tkcWhiteboard plugin

tkcWhiteboard is our innovative approuch to collaborative, Internet based white boarding applications. tkcWhiteboard is build over the Jabber protocol, which is an open source XML based Instant Messaging service.

tkcWhiteboard is able to work with any Jabber server, no special transport is required. Free form, shape and line tools give you all the flexibilly that you might need. At the end of the session your whiteboard will be automaticlly saved by Aethera.

Activate the plugin

To activate the tkcWhiteboard all you need to do is click the plugin icon located in the left hand side toolbar. Every icon here is correspongind to a different plugin. This will activate the plugin.

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User interface basics

The first step in using tkcWhiteboard is to connect to a Jabber server. You connect and disconnect by using these buttons . Once you connected you will have to join a conference. Connecting and disconnecting is a one stop trip with the help of these button located in the plugin toolbar. As of this moment you can share your ideeas with all the people from that conference.

Creating a new whiteboard is easy. All you need to do is click the new icon on the toolbar . If at any point you wish to save the work that you did so far just click save . You will never lose the work that you done because the tkcWhiteboard plugin will automaticly save your whiteboard when the conference is over. To use one of your whiteboards with another application save it to jpeg format. To do so click "Save as file" under the "Whiteboard" menu.

As all Aethera plugins in the "Folders" tab you will find a folder tree. This folder tree will help you to better organize your work. Of course you can copy/cut/paste/delete the whiteboard object using the usuall tools

To help you communicate tkcWhiteboard offers you an array of tools such as rectangle, circles, lines and free-forms, eraser and text.

To customize the way these tools are renders you can choose the fill color and the line color using the color table located at the right hand side of the working area. The two buttons from the top of the color line will provide with a more easy way the access colors.

To set the line width you enter a pozitive integer in the spin-box next to the tools or use the up-down buttons if you find them easyer to use.

As usuall all these actions will be availabile in the plugin menus.

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Settings

The tkcWhiteboard settings is availabile via the "Aethera->Settings" menu. Click the the "Whiteboard" tab the access the setting.

As you can see all that these settings deal with are the dimensions of the canvas. The "Zaurus size" checkbox will set the canvas to be size of the whiteboard on the Zaurus PDA.

The "Use uniques connection" check-box will cause the tkcWhiteboard plugin to share the same connection with the tkcJabberPro plugin. You might whant to do that if your whiteboard server is the same as your Jabber server. If this is the case using the same connection will optimize the use of your bandwidth.

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