7 ms·

Excalidraw – a whiteboard tool that lets you sketch hand-drawn diagrams

79 points by lipis 7y ago

jordic 7y ago
I have been following it since a week and is awesome to see how it evolves.. PR after PR it's getting better. Yesterday used it to just wireframe a small feature. Awesome project!
awave 7y ago
Found it pretty useful for note taking in classes. Awesome tool
vjeux 7y ago
I wrote a blog post with my thoughts on the project here if you’re interested: https://blog.vjeux.com/2020/uncategorized/reflections-on-excalidraw.html https://blog.vjeux.com/2020/uncategorized/reflections-on-exc...
lipis 7y ago
You can also share your diagrams via links: https://excalidraw.com/?id=6264616665481216 https://excalidraw.com/?id=6264616665481216
shaneos 7y ago
It was amazing to see the rapid progress on Excalidraw, all fueled by open source contributions but organized by Christopher. So cool to see what enthusiastic devs can hack together in short order
bmuzakparov 7y ago
I made my first open source contribution on this project and watched how it evolved day by day. Absolutely love it! Here is the repo: https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw
Numberwang 7y ago
Looks really good. I'd love to be able to import from plantuml.
amflare 7y ago
What's the deal with lines that are composed of two lines with a space in the middle? This seems a very odd choice for something "hand drawn" Eg: https://excalidraw.com/?id=5650452045627392 https://excalidraw.com/?id=5650452045627392
- ygra 7y ago
  It's how rough.js approximates hand-drawn sketchy lines. It looks great in some cases, okay in many others, but if they diverge too much, it looks weird. I think the intent is to evoke the style of sketching where everything is stroked multiple times with short lines.
- shihn 7y ago
  It's an artifact of how Rough.js renders sketchy lines. It does that by creating some random offsets. For some random values, it may create this effect for long lines, which is not ideal. This is less pronounced in shorter lines. The latest release has tried to reduce this effect, but there is a small probability that it may still happen: https://roughjs.com/posts/release-4.0/ https://roughjs.com/posts/release-4.0/
capableweb 7y ago
In the future, would be great if outsiders wouldn't try to influence what gets to the frontpage of Hacker News. Here is the author of this project trying to push people to upvote: https://twitter.com/Vjeux/status/1219340291603230721 https://twitter.com/Vjeux/status/1219340291603230721 I'm pretty sure I have read somewhere on HN that people should not ask for upvotes. Here is a example of just that happening. If more people flag the submission, it'll eventually get removed from the frontpage. Edit: annoyingly, the author (vjeux) seems to have deleted the tweet by now (not sure what the accomplishes?) and I took no archive of it. Life goes on
- vjeux 7y ago
  Sorry about that! I don't really know what's the etiquette about this. I've always asked people to upvote for the initial submission so that it has a chance to get to the front-page. I'm happy to stop if that's against the rules.
  - capableweb 7y ago
    Just found the place where it's mentioned, which I'm sure you've read before ;) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Don't solicit upvotes, comments, or submissions. Users should do those things when they run across something they personally find interesting, not because someone has content to promote. Going forward, it would be smart of you to assume that any community that uses voting, it's usually against the etiquette to solicit for votes. Especially if you haven't read the guidelines :)
    - vjeux 7y ago
      Thanks for linking to the guidelines! I deleted my tweet about it. I'll wait to see if it goes to Hacker News by itself then :)
  - tptacek 7y ago
    It is very against the rules; it's too bad, because this is neat and probably would have (in fact, probably did, given the ring detection stuff HN does behind the scenes) done fine on its own. I appreciate the gracious response and cancelled my flag on this post. But a comment pointing out vote manipulation, even if it's well-intentioned, is on topic and deserves its place on the thread.
ako 7y ago
Using hand-drawn sketch diagrams is useful, as it suggests it's a draft, not a finished diagram. However, you can do all of this and more with powerpoint, it's my default sketching tool at the moment. More info: https://blog-insider.office.com/2019/07/03/sketchy-shapes-for-word-powerpoint-and-excel/ https://blog-insider.office.com/2019/07/03/sketchy-shapes-fo...

79 points by lipis 7y ago

I have been following it since a week and is awesome to see how it evolves.. PR after PR it's getting better. Yesterday used it to just wireframe a small feature. Awesome project!

awave 7y ago

Found it pretty useful for note taking in classes. Awesome tool

vjeux 7y ago

I wrote a blog post with my thoughts on the project here if you’re interested: https://blog.vjeux.com/2020/uncategorized/reflections-on-excalidraw.html https://blog.vjeux.com/2020/uncategorized/reflections-on-exc...

lipis 7y ago

You can also share your diagrams via links: https://excalidraw.com/?id=6264616665481216 https://excalidraw.com/?id=6264616665481216

shaneos 7y ago

It was amazing to see the rapid progress on Excalidraw, all fueled