-C type to HDMI. Like the one here: https://cdn.webshopapp.com/shops/172646/files/146990684/oric...

and I plug HDMI plug there, and it perfectly works with Deskreen!

HDMI plugs are the cheapest so far.

Cheers

boromi3• 6 years ago

https://www.amazon.com/Cablecc-Virtual-Headless-Emulator-192...

Is one option

nihil752• 6 years ago

Very nice! Maybe look at Synergy for mouse/keyboard/stylus sharing between devices: https://github.com/symless/synergy-core

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Hey, thanks!

I'll check that out.

texs0987• 6 years ago

Or Barrier: https://github.com/debauchee/barrier

Its a fork from Synergy 1.9

ironmagma• 6 years ago

Beware, once you install Synergy on Mac, there seems to be no way to uninstall.

sixothree• 6 years ago

Synergy never ceases to amaze me in that these few bugs that have been around for years make it a completely broken product for me. Regret paying them.

josh_frome• 6 years ago

I had a similar experience after purchasing a license. Admittedly a few years back now, but I seemed to encounter issues that would strike at the most inopportune time. I eventually moved to an RDP based setup and haven't looked back.

walrus012• 6 years ago

synergy these days has been replaced for most serious use by barrier, due to the restrictive synergy license and costs.

https://github.com/debauchee/barrier

I actually clicked on this thread for the purpose of commenting that you could do cool things with some combination of this, using spare screen/tablet devices, and Barrier. But you beat me to mentioning the concept.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Cool! Thank you for coming here :)

nihil752• 5 years ago

Thanks! I mentioned Synergy as I've used it many years ago and was not aware of license change implications (that's why I linked to the open-source repo). Good to know there's a good fork.

taffit• 6 years ago

For Windows only there exists Mouse without border [0] which works a lot better than synergy, including sharing of the clipboard. Of course not usable if you have different systems, but for Windows there is no better solution I'm aware of.

[0] https://aka.ms/MouseWithOutBorders

mmastrac2• 6 years ago

Very cool. IIRC some VNC distributions for Windows came with a virtual screen driver that was useful for avoiding the need for a dummy plug.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Thank you for your comment! Yes, but getting rid of a dummy plug is a whole separate project for each operating system, so I basically need to create three new repos on github and start development for that.

However I really feel there is a lack of low level programming languages knowledge such as C and Assembly from my side in order to write a code for Deskreen. It basically requires hacking knowledge and there should be patches for minor OS version updates.

This sounds like a tough task for me at the moment.

mmastrac2• 6 years ago

Understandable. Your progress so far is amazing.

premek• 6 years ago

ANY device!

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Yup, lol :D

walrus012• 6 years ago

I assume he actually means any device that can run a very recent HTML5 capable browser that can go into fullscreen mode. So for tablets it would be dependent on having a reasonably recent safari or chrome installed.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Yes that is exactly what I meant.

But the viewing browser should be also with WebRTC support as well

boromi3• 6 years ago

Very interesting. Does this act like Luna Display? How's the latency

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Hi thank you for asking.

Yes it acts like luna display, but you can buy HDMI plug from third party.

The latency depends you how close you are to wifi source. When they are connected with a cable, then it depends on your local network hardware and network cards performance.

The framerate may drop if you move away from wifi or download something huge from internet like torrents, but overall it depends on how beefy the host machine is (where Deskreen app runs). My firend used a 3D modeling software Zbrush on a beefy Windows PC with Deskreen and barely noticed any lags. So it's usable even for creators.

on average it consumes pretty low network resources ~1.5 megabytes per second when watching youtube videos through it. but overall experience is good if you have fast network cards and fast router.

boromi3• 6 years ago

Any link to an HDMI 4k 60hz dummy adapter that support HDR?

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

No, but you can always google :)

retribe• 6 years ago

I tried it with an iPad and it works great, however the text-quality is sadly not good enough for my use case: as a second screen for looking at API documentation, PDFs and coding. I wish this could be improved - software such as Parsec(only for Windows hosts) can achieve better quality (though not perfect).

