macOS Picture-in-Picture Problems + Solutions

non-troppo

With a M2 macbook at home I work on my laptop screen but at work plug into an external display. The Picture-in-Picture feature has a "bug" in that placement when using the external means that when only the laptop display is used the PIP window "disappears". The solution is to manually edit Vivaldi's preferences. Luckily Preferences is JSON file and the awesome jq command makes it easy to edit programmatically. So for anyone interested, here is a solution that uses jq and another nice command called sponge. Both can be installed using homebrew: brew install jq moreutils or the new package manager on the block pixi: pixi global install jq moreutils

First we create a variable to reference the prefs file (type into Terminal):

> vp=~/Library/Application\ Support/Vivaldi/Default/Preferences

Next read our current values:

>  jq '.vivaldi.pip_placement' $vp
{
  "height": 311,
  "left": 3500,
  "top": 600,
  "width": 553
}

Yikes left is too far away, let's reset to top-left:

> jq '.vivaldi.pip_placement.top = 45 | .vivaldi.pip_placement.left = 20' $vp | sponge $vp

> jq '.vivaldi.pip_placement' $vp                                                         
{
  "height": 311,
  "left": 20,
  "top": 45,
  "width": 553
}

jq changes these values but it doesn't write back to the file, for that we use sponge that "absorbs" the output of jq and sends it back to the file safely. It is better to do this when Vivaldi is closed, as Vivaldi will overwrite otherwise. If you are nervous you can back up the file before you edit: cp $vp "$vp.bak"

In fact I don't use zsh, but an alternative shell called elvish: https://elv.sh -- and for anyone who wants a function for this here is the elvish:

fn resetPIP { 
	if ?(pgrep "Vivaldi" >/dev/null ) { echo (styled "\n!!!Warning: Vivaldi is running\n" bold red) }
	var vp = $E:HOME"/Library/Application Support/Vivaldi/Default/Preferences"
	echo (styled "\n=== Reset Vivaldi's PIP ===\n" bold yellow)
	echo (styled "\tCurrent Value:\n" bold yellow)
	jq '.vivaldi.pip_placement' $vp
	cp $vp $vp'.bak'
	jq '.vivaldi.pip_placement.top = 45 | .vivaldi.pip_placement.left = 20' $vp | sponge $vp
	echo (styled "\tNew Value:\n" bold yellow)
	jq '.vivaldi.pip_placement' $vp
}

It would be nicer if we didn't have to close Vivaldi for this to work, perhaps there is a better solution?

[1]: Pixi is cross-platform and so for anyone working across several OSes it is better than homebrew.
[2]: Elvish is a much more elegant, functional and less cruft experience than zsh, bash or other POSIX shells. But far less used so less tutorials etc.