Excalidraw whiteboard – easily sketch diagrams with a hand-drawn feel
github.com
github.com
I maintain another opensource whiteboard web application that has a slightly different set of features, but allows persisting drawings to the server. It's called WBO :
The code is open source and also purely front-end based. So the Excalidraw authors can see how it could be implemented. It's basically Bresenham's algorithm combined with the DOM API.
The code is at https://github.com/melvinroest/doodledocs/tree/master/app/co...
Thanks for pointing it out, I was overcomplicating it a bit in my mind (I wanted to point out more things) and therefore I didn't point it out.
I saw that you can save it (as a JSON file) or export to PNG,SVG or the Clipboard (was that what the icon was?).
So I prefer people let me use a tool without creating another online account.
Also, glad you have an option for people with a different view of this. And also for simultaneous collaboration, too.
In general, don’t whiteboard sketches have a hand-drawn feel?
Seems like the trick would be a tool to give diagramming tools a hand-drawn whiteboard sketch feel, or take hand-drawn whiteboard sketches and give them a diagramming feel.
Could be neat to put this engine behind e.g. graphviz/dot, for instance, a la “sketch viz”:
Or for the real parlor trick, emit a literally hand drawn whiteboard sketch in dot!
PS. Many contributions to graphviz needed:
(TBH, it would probably be a case of it being better to just hire an artist.)
I've always been surprised by the affordability of one-off graphic requests like these.
Whiteboard sketches on a physical whiteboard do, but in general, computer “whiteboard” sketches are a mixed bag that IMO land more often on the side of straight lines and perfect circles, especially if you look around at which computer whiteboard products are commercially successful.
> Seems like the trick would be a tool to give diagramming tools a hand-draw whiteboard sketch feel, or take hand-drawn whiteboard sketches and give them a diagramming feel.
Here’s one example of the former: https://matplotlib.org/xkcd/examples/showcase/xkcd.html
The latter, converting sketches to diagrams, would be neat and is an interesting & difficult problem.
The thing that neither of these use-cases really cover is the need for a fast iteration / ideation tool in the exact same role as a physical whiteboard. Once you’re concerned about the presentation & look, the majority of time is spent working on the layout and the presentation because it takes longer to make it pretty than to just work out or communicate an idea without regard to beauty. Very small changes to where something goes or what it looks like can lead to a large and time-consuming ‘refactor’ of a diagram.
Also, as a mathematician, I would love some Unicode support for greek letters and super/sub-scripts. Something similar to https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/unicode-input/. I tried to just draw the text I wanted but the first point I brought up made this more difficult.
ETA: If you hold 'X' or '7' then it remains in the tool you chose. This makes sense.
I wonder if there is a way to modify something like xfig to output in hand drawn "look".
Collaborative editing is of course also very good and tools like xfig don't have it.
I guess I'm wondering aloud if it makes sense to see "hand drawn look", collaborative editing and cloud storage/saas as orthogonal issues.
I love my Wacom and I love collaborative whiteboards, but it feels like neither is at its full potential.
No affiliation with Miro, just liked the service.
They are pretty easy to use, but most online whiteboards don't bother. Perhaps the developers don't have suitable hardware?
The only pressure sensitive one I've seen is https://github.com/melvinroest/doodledocs, which is ... not very polished yet.
https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw-json/issues/76 "I also wonder, why is this using google cloud ? Could this be used without google cloud (and without sending data -- even if encrypted) to them ?"
I don't know if there is now a fully self-hosted version of excalidraw.
One bit of feedback: I found the default and even "extra bold" stroke size way to small. White boards have that imperfect broad strokes feel to them, having tiny lines, especially as the default just doesn't connect well with it IMO.
Otherwise the interface is very easy to use, I like the draggable and editable objects approach
https://blog.excalidraw.com/building-excalidraw-p2p-collabor...
I'd like to have features "crop", "pixelize" and "add sequential-number label" available in a brwoser-based picture editor.
this also has end-to-end encryption built in. I think it should be the default and no hidden in a hard-to-find section.
I wish it would export in the Mermaid format - https://mermaid-js.github.io/mermaid/#/
Lowers the bar for diagrams. And keyboard shortcuts super handy too.
TL;DR: I still tend to use Witeboard.com for quick sketches, but if I plan on doing something more complicated and not time-sensitive I use Excalidraw.
What I like about Witeboard.com:
- fast to load and easy to get started
- quick keys (t: typing, p: pencil)
- pencil modifier keys: hold down l to switch from free drawing to drawing a line, or r to draw a rectangle
Dislike about Witeboard.com:
- It's like MS Paint, once the pixels are drawn you can't move them around (despite being vectors (I assume, infinitely zoomable))
What I like about Excalidraw:
- Can move shapes around (fixes biggest gripe with Witeboard.com)
- Sloppiness levels: Artist is what I use and is PERFECT for my needs, but nice to have options for other users
- Also has quick keys (8: typing, 7: pencil)
- Exports editable drawing as a file, not saved in cloud. So you can just import that file again and not rely on saving the URL.
Dislike about Excalidraw:
- Preventing me from switching to it: once a tool (ie. pencil) is used for a stroke, it reverts back to mouse cursor (I'd rather have it stay as pencil and hit 1 for it to switch to a cursor)
- Majorly annoying: the open/save/color/stroke palette in top left is too similar to a square ratio, so it blocks a corner of the image
If those two dislikes were fixed, I'd likely switch to it fulltime. For both products, I'd easily pay a few bucks a month for them.
- Preventing me from switching to it: once a tool (ie. pencil) is used for a stroke, it reverts back to mouse cursor (I'd rather have it stay as pencil and hit 1 for it to switch to a cursor)