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Hey thank you for your feedback!

Indeed there is still enough room to improve for Deskreen.

You can try to change resolution of your virtual display to make all look bigger if you need that.

Cheers

stragies4• 6 years ago

Text should look pixel-perfect if you use loss-less compression. Or aren't you? Are you using QuickSync/HWEnc (lossy h26X?) ?

suyash• 6 years ago

If you have a Mac then just use Sidecar

tambourine_man5• 6 years ago

Old iPads are plentiful

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

I have iPad Pro 2017 and Apple already thinks it is too old to run a SideCar on it. Such an incredible world we live in :)

kevincox3• 6 years ago

It seems like the sender could be in-browser as well using WebRTC for the screen sharing. I would guess this is what is being used anyways as the receiver is a browser? If not is the quality much different?

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Yes basically it's two browsers talking to each other. But there is an important thing to notice.

You need to run a signaling server running somewhere. You cant run a signaling server in browser. When doing screen sharing between two browsers it basically goes to external signaling server on internet and asks credentials and then doing peer to peer communication.

Deskreen can run without access to world wide web with its own local signaling server.

The speed is also much better when doing direct communication through local signaling server running on host machine.

Hope that helps you to understand it better.

Cheers

Animats• 6 years ago

Deskreen can run without access to world wide web with its own local signaling server.

That should be the standard setup. Allowing any access to your screen via a remote server is a huge security hole.

kevincox3• 6 years ago

I can see the benefit of a local signaling server however I am always online so I would be happy to run it in my browser and avoid running electron.

The speed is also much better when doing direct communication through local signaling server running on host machine.

This should only affect the setup time right? As soon as the connect is established the signaling server should not be required.

mfkp• 6 years ago

Dummy display adapter for $1.47 shipped with promo code 7O8A2CEG

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08RCHWKWQ/

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

See, they are cheap like chips :)

Yeroc• 6 years ago

I guess the downside of using this mechanism is that if you already have an external monitor attached then you can't use this solution? Or is there another way to use Deskreen? For example, my Mac laptop is already plugged into a large external display so there's no free port for a dummy plug like this.

grishka2• 6 years ago

Please, remove that atrocious "smooth scrolling" script from your website so it doesn't feel broken.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Removed!

Agree, not everybody likes it :)

ficklepickle2• 6 years ago

You can use the CSS attribute "scroll-behavior: smooth" which avoids the hazards of using JS to hijack the scroll event.

I don't believe it works on safari, but safari is the new IE so what can you do.

kodablah• 6 years ago

Nice. I was considering the same (did POC w/ just screen no input a couple of years ago[0] tho may not work since I used gunjs). One thing I was considering instead of Electron is a systray daemon that send input to a chrome extension via native window messaging.

0 - https://github.com/cretz/myscreen.live

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Great work!

Yes, I was also thinking of adding an autostart on login feature and saving previously connected devices. So users don't have to reconnect every time.

lrvick• 6 years ago

X.org already has this feature built in: XDMX.

No need for Dummy Plugs. Can do 200 screens if you want.

You can create extend your desktop to virtual screens all you like.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Yes, Both linux and mac have x servers running. But different variations of them. There is no problem with Linux at all, it is all customizable and user can be just asked to restart a computer to rewrite x server configs.

But on mac and windows this is a quite different situation.

ktpsns2• 6 years ago

Yes, XDMX is amazing, but the last time I used it (literally 15 years ago), it required a hand crafted xorg.conf, which is not really practical in 2020 with notebooks and frequently changing settings.

XDMX won't work with Mac OS, thought, except you want to work with X11-only apps (defacto a lightweight "virtual machine" without native mac apps).

acct7763• 6 years ago

15 years is long, even longer in Linux time...

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

The reason the first generation iPads may not work is that it is older than Chrome and other browsers started to adopting WebRTC technology. Deskreen is using WebRTC under the hood. So it will not work.

xur17• 6 years ago

Any chance this could work with a chromecast device (I imagine it should be fairly easy since they can be directed to display a webpage).

