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COLL ABORATIVE WHITEBOARD

By default, Drawpile includes your password in the invite URL, but you can uncheck the Include Password option to force your friends to manually enter the password.

Drawpile

Version: 2.2.1

Web: https://drawpile.net

Krita offers everything you need to create digital art on the Linux desktop, but what if K you need to work with other artists to conjure up your masterpiece? Drawpile is a cross-platform drawing app whose main goal is to let multiple people work on the same whiteboard simultaneously.

Drawpile is officially available as both a Flatpak and an AppImage. It’s best to use the AppImage to experience the app’s networking features. Just grab the AppImage file, then make it an executable from the file manager or with chmod +x .

The app has everything you would expect from a freehand digital drawing app, including hundreds of brushes, the ability to work with layers, and all kinds of editing tools.

However, the best part about Drawpile is that it allows the canvas to be shared between several users. Inside the app, head to Sessions > Host, and give the session a title.

If you want your session to be private, you can give it a password. That way, only people to whom you give the password can join. If you don’t assign a password to your session, it is public and anyone can join it.

You can either host your session on a public server, which is the easier option and costs nothing, or on your computer, for which you need to have necessary networking chops.

The public Drawpile server pub.drawpile.net is already preselected by default. All you need to do is click on Host. The app now prompts you to log in to your Drawpile account, or you can select the Continue Without Account option, where you only have to specify a username.

Your session is now available and others can join it. Drawpile gives you a link that you can use to invite friends. You can now pass the link to people with whom you want to collaborate. In their Drawpile instance, they have to head to Session > Join, and enter the link you’ve sent them.

LET’S EXPLORE DRAWPILE...

1 Brushes dock

This dock offers all the preset brushes. The brushes have the usual properties you’d expect, such as opacity, hardness, spacing and more.

2 Brush editor

You can use the brush editor to adjust all kinds of settings for the selected brush. Refer to Drawpile’s manual to get to grips with this most important dock.

3 Drawing toolbar

You can use this toolbar to draw some common geometric shapes, and it also enables you to switch between the freehand drawing and eraser modes.

4 Layers

You can use this dock to add multiple layers to keep different parts of your painting separate from each other, until you merge them when you’re done.

5 User control

All those connected can chat through this dock. They can also see who is connected to the app, and can even invite more users.

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