
Show HN: a free multi-user whiteboard with unlimited, zoomable surface - florianguenther
http://sketchub.com/
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A1kmm
The front ends seem to get desynchronised when two incompatible concurrent
edits happen; this is a difficult issue to resolve, but one solution would be
to change the data flow so local edits are drawn by the client on a
transparent canvas, get sent to the server, and then get drawn on the
underlying main canvas only when they are sent back from the server. The
transparent canvas can be reset by the client at that point (you might need
some synchronisation mechanism for this), so all users will end up having
consistent state once edits have been processed by the server.

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user24
This is what we do for <http://300lin.es> ;)

edit: My God, it's full of cocks.

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BoppreH
Quit hint: it's too easy to make a DOS by quickly drawing hundreds of lines in
the same spot. It doesn't take more than two minutes and regular writing or
drawing is too slow and ends up erased before finished.

Maybe limit the number of lines an user can draw during a certain time?

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user24
Thanks :) Yeah, we limit the length of line to try to avoid scribblers. We
thought of rate-limiting the number of lines too, and adjusting the limit, so
the first time you hit the limit you're stopped for 1 seconds, next time for 2
seconds, then 4, 8, 16 and so on.

Would probably work quite well.

PS is your hostname 'bd222 __edited for privacy __.com.br' ?

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BoppreH
Yep, that would be me. Sorry if I broke something, it started as an attempt to
remove the random lines obscuring the drawings and text. When I noticed the
fade out effect on the lines, I had already erased everything D:

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user24
yeah no worries, I just wanted to check that it wasn't someone trying to
attack the site :)

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nicpottier
To me the zoomable, unlimited surface part is what makes it super neat. I
might actually use it if I had some way of typing text on there..

I suppose for a tablet it is awesome though.

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d0m
I would definitely use it. Add a [T] icon for texts as writing with the mouse
is meh!

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ljf
+1 - esp if you could 'box' the text then be able to use it. This would be
great for running a remove agile board.

Nice idea - great execution.

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florianguenther
Added a [T] icon!

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jim_h
Very cool. There are some minor issues though.

Here is my sketch: <http://sketchub.com/view/d4b8fcb36fe4b078b100069bafebd352>

I'm using a Thinkpad with Wacom enabled display and stylus. It 'should' say
'hello world' 3 times and have an underline after each one.

In the saved and view only link, it shows a 4th 'hello world' on the left and
more slanted. It was erased before my real test.

It seems to miss certain strokes as you can tell by the sketch. Mainly
straight lines. This might have been caught as trying to move the sketch area,
but it did not move or register the line.

(As a control test to check display and stylus, I wrote the same text in
OneNote and it was handled fine.)

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GeneTraylor
I work in a distributed office, and over the past few days I've been trying to
find a "concept mapper", which helps us to make projects more concrete through
flowcharts etc. The problem that I keep on facing is that the web apps which
dominate the current market just don't cut my needs. They don't allow for
proper exploration, and collaboration is a frustrating progress. We would
gladly pay for a tool that doesn't get in our way and just lets us all
communicate.

I think that you will find a ready market, if you can solve the thorny problem
of communicating projects, which involve several interconnected parts/ideas.

I know for a fact that I'll buy it.

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Major_Grooves
have you looked at Creately? I've been using it for a month or so and it seems
pretty good: <http://creately.com/>

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jeremydavid
Yes, you need text and images. The company I work for has been looking for a
simple, fast, and _good_ solution to make notes over webpage wireframes. I
think this could be it!

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swombat
Try our Woobius Eye tool, too, it's pretty neat for collaborative visual work.

See: <http://woobiuseye.com>

And a video of how it works: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhox59Ia5yc>

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jeremydavid
Thanks for that link. It looks promising, but the canvas is just too small.

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swombat
Click on "New Advanced Mode" on the right hand side. Big version, multi-page,
etc...

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altrego99
For some reason to me this looks like an Yahoo product, whereas the one linked
in the OP looks like Google.

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swombat
Huh. I'm not sure that's a compliment...

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TobiHeidi
sum up your pitch to make it easier for users to get what you are pitching.

"collaborative zoomable user interface to create sketches" is the same as
"multiuser whiteboard" just easier to get.

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jeffool
As I believe the zoom makes it more unique, "multi-user whiteboard offering
unlimited zooming", or the likes. But you're absolutely right.

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ck2
Very nice - you should do what I figured out for a project - momentum when
there is a big action, and fine control for small actions - if I scroll the
wheel dramatically, give me some momentum on that zoom - if I scroll it
slowly, no momentum and fine increments (like you have now)

The way I did this in javascript was to create an array of zoom in/out and the
four directions - then you add or subtract from the array based on intensity
of gestures over time - even keyboard action keys (+/-) can have momentum this
way by adding when there is continuous keypresses - I was pleased how it
turned out in the end.