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

It already works with smart TV's, I've tested it, but you need to install a chrome browser on it and type in address manually.

In future I thought to add a simple 6 digit pass when connecting to computer running Deskreen, kind of a chromecast experience, but this is more a commercial use case, because it requires load balancing and a fleet of cloud machines running on the background. Besides you will be Forced to use it with internet only.

So for now there is no better alternative to just using a web browser on your smart tv and typing address in manually.

...

Note that in future a feature to remember a previously connected device will be added, so you will have to type baffling address in browser only once :)

Cheers

StavrosK2• 6 years ago

You could probably use catt[0] and do `catt cast_site <the URL>`, but I haven't tested it.

[0] https://github.com/skorokithakis/catt/

michaelpb5• 6 years ago

Is there no way to do this without a physical plug? I think there's a way to make dummy X.org display devices without any extra physical hardware -- I've definitely done similar stuff when setting up headless automated E2E testing, before tools for this were widely available. Is the hard part connecting it to an existing session as a display? Or is it that cross-platform compatibility is what's holding it back, since perhaps there is no equivalent for people running a macOS or Windows based OS?

All that said, this looks super cool! Congrats and thanks for sharing! I'm tempted to give it a shot. My current set-up is similar except I use Barrier to share my mouse and keyboard across 4 cheap (<$200) laptops I've accumulated over the last few years.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Hi thanks on paying attention on that,

Yes it is a problem of cross-platform support. Each os with its own zoo of tricks and tweaks.

So for each os there should be a separate module, basically 3 different projects that then can be used as native modules for Deskreen.

I'll just repost my previous answer.

Yes, Both linux and mac have x servers running. But different
variations of them. There is no problem with Linux at all, it
is all customizable and user can be just asked to restart a
computer to rewrite x server configs.
But on mac and windows this is a quite different situation.

Cheers

GekkePrutser2• 6 years ago

On Mac the X server is only optional though (Xquartz) and I don't think it can even 'see' the entire screen. Only other X Windows apps.

michaelpb5• 6 years ago

Gotcha! Thanks for the reply, and thanks again for the project.

So for each os there should be a separate module, basically 3 different projects that then can be used as native modules for Deskreen.

I hope more folks contribute to improving each of the different modules. I personally would dive in to work on improving Linux support if I had time, but I'm already very stretched thin, so that will have to wait.

fblp• 6 years ago

Can you gleen anything from how Facebook messenger does screen sharing on Android and iOS?

reidacdc• 6 years ago

Thanks for this question and answer -- I recently learned about both xpra and x2go, and was wondering if this was related, like a generalization of it or something.

Now I think maybe this is a good answer for some remote visualization applications.

stragies4• 6 years ago

If your device has an unused VGA connector, then on X11 (perhaps Wayland too) you can "force" the graphics-card into a mode for that output without connecting a VGA dummy plug.

That second screen you just export with X11vnc.

Using Android Phones/tablets, and USB connections, you can do some little "adb forward" magic, and then push the VNC stream over the USB-connection to a VNC viewer on the Android tables.

Run x2vnc to "beam" pointer/HID data to the tablet, for when you are on the external screens with the mouse.

Works fine, very low latency, no WIFI required. And it charges your tablet too.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Wow, sounds great!

dingdingdang3• 6 years ago

Any practical guides/info on how to achieve this setup without a dedicated research session?

francoisp• 6 years ago

very nice ! I had been using XDisplay, (wired, Macosx iOS only) requires an app on iOS device and needs a patch once in a while... maybe because Apple was about to come out with sidecar? (API changes?) Anyway this is WAY better! True hacker: hard to build a business out of it, so open-sources it. May the source be with you! Cheers

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Haha!

Thank you for such a kind feedback!

