
Working remotely: I want my shared whiteboard - dkupfer1
https://blog.codecentric.de/en/2020/03/working-remotely-i-want-my-shared-whiteboard/
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marcus_holmes
I had the insightful realisation a few years ago that _I_ can't think without
a marker in my hand, but almost no-one else benefits from my boxes-and-arrows.
And it's rare that anyone grabs the marker from me and joins in.

So I switched to using a notebook. I buy big Visual Diaries in lovely thick
cartridge paper that begs to be scribbled on. I carry a set of B, HB and 2B
pencils, a decent eraser, and a pencil sharpener. And I scribble during
meetings and when rubber-ducking.

Very occasionally I'll show someone else my scribbles. Even more occasionally,
seeing the scribbles will help them understand wtf I'm trying to say.

But mostly it just helps me keep up with my intuition.

~~~
MivLives
I also use notebooks, they're cheaper, I can take them with me when I leave
the meeting, I can tear out a sheet and give to a person, I can hand them a
pen and let them draw. If the result needs to be digitized scanning looks
better than the white board. I've been considering a multi color pen to make
it even better looking as well.

~~~
vaxman
"I can tear out a sheet and give to a person, I can hand them a pen and let
them draw"

...and when you get it back, you can catch a disease for which there is no
herd immunity then give it to your girlfriend who gets it on her blouse that
rubs against seniors all day long helping them get dressed and go to the
toilet at an old folks home...

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sixdimensional
I use Microsoft Whiteboard, it works pretty well. One thing I like is you can
put it on a big screen that supports Whiteboard, and also work from a browser
or device and it all syncs in realtime, with multiple participants. And it's
standalone so you don't have to be in a conferencing tool to use it.

I don't work for Microsoft, but just like Whiteboard.

~~~
finaliteration
I’ve been using Whiteboard with a Wacom Intuos tablet and it’s been working
really well so far. In some ways it’s even better than a normal whiteboard
because I don’t have to remember to take a picture and share it with the group
when we’re done and I can export the image to add markup text, etc, if needed.

OneNote also has some great drawing support.

~~~
j0057
I bought the Intuos S specifically for this as well. It does take some getting
used to, but I like it as well!

~~~
0-_-0
I just put it in my Amazon basket yesterday, I guess I should press the Buy
button!

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vanderZwan
I'd settle for a good shared whiteboard, but the gold standard is still
Hiroshi Ishii's Clearboard:

[http://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/clearboard/](http://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/clearboard/)

It is one of those simple, elegant ideas that can't really escape the lab due
to hardware limitations.

Until we have transparent OLED displays or 3D cameras that extend their field
of view all the way to the screen surface, it will be nearly impossible for
common people to have an interface similar to that

~~~
sitkack
two video cameras and two cheap projectors should be enough to both track and
capture a whiteboard marker and project the remote drawings. If you skimp and
just do an overhead camera and projector, it still easily subtract your hand
and dynamically draw the path for the remote viewer (with a slight 2-5 second
lag).

~~~
vanderZwan
There are hacks around it, yes. Also, we both know that your usage of _"
easily"_ is equivalent to when the maths book says _" trivial and left as an
exercise for the reader"_ ;)

(that is to say, _technically_ easy if you have the right domain knowledge.
Having the right domain knowledge is not completely trivial though, even as a
programmer)

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jschlesser
My team is 100% remote and we work with other teams that aren't. We use
Google's Jamboard. All members of my team have iPads and 'pencils' and there
is a dedicated app, and our conference rooms have special Jamboard devices
mounted on our walls. It can be used from a browser too. They all work pretty
seamlessly together. I don't work for google but I like Jamboard.

~~~
jjeaff
Sounds like a lot of hardware expense for something that could very well
disappear.

~~~
applecrazy
You don’t need Jamboard hardware to use the web app version:
jamboard.google.com

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m-p-3
There's also [https://jamboard.google.com/](https://jamboard.google.com/)
(until they sunset it)

There's the (kinda expensive) physical version where you can actually draw on
the screen itself, but you can also do it for free on a normal computer.

~~~
maliker
Our team likes it because it integrates with google drive. The whiteboards
show up next to all your other files. The feature set is pretty minimal, but
maybe that's a plus and not a minus. Still wish we could just draw (raster) in
a Google slide though.

