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Show HN: HUD-like live annotation and sketching app for macOS

draw.wrobele.com

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Show HN: HUD-like live annotation and sketching app for macOS

#1

Post by tomaszsobota »

Hey all!

I'm happy to announce we've finally released our 2nd macOS app, Draw Over It, a tiny desktop app that enables drawing, highlighting, or annotating directly on top of anything on your Mac.

I've always wanted something like this for instant and unobtrusive sketching and annotation for pair programming and demos. I always found the standard web-based diagram and drawing tools a bit too cumbersome. So we built a simple overlay that could appear over any window or app with one shortcut.

It doesn't collect any user data and doesn't require any system permissions - it's sandboxed. It all stays on your device. You can export your annotations to a PNG with one click - or just take a screenshot if you need the background too.

It offers a slim but functional toolkit for every day tasks:

- Global hotkeys, hit a shortcut and start drawing over any app

- Multiple tools, pens, shapes, highlighters

- Per-screen canvases, each monitor gets its own space

- Focus mode, temporarily blur the background to emphasize what matters

- Low footprint, no subscriptions, no sign-ups, no data collected

- Localization, the app is translated to 14 languages

These two reasons make it different from other canvas apps, it's simple, lean and keeps your data on-device only.

It’s a one-time purchase ($2.99) on the Mac App Store.

I’d love feedback and suggestions for improvements!

Show HN: HUD-like live annotation and sketching app for macOS
draw.wrobele.com

Re: Show HN: HUD-like live annotation and sketching app for macOS

#3

Post by tomaszsobota »

TuringNYC wrote: post #2

i'd love this for the iPad, i'd buy it right away but didnt see it for the iPad -- mostly because writing with a mouse is very difficult, but pens are easy

And I'd love to make it for iPads too, just struggling to find the optimal UX for enabling and disabling the overlay.

On macOS you can just use the global hotkey or the app menu, on iPad I'd have to wire it up somehow else - supper happy to get ideas on what would feel seamless and unobtrusive for you. I'll definitely implement it then!

Re: Show HN: HUD-like live annotation and sketching app for macOS

#4

Post by lasergyro »

tomaszsobota wrote: post #3
TuringNYC wrote: post #2

i'd love this for the iPad, i'd buy it right away but didnt see it for the iPad -- mostly because writing with a mouse is very difficult, but pens are easy

And I'd love to make it for iPads too, just struggling to find the optimal UX for enabling and disabling the overlay. On macOS you can just use the global hotkey or the app menu, on iPad I'd have to wire it up somehow else - supper happy to get ideas on what would feel seamless and unobtrusive for you. I'll definitely implement it then!

What about a control center toggle? Works alright for toggling the windowing system. In general having shortcuts to set it on/off/toggle would be great.

Re: Show HN: HUD-like live annotation and sketching app for macOS

#5

Post by tomaszsobota »

lasergyro wrote: post #4
tomaszsobota wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'd love to make it for iPads too, just struggling to find the optimal UX for enabling and disabling the overlay. On macOS you can just use the global hotkey or the app menu, on iPad I'd have to wire it up somehow else - supper happy to get ideas on what would feel seamless and unobtrusive for you. I'll definitely implement it then!

What about a control center toggle? Works alright for toggling the windowing system. In general having shortcuts to set it on/off/toggle would be great.

This might work! I'll implement this and see how it feels, thanks.

Re: Show HN: HUD-like live annotation and sketching app for macOS

#6

Post by alsetmusic »

The letters keep drawing after the mouse pointer stops moving. Is there such thing as an autocompleting typeface that recognizes handwriting from a Wacom tablet or something to explain this? If not, this demo doesn't seem authentic and that doesn't inspire confidence.

Re: Show HN: HUD-like live annotation and sketching app for macOS

#7

Post by tomaszsobota »

alsetmusic wrote: post #6

The letters keep drawing after the mouse pointer stops moving. Is there such thing as an autocompleting typeface that recognizes handwriting from a Wacom tablet or something to explain this? If not, this demo doesn't seem authentic and that doesn't inspire confidence.

Hey, thanks for the feedback, the cursor movement is smoothed out in the screen recording tool.

I tried to strike a balance, original videos felt a bit too distracting with unfiltered cursor movements.

Re: Show HN: HUD-like live annotation and sketching app for macOS

#8

Post by raju »

I've been a VERY happy customer (no affiliation whatsoever) of Presentify for many years now, which was also a "Show HN" post (yeesh) 5 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22938604

I am very excited to try Draw Over It—thank you for sharing. I speak at several conferences a year, and also do online workshops and training, and Presentify has been a godsend.

However, the one limitation is if you toggle it, you lose your annotations. And you can't do anything with the underlying app—can't scroll or click buttons. Looking forward to trying this out.

Re: Show HN: HUD-like live annotation and sketching app for macOS

#9

Post by tentacle256 »

raju wrote: post #8

I've been a VERY happy customer (no affiliation whatsoever) of Presentify for many years now, which was also a "Show HN" post (yeesh) 5 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22938604 I am very excited to try Draw Over It—thank you for sharing. I speak at several conferences a year, and also do online workshops and training, and Presentify has been a godsend. However, the one limitation is if you toggle it, y…

Thank you for your kind words! Indeed, I wanted the sketch to remain on-screen after disabling it too - in Draw Over It you can toggle whether you want it to remain on-screen or not :)

Re: Show HN: HUD-like live annotation and sketching app for macOS

#10

Post by alsetmusic »

tomaszsobota wrote: post #7
alsetmusic wrote: post #6

The letters keep drawing after the mouse pointer stops moving. Is there such thing as an autocompleting typeface that recognizes handwriting from a Wacom tablet or something to explain this? If not, this demo doesn't seem authentic and that doesn't inspire confidence.

Hey, thanks for the feedback, the cursor movement is smoothed out in the screen recording tool. I tried to strike a balance, original videos felt a bit too distracting with unfiltered cursor movements.

I think you should indicate this above or below the demo in a smallish typeface. Your explanation makes sense, but the presentation comes off as sketchy without that info. Maybe it's just me. Thanks for responding.
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