Filling the Void of a Physical Whiteboard • Hacker News Board

Re: Filling the Void of a Physical Whiteboard

#41

Post by hinkley » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 8:59 PM UTC

bsenftner wrote: post #11

Been doping this for over 20 years: purchase the raw material used for cheap shower walls. It is the same material used to make whiteboards. 20 years ago a "shower wall panel" was the size of an entire wall, 4 x 8 feet, for about $11. I just checked Home Depot, they are only $27 now. I just drill/screw them right to the wall. Best thing ever. I have several rooms with doodle walls.

A couple of startups I've worked at over the years did this. Couple of observations:

The coating doesn't seem to be quite as thick. Perhaps a few coats of whiteboard conditioner before starting and at intervals would help.

If you don't put a faux border on it, then you get whiteboard ink dust on the walls and it looks kind of trashy. I speculate that your best bet would be to get a bunch of trim with a rabbet in the back, bolt the bottom piece to the wall, have someone hold the board in place while you bolt the top part on to keep it from shifting. Hide a couple of screws through the boards along the sides to make sure it doesn't buckle on you.

Re: Filling the Void of a Physical Whiteboard

#42

Post by bsenftner » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 10:49 PM UTC

localhost wrote: post #27

bsenftner wrote: post #11

Been doping this for over 20 years: purchase the raw material used for cheap shower walls. It is the same material used to make whiteboards. 20 years ago a "shower wall panel" was the size of an entire wall, 4 x 8 feet, for about $11. I just checked Home Depot, they are only $27 now. I just drill/screw them right to the wall. Best thing ever. I have several rooms with doodle walls.

Do you have a link? Tried searching but found many options, but none that fits your description. Thanks!

Well, I found it instantly this morning to quote the price, and just now blew my entire lunchtime trying t find it again.

Anytime I've bought them in the past, I just walked into a Home Depot and asked for "shower board, marker board, the cheap laminated particle wood". There are typically a few types, more like a board, so I ask for the flimsy ones used for cheap showers, and they take me to a stack of them in the lumber area. They are very thin, like an eighth of an inch. You'll need a vehicle larger than a sedan, BTW, this are BIG. But you can also have them cut for you, often no charge.

Re: Filling the Void of a Physical Whiteboard

#43

Post by jiggawatts » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 12:24 AM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #9

In this space, I was really underwhelmed by Microsoft. I'm a fan of MS Teams, and feel like it works really well. Better than Zoom for the use case of a space for my smallish team, because of the tie-in with OneDrive, Powerpoint, etc. But, the whiteboard app is just so terrible. It feels like someone did an MVP and never gathered any feedback to improve it. It's essentially useless in it's current state.

What kills me about the Teams whiteboard app is that Microsoft already makes the excellent Surface whiteboards!

We're 10 months into a pandemic and Teams still doesn't have a decent whiteboard feature.

Microsoft should be ashamed.

Re: Filling the Void of a Physical Whiteboard

#44

Post by verletx64 » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 12:28 AM UTC

ashton314 wrote: post #5

My favorite solution that I’ve seen was what my CS professor did: Zoom allows you to share the screen of an iPad, so my professor just pulled up notes and drew as he would on a normal whiteboard. It wasn’t collaborative, but we didn’t need that.

Yes!

I have an iPad as well, and love going down this route if I'm presenting. However, my desire for perfect lines gets stronger and I'm not always the best at drawing...

Re: Filling the Void of a Physical Whiteboard

#45

Post by segmondy » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 12:42 AM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #41

bsenftner wrote: post #11

Been doping this for over 20 years: purchase the raw material used for cheap shower walls. It is the same material used to make whiteboards. 20 years ago a "shower wall panel" was the size of an entire wall, 4 x 8 feet, for about $11. I just checked Home Depot, they are only $27 now. I just drill/screw them right to the wall. Best thing ever. I have several rooms with doodle walls.