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vzaliva
As an academic, I often need a whiteboard during video conferencing calls (for
writing math and sketching diagrams). I tried many solutions with a mouse,
touch screen, iPad, tablet. It turns out, nothing beats good old whiteboard.
I've bought a small whiteboard which I keep in my office behind my chair. If
during a call I need to use it I pull it into the camera view and use markers
to draw on it.

~~~
jjeaff
If you want to really show off, you can use a clear glass plate on a stand and
stand with it between you and the camera. A la Beautiful Mind. And most every
other recent Hollywood production.

You just have to mirror the camera feed so that what you write doesn't show up
reversed.

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GuiA
To me this highlights how backwards our way of building software is.

Having a user display and draw on top of an image is trivial, and something
our systems have been able to do for decades.

Streaming video bidirectionally is also trivial and well supported by our
primitives at this point, even though it's merely a decade or two old rather
than almost half a century.

And yet, if you want to combine these two very primitive operations, you need
to find the app that supports exactly the use case you want (not guaranteed),
or to be a developer yourself.

We're still catching up to Engelbart's demos, and it's disheartening.

~~~
sitkack
Not being snarky and I agree with you. But we have everything we need!

Both of those things are accessible via web technologies. I am not a web
developer, but it doesn't seem like we have a bidirectional data/component
model. What if we could instantiate a component on a page that shares its
state with all other components in the same group?

Since they are also a shared experience between humans, it by no means has to
be correct all the time. Only that hits "reality" every X seconds. Analogous
to the delta compression of video [3], if we define a rate at which I frames
are broadcast, we know that the view of reality doesn't diverge too far from
the other participants. Think of it as sCRDT a sloppy convergent replicated
data type.

[1]
[https://github.com/automerge/automerge](https://github.com/automerge/automerge)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHz17gwiOc8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHz17gwiOc8)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression_picture_type...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression_picture_types)

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zserge
When working remotely as a contractor I made a tiny whiteboard -
[https://onthesamepage.online/about](https://onthesamepage.online/about) I
still use it for quick notes and spontaneous collaboration, since there are no
accounts or registrations - it takes a few seconds to onboard a person. Also I
was surprised that German school are using it (it’s heavily focused on privacy
and requires no personal information). Sorry if it sounds like shameless
promotion, but for me it was hard to find an alternative, something as simple
as notepad.cc in its days, but for doodling.

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Spooky23
Our UX and Prototyping team uses Mural.
([https://mural.co/](https://mural.co/))

It's best with people who have the training or knowledge to facilitate the
discussions, but it's an incredible powerful tool for remote ideation.

For ad-hoc, drawing on an iPad with PowerPoint is pretty good and makes it
easy to share.

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wlesieutre
If only Half-Life: Alyx were multiplayer, it’s got pretty nice digital markers

[https://gfycat.com/opulentkaleidoscopicflyingfox](https://gfycat.com/opulentkaleidoscopicflyingfox)

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kaiby
I've been using Invision's Freehand tool [0] for whiteboarding in online
meetings (also it's free). It's mostly worked about as well as a virtual
whiteboard could be. It also allows for collaboration so everyone can draw on
the same whiteboard at the same time.

[0]
[https://www.invisionapp.com/feature/freehand](https://www.invisionapp.com/feature/freehand)

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hkchad
I use Zoom on a computer (audio/video), share whiteboard and then connect to
Zoom on my iPad and use that just for the drawing portion. It works great.

~~~
xenonite
I use a similar setup in Microsoft teams, here using two iPads. One for video
and audio, and another for writing with a pencil, usually on PowerPoint
slides. With the Apple Pencil, I am drawing, with my finger I am pointing
(with a long press). I like this set up, but I’m still looking for a good
microphone, though.

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lazzlazzlazz
I've been messing with [https://awwapp.com/](https://awwapp.com/) and
[https://ziteboard.com/](https://ziteboard.com/). Google's Jamboard is not
bad, but I don't want to deal with the inevitable shutdown.

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ykevinator
Awwapp is pretty good

~~~
BerislavLopac
Specifically: [https://www.awwapp.com/](https://www.awwapp.com/)

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michaelbrave
Invisionapp has a freehand draw mode that is shareable and collaborative. I've
only used it for UX things(as that's what It's designed for) but honestly you
could probably draw whatever so long as it's simple

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jadeddrag
I want my shared whiteboard in VR. My ideal solution is a multiuser tiltbrush.

~~~
cltsang
Try immersed.
[https://immersedvr.com/#features_tag](https://immersedvr.com/#features_tag)

It's literally just a 2D whiteboard though. You don't get more features than a
physical whiteboard.

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buboard
instead of all these remote tools i like second life. designing and
conceptualizing things in 3d is another dimension

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songshuu
mural.co is fantastic. works on multiple platforms and is especially good for
ipad users.