Paul

christiansakai• 6 years ago

Dang, this is what I call creative coding.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Haha! thanks :)

aargh_aargh• 6 years ago

Does anyone have a recommendation if I want to do the reverse, i.e. share my Android screen in a PC window (Windows)?

A quick Google search reveals that there are options, does anyone have any experience doing that?

Ideally I'd like to mirror an app view to a PC window regardless whether the android display is turned off or even the app is in the background. Not sure if that's even possible on a non-rooted android.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

I was thinking of doing a Deskreen for mobile and tablets to do exact same thing, but technology is not there yet for React Native.

Things may change in future

ropp5• 6 years ago

which interface is missing on mobile?

ffpip• 6 years ago

scrcpy - https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Nice one! But still not cross platform.

Groxx• 6 years ago

Depending on how technical you are / your audience is: Vysor or scrcpy. Vysor used to be a free chrome extension, but alas, no longer. https://fossbytes.com/android-screen-mirroring-apps-pc/

jjice• 6 years ago

I literally did this earlier today. Funny coincidence. I'm using Vysor[0]. Worked out of the box for me. If you aren't pro, the display quality leaves some to be desired, but it works fine for me to make Android dev on hardware a bit more comfortable. It requires the device be unlocked though. It even has a web interface that uses WebUSB. I didn't try it, but seems like a neat option.

[0] https://www.vysor.io/

pwlb• 6 years ago

Anybody who wants to this with Linux: scrcpy uses adb(turn on usb debug) und works like a charm

stragies4• 6 years ago

The package is huge, even the Debian package. Are you shipping a bunch of dependencies/frameworks in the package? Aren't there more system-components you could use?

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

It is an electron app. We just have to live with it.

dingdingdang3• 6 years ago

Think you are missing a beat by not having affiliate links to those Display Dummy Plugs! Would certainly order via you as a cost free way of donating should I come to need this type of software.

GekkePrutser2• 6 years ago

That's peanuts though financially, if you use it it'd be much better to send a few bucks his way :)

And yeah I regularly do that kind of thing :) Especially with single dev projects, I prefer spending on them than the big ones like Mozilla, Wikipedia etc. They already have plenty of ways to get themselves on the map for donations.

cosmie• 6 years ago

You'd be surprised. Amazon's affiliate program, as one example, pays out for any item added to someone's cart within 24 hours of the affiliate click (with a 90 day window to complete the purchase)[1].

So even if the commission on the Display Dummy Plug would be peanuts, you can still generate a decent revenue stream from capturing commissions on ancillary and unrelated add to cart actions within that 24 hour window.

[1] https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/node/topic/G9SMD8T...

StavrosK2• 6 years ago

This is very nice, thank you! I would love to have this as a smaller/self-contained server I can launch from the cli (at least on Linux), but it's great as it is.

ropp5• 6 years ago

agreed and maybe with some sort of predefined or saved sessions for different usecases.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Yes, the ones that can be managed in Connected Devices panel

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Thank you for liking it! Yes I was thinking of adding a system tray functionality and adding console client commands as well.

tambourine_man5• 6 years ago

This is freaking awesome. Brings old tablets back to life. Genius, thanks a bunch

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Absolutely, positively, welcome! :)

ropp5• 6 years ago

I absolutly love the concept. Excuse me, I'm gonna install this on everything real quick. I'll report back (if I don't forget).

ropp5• 6 years ago

After playing with different combinations of screen-sharing between my devices, I'm pretty happy with how it works. Maybe still a bit rough around the edges but for simple usecases definitely useable.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Thank you!

franga20004• 6 years ago

Love the project as I currently don't have a way of doing this on Linux, but there is no way I'm using those dumb plugs.

On Windows there is SpaceDesk, which actually contains a proper virtual display driver and so doesn't need any of those dumb plugs.

Does anyone know of a Linux kernel module that would acomplish that? There's X11-specifc solutions and Weston has a config option for this, but I would absolutely love to be able to just load a kernel module that I could pass a number of displays and their resolutions and it would pop them up seamlessly, just as if I plugged in a display adapter.

