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Ask HN: What collaborative whiteboard are you using?

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Re: Ask HN: What collaborative whiteboard are you using?

#63
post #60
post #44

Here's the best set up I've used so far: 1) Get the cheapest iPad that supports the Apple Pencil. The 2018 non-Pro was this for me last I looked. 2) Get the Google Jamboard app (not the Jamboard hardware, it is not at all worth it). 3) Share the "jam" with yourself on a different device (a nearby laptop) 4) Screenshare the laptop. Things I think any virtual whiteboard scheme needs to have: 1) You need to be able to s…

One thing apple pencil is missing is hover. In a collaborative whiteboard you want to be able to quickly point to things without marking (can solve with a button for it, but it isn't as natural).

huh, i didn't realize i was missing this and now i miss it.

that said, it's usually not too bad to underline and then click "undo" (which is what i have been doing since i didn't know what i was missing)

Re: Ask HN: What collaborative whiteboard are you using?

#64
I use MSFT whiteboard with my surface pro 7 and share it over teams. (teams also has a whiteboard tool, but for some reason it is very clunky)

If it doesn't have to be collaborative, then I use Onenote, because the scribbles can be saved as meeting notes.

It helps that I work at MSFT and everyone uses Windows + has whiteboard installed.

Re: Ask HN: What collaborative whiteboard are you using?

#66
InVision's Freehand has developed leaps and bounds over the last month - it integrates with our MS Teams so it was easy to use and jump into.

Also comes with a presentation mode so you can walk through designs and have others on it follow along.

Compatible with iPad and Apple Pencil, which I recommend over the browser for markups.

Re: Ask HN: What collaborative whiteboard are you using?

#67
Our team's have been using Miro for this kind of collaboration. I was surprised that it felt better than using a whiteboard in person, because the cost of changing the already drawn boxes and arrows went way down.

For more technical whiteboards, I've been using excalidraw. I like presenting the "drawn" look to help imply that this is an unfinished idea and we're sketching the concepts out.

Re: Ask HN: What collaborative whiteboard are you using?

#68
I recommend WBO : https://wbo.ophir.dev/

I am the main developer, and I have been maintaining and using it for several years now. Some of its advantages :

- It is fully open-source, free, and without advertisement. You can easily deploy it to your own server.

- All the whiteboards have an infinite size.

- It is fully web-based, you can use it without installing anything, even on relatively old browsers.

- It's translated in several languages.

- It's actively developed. In-development features include image upload, element resizing, new tools, and others...

Re: Ask HN: What collaborative whiteboard are you using?

#69
post #23
post #3

This seems very good: https://awwapp.com/

The second I'm presented with a pop-up as the first thing on a website, I close out.

Same here.

I don't understand where people get the idea it is a good pattern. It feels like a designer meme, or more like cargo cult, that people add just because everybody else does.

Re: Ask HN: What collaborative whiteboard are you using?

#70
post #44

Here's the best set up I've used so far: 1) Get the cheapest iPad that supports the Apple Pencil. The 2018 non-Pro was this for me last I looked. 2) Get the Google Jamboard app (not the Jamboard hardware, it is not at all worth it). 3) Share the "jam" with yourself on a different device (a nearby laptop) 4) Screenshare the laptop. Things I think any virtual whiteboard scheme needs to have: 1) You need to be able to s…

Checkout doodledocs.com -- no account creation needed, front-end app only (it doesn't always work behind corporate wifi)

It's nowhere near perfect, but it's open source and I'm open to any collaboration on it for fun (even a complete rewrite, I'm not a fan of EmberJS. I explored EmberJS with it). I'm currently noticing an eraser bug when you are in draw mode and they are in eraser mode (d'oh).

I didn't know Jamboard existed when I made it. But I made it because I didn't find any app that applies pressure sensitivity and it's quite simple to do (TL;DR modern browsers support pressure sensitivity).

You can also annotate websites with it. Though, I didn't get the collaborative aspects of that working.

My focus was on the question "what if websites are like paper?" And I ran with it for a month, while exploring EmberJS. For that reason, I don't have an undo, but simply an eraser. It's also why the default style is pencil / pressure-sensitive based (you can have a more pen-like style though).

Its main use cases that I use it for are:

- Learning how to draw by tracing images.

- Brainstorming / whiteboarding (empty board)

- Brainstorming / whiteboarding (image loaded via URL)

- Draw over websites (mostly for annotation / having margins to write on)

I'm curious to know what you think of it.

People can also use an MS Surface or Wacom by the way.

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