A couple of startups I've worked at over the years did this. Couple of observations: The coating doesn't seem to be quite as thick. Perhaps a few coats of whiteboard conditioner before starting and at intervals would help. If you don't put a faux border on it, then you get whiteboard ink dust on the walls and it looks kind of trashy. I speculate that your best bet would be to get a bunch of trim with a rabbet in the…

I have 4 of these, for about 9 yrs now. Doesn't look trashy, nor do I have ink dust on the wall. Didn't bolt either. Used the velcro glue thingy.

Re: Filling the Void of a Physical Whiteboard

#46

Post by segmondy » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 12:44 AM UTC

makach wrote: post #8

Good luck to anyone who wants to try to replace the whiteboard with any kind of screen technology. For me, nothing is even remotely close to be able to replace whiteboard, brown paper and marker pens. I'm not saying that the void doesn't exist, it's just that the void currently is too big and all solutions are nowhere near filling the void. With a whiteboard my experience is that everyone can pick up a pen and start…

Electronic whiteboard will crush regular old whiteboard if executed correctly.

Re: Filling the Void of a Physical Whiteboard

#47

Post by briefcomment » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 2:37 AM UTC

jimkleiber wrote: post #12

agrafix wrote: post #3

Shameless plug: I’ve built https://board.new to help with ad-hoc collaborative whiteboarding. One thing I’ve found using more sophisticated tools was that folks spent too much time making it look nice vs discussing the content. Hence this tool that doesn’t distract with that. That said, mermaid looks pretty nice —- going to try that out for my design documents once settled on an approach.

Wow, I just tried it and absolutely love how you put the option to draw by holding shift instead of holding down a mouse/trackpad click. I've hated to draw on the trackpad because it has been so hard to click and draw at the same time. Where did you get the idea for this? Do you know if a similar function exists in any other drawing application, like Illustrator/Photoshop/GIMP/Inkscape?

I'm curious, is something like Shift to draw patentable?

Re: Filling the Void of a Physical Whiteboard

#48

Post by kronin » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 2:38 AM UTC

I put one of these [1] in my office 2 years ago and am very pleased. It wasn't cheap, but I use it daily. It always wipes clean, and there is no ghosting. It's right behind my back when I'm at my desk, so I can also turn my webcam on it when in meetings.

I've tried to use electronic whiteboard alternatives and it's just not as fluid when trying to get ideas out. Maybe an iPad Pro with a Pencil, but I haven't sprung for one of those yet...

[1] https://www.pegasusav.us/pegasus-magnetic-glass-marker-board...

Re: Filling the Void of a Physical Whiteboard

#49

Post by crshults » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 2:40 AM UTC

localhost wrote: post #27

bsenftner wrote: post #11

Been doping this for over 20 years: purchase the raw material used for cheap shower walls. It is the same material used to make whiteboards. 20 years ago a "shower wall panel" was the size of an entire wall, 4 x 8 feet, for about $11. I just checked Home Depot, they are only $27 now. I just drill/screw them right to the wall. Best thing ever. I have several rooms with doodle walls.

Do you have a link? Tried searching but found many options, but none that fits your description. Thanks!

Lowes calls it "smooth white wall panel"

Re: Filling the Void of a Physical Whiteboard

#50

Post by T-Winsnes » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 2:57 AM UTC

theptip wrote: post #32

nanidin wrote: post #26

I was fully remote before COVID, and the best solution I have come up with so far is iPad + Apple Pencil + Google Jamboard. I can open it on my PC and screen share from there into meetings or with others than don’t use Jamboard.

I tried a bunch of different options when my team went remote, including * Google Drawings (yuck) * LucidChart (yuck) * Miro (good for diagrams, not for drawing) * Jamboard (good for drawing, not for diagrams) And a few inputs including: * Wacom pencil (ok) * Inklet pen (garbage) * iPad Pro (great) So far Jamboard / iPad pro is the closest to a true whiteboard experience that I've found, but it's pretty restrictive t…

What has worked really well for me running workshops and other things remotely is Mural[1] with an iPad Pro. I can open my screen and share it on my laptop / desktop. And open the same view on my iPad, then draw. This allows people that don't have an app to see what is going on, and people that do have the app, can interact with the same virtual board

1: https://www.mural.co/