EDIT: I did find evdi [0], but it's broken for the kernel I'm using. Does anyone have any experience with it?

[0] https://github.com/DisplayLink/evdi

iforgotpassword4• 6 years ago

You can abuse an unconnected output for this. Assume you're on a laptop and the internal screen is LVDS1 and you have another connector called HDMI1.

Run xrandr to see the current configuration, pick the desired resolution for the second screen from the LVDS1 list and run "xrandr --addmode HDMI1 1920x1080" to tell X11 that that output supports that resolution, then do "xrandr --output HDMI1 --mode 1920x1080 --right-of LVDS1". This should now have extended your desktop and with a bit of luck you can share that screen with Deskreen. I've used that trick with x11vnc in the past at least. (If Deskteen supports sharing arbitrary regions of your screen you can even skip the whole output fakery and just make your virtual screen larger than your display using --fb, but that's a little fragile since most software assumes that the whole usable screen is covered by outputs.)

Please note I typed this on my phone so there might be some mistakes or typos in there but you should be able to fix those. :-)

If you want a custom resolution that isn't in the list of your primary screen you need to create that first using cvt and then xrandr --newmode before anything else.

franga20004• 6 years ago

Yeah, this is what I meant by "X11-specific" solutions. Besides simply being an ugly hack (what if I don't have any spare outputs?), I'm not going to go back to XOrg just for that and a kernel-level solution sounds much more reliable anyway.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Hey thank you for mentionin that! I was down that lane too and also googled that solution with xrandr on Linux, but at least on Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04 there is a problem with a nautilus, because it has huge glitches on an emulated xrandr as it is not running on that screen. Also you can't drag and drop windows to that screen as well, because window manager does not recognize it as a desktop. But mouse pointer can go there and I was actually able to share it with Deskreen and was able to see mouse pointer moving, but with huge glitches on background. This soulution turned out to be of no use.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Thank you for sharing what you know with us.

tosterr• 6 years ago

Great project, but on Windows SpaceDesk doing the same things without plugs.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Yes, but they are close source. So I don't know yet how they did it. They have a windows driver obviously. Deskreen needs 3 display drivers so the technical task is even more challenging.

ASpaceCowboi• 6 years ago

This is so awesome. I've been looking for something like this for my obsolete ipad 1st Generation! Do you think it works with that? The highest OS that is iOS 5.1.1.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

the problem of old Ipads are their old browsers that don't support WebRTC.

Deskreen runs with WebRTC which was added after iPad 1st and 2nd generations we can see in chrome releases when it was added exactly for a reference. It first added somewhere in 2013

DiggyJohnson• 6 years ago

Wow, this is actually one of the first open source projects that I have been generally surprised, and excited to see as it relates directly to one of my youth cases. I have literally explained this issue out loud to a friend of mine. I’m rambling. Thank you so much for making this open source.

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Thank you for kind words! :) You are welcome!

flaxton• 6 years ago

OK, I’m very handy with Linux and tried X11/VNC mods before to do this but with no success, and they were very complex.

This - Deskreen - I ordered a dongle on Amazon, plugged it in, installed Deskreen with a single command and boom it works! Multiple resolutions available to choose from, decent performance, kudos!

This is on Ubuntu 18.04 with an iPad Pro 12.9” and it looks glorious.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU ;-)

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

Heh thanks! :) You are welcome

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

A high level architecture design of Deskreen is ready on Github: https://github.com/pavlobu/deskreen#high-level-design

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

If anyone is interested, here is a documentation on how screen sharing session starts step by step: https://github.com/pavlobu/deskreen#webrtc-screen-sharing-se...

pavlobu57• 6 years ago

A documentation on high level architecture of Deskreen available here:

https://github.com/pavlobu/deskreen#high-level-architecture-...

gregoriol• 5 years ago

Congratulations for the diagrams on GitHub! This is rare these days, but so helpful to understand a project.

I made Deskreen, open source app to make any device a second screen for computer

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