Speaking Users Overlay

Overlay plugin that displays a real-time list of users currently speaking on a Mumble server.

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Features

• Real-time display of talking / whispering / shouting users
• Adjustable window and text opacity, always-on-top, mouse passthrough
• Recent speakers first, configurable visible count, idle timeout
• Auto language detection (English / Chinese)
• Settings persist across restarts

Usage

Basic Controls

Once connected to a server, a small overlay window appears showing speaking users.

Control	Action
Drag the title area ("Speaking Users" text)	Move the overlay window
Settings button	Open settings panel
X button (top-right)	Hide the overlay (plugin keeps running)

Settings Panel

Click the Settings button to open:

Setting	Description
Window opacity	Slider to adjust window background opacity (0.0 ~ 1.0).
Text opacity	Slider to adjust text and UI element opacity (0.0 ~ 1.0), capped at 0.2 when dangerous mode is off
Allow risky opacity	When unchecked, text opacity cannot go below 0.2
Scale	Content scaling factor (1.0x ~ 4.0x). Affects both font size and window dimensions
Always on top	Keep window above other windows
Mouse passthrough	Let mouse clicks pass through the main overlay window (the settings panel stays interactive)
Visible speakers	Number of recent speakers shown at top (1~64)
Always show all users	When checked, all known users are always displayed in the list. Hides the "Recently speaking" option below
Show recently speaking users	(Only visible when "Always show all users" is off) When checked, recently-speaking users are shown dimmed
Idle user opacity	Opacity for non-speaking/recent users (0.0 ~ 1.0). Also capped at 0.2 when dangerous mode is off
Idle timeout (s)	Seconds before an idle user is removed from the list (1~120)
Only show current channel	When checked, only users in the same channel as you are shown
Log to Mumble console	Enable/disable logging of plugin messages to the Mumble console
Log FPS every 10s	(Debug) Print current framerate to Mumble log every 10 seconds. Default off
VSync	Enable/disable vertical sync. Default off. When enabled, all FPS settings below have no effect
Auto-detect monitor refresh rate	Automatically set clickable/settings FPS to your monitor's refresh rate (validated 30-350 Hz). Re-detects on display changes and plugin start. When enabled, the two FPS inputs are locked
Passthrough FPS	Target frames per second when mouse passthrough is active (15-400). Default 15
Clickable FPS	Target FPS when the main window is interactive / clickable (15-400). Default 60, or auto-detected refresh rate
Settings FPS	Target FPS when the settings panel is open (15-400, highest priority). Default 60, or auto-detected refresh rate
Toggle Passthrough hotkey	Click to capture a new key combination for disabling mouse passthrough
Show Window hotkey	Click to capture a new key combination for showing a hidden window
Show Window (button)	Re-show a hidden window
Reset Position (button)	Reset window position and size to defaults
Reset All Settings (button)	Reset all settings to factory defaults

Keyboard Shortcuts

Two global hotkeys are configurable in the Settings panel:

Hotkey	Action
Toggle Passthrough	Immediately disable mouse passthrough (escape hatch). Default: Ctrl+Shift+P
Show Window	Re-show a hidden window. Default: Ctrl+Shift+H

Click the hotkey button in Settings, then press the desired key combination — modifiers (Ctrl/Shift/Alt/Win) are captured automatically.

If a hotkey conflicts with another application, a warning popup appears on first launch so you can change the key combination.

Mouse Passthrough Behavior

When Mouse passthrough is enabled:

• The main overlay window becomes non-interactive — clicks pass through to windows/game behind it.
• The title bar and settings button are hidden on the main window (they would be non-clickable anyway).
• The Settings panel remains interactive and unaffected by passthrough, so you can still adjust settings.
• Use the Toggle Passthrough hotkey (default Ctrl+Shift+P) to quickly disable passthrough.

Framerate Control

The plugin uses multiple FPS profiles with priority-based switching and automatic monitor refresh rate detection. For implementation details (high-res timer, GPU driver behaviour), see Technical Notes.

Speaker List Behavior

• Recent speakers first: The list is sorted so the most recently active user is always at the top.
• Visible limit: Only the most recent N speakers are shown in the top section (default 8, configurable in Settings). Additional speakers appear below a --- more --- separator when you scroll down.
• Scroll is preserved: Scrolling through the list won't reset when new users start or stop speaking.
• Auto-snap to top: The list automatically scrolls back to the top when:
  • Mouse passthrough is enabled, or
  • The mouse has been away from the window for 10+ seconds. Once you manually scroll, auto-snap is suspended until the next idle period.
• Idle users: With "Always show all users" enabled, all known users are displayed and never removed. With "Show recently speaking users", non-speaking users appear dimmed and are pruned after the configured timeout. When both are off, only actively-speaking users are shown.
• Channel filter: Enable "Only show current channel" to limit the list to users in the same channel as you.

If the Window Is Lost or Off-Screen

The window cannot be dragged off-screen — edge clamping keeps at least 20% of it visible on your monitor.

If it's hidden:

• Use Settings > Show Window (appears when the window is hidden).
• Or press the Show Window hotkey (default Ctrl+Shift+H).

If the window is off-screen or mispositioned, use Settings > Reset Position to restore it to the default location.

All configurable settings are saved to disk immediately when changed in the Settings panel, and also when the plugin shuts down. They are restored automatically on next load. If the config directory doesn't exist, it is created automatically.

Saved config location:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Mumble\Mumble\SpeakingOverlay.cfg

If the Overlay Appears Opaque (NVIDIA GPUs)

On some NVIDIA GPU configurations, the overlay window may render as a solid/opaque rectangle instead of a transparent overlay. If this occurs, try the following steps:

1. Open NVIDIA Control Panel.
2. Go to Manage 3D settings.
3. Open the Program Settings tab.
4. Select the executable of the host application (Mumble.exe).
5. Find Vulkan/OpenGL present method.
6. Set it to Prefer native.
7. Fully exit and relaunch the application.

Prebuilt Binary

Prebuilt binaries are available from the Releases page. Download plugin.dll from the latest release and follow the installation instructions below.

Prebuilt binaries are provided for convenience. Reviewing the source code and building from source is strongly recommended if you have security concerns.

Build

Platform support: Currently only Windows is officially supported. Linux and macOS users may try building from source, but the author does not have testing environments for those platforms. Contributions for other platforms are welcome.

1. Get Dependencies

# Clone with submodules
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/YOUR_USER/mumble-overlay-plugin.git
# Or if already cloned:
git submodule update --init --recursive

2. Compile

cmake -B build
cmake --build build

Output: build/Release/plugin.dll (Windows).

3. Standalone Test (No Mumble Required)

cmake -B build -DOVERLAY_BUILD_STANDALONE=ON
cmake --build build
./build/overlay_test

4. Install to Mumble

Using Mumble's plugin manager:

1. Open Mumble, go to Settings > Plugins. Click Install Plugin.
2. Select the compiled plugin.dll.
3. Enable the plugin in the list.

Manual install:

• Windows: Copy plugin.dll to %APPDATA%\Mumble\Mumble\Plugins\

Bundle as .mumble_plugin: (not yet functional)

zip SpeakingUsersOverlay.mumble_plugin plugin.dll manifest.xml

The installation steps above (Step 4) apply to both self-built and prebuilt binaries.

Architecture

See Technical Notes.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

The include/MumblePlugin.h header is from the Mumble project (BSD-3-Clause). Dependencies (submodules) use their own permissive licenses (MIT / zlib).