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cidermonk3y
I would have liked the ability to change the line thickness, to work around
you'd have to zoom out or in depending if you wanted a line thicker or thinner
with the latter being particularly difficult as it's harder to keep track of
where you are in relation to the rest of the page.

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senko
Cool stuff!

I've looked a bit at what it uses: shapes drawn are vectors, the app uses
Raphael (<http://raphaeljs.com/>) for drawing, and Pusher
(<http://pusher.com/>) for whiteboard syncing.

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superted
Regarding the Pusher web site, am I the only one who cannot resist the
temptation of loading up Firebug to verify whether the counter is for real or
"interpolated"?

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dctanner
Unfortunately it's not really viable to sent a counter msg for every msg which
goes through the system ;) Our stats and logging has to be somewhat delayed.

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cefarix
<http://sketchub.com/jte1y8agb4>

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jackvalentine
Instead of having tonnes of empty test pages, why don't we all just agree to
use the parent of my comment as the test canvas for this thread?

Edit: I somehow cannot draw in the one I suggested. Sorry.

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bane
Cool. I'd love to be able to upload an image, or series of images, to draw
over.

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sylvain_
Great tool ! Simple and focused. Maybe two things a little more helpful : 1\.
The ability to press Ctrl+Z to undo 2\. A global reset button (not so
important as we can refresh the page)

I would love to try this on an iPad with a pen.

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p4bl0
This is awesome, I'd just like to have a tool to write with my keyboard.

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ed209
this is pretty neat, from a designers point of view here are some things I'd
suggest:

\- something like a photoshop navigator where you see your zoom level vs your
current canvas. Currently it's quite easy to zoom out a lose your stuff. \-
alternatively have a zoom % and return to 100% and center \- As well as the
current freehand drawing style, have a version that straightens the lines for
you. \- keep line thickness at any zoom level so it's not so bad when you zoom
back in (although I can think of nice uses as it is) \- write text

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hjalle
Totally agree, I'd like to be able to draw a straight line as well. I don't
have that talent manually =) Some command such as shift would be nice for
this, as well as the ctrl + z command

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samarudge
I'm not sure if it's just me, but there seem to have been a few very similar
sites/ideas posted here over the last few days.

Well done for making it work in IE though =)

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MortenK
Not working in IE 8 for me at least :) Works fine in Firefox. Great app, would
be very interesting to try it on one of them digital whiteboards.

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florianguenther
On a multitouch table it works great:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpDp2Izx4W8>

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davidedicillo
Florian, what's the device you are using?

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florianguenther
sorry, but I don't know the hardware details. It was a laptop with external
display, multitouch was plugged in via USB and handled by a software called
dreaMTouch.

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username3
If this is like switching between layers using your scroll-wheel, let us push
part of the sketch back or forward, scale down or up.

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felixchan
Awesome, but with more keyboard shortcuts I'd use it all the time. (CTRL to
pan, different keys to select different things)

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florianguenther
Use the space bar to pan like in PhotoShop, other shortcuts coming soon!

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icode
Not working here on my HTC Desire with Android 2.2. Looks like there is no way
to draw.

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jamesgeck0
Similar issue on Desktop Opera 11.50.

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jisaacstone
I'm on Opera 11.5 / OSX 10.6.7 - can view but not draw.

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jisaacstone
Also: firefox freezes when I try to open a 2nd tab with a different
whiteboard.

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yarone
Looks great on iPad, well done.

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Nickste
Doh - it seems to crash safari when I go to it on my iPad? iOS 4.3.5

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jackvalentine
Working fine on 4.3.5 here, just emailed a link to several friends to see what
happens over the next couple of hours with it. The best bit about it is the
super-low barrier to entry/sharing.

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urza
Infinite zooming is nice. How is it implemented? I would like it as a library.

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florianguenther
The library is already out there, I open sourced it:
<https://github.com/florianguenther/zui53>

(but it's very early beta, bad documented)

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drieddust
Thanks for sharing

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swah
Looks a lot like Khanacademy's Scratchpad they recently open sourced.

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tlear
Very cool, unlimited zoom is an awesome idea

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gren
If you zoom in too much, it's very lagging. Strange, It should be when zooming
out (FF 5.0)

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pseudonym
Zooming out too far on chrome makes the input not show up properly, and
occasionally crashes the browser window.

Additionally, after zooming out for a bit, I wasn't able to get back down to
the layers I was drawing at before.

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waffenklang
find the hidden word: <http://sketchub.com/xuugfkbshr>

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czzarr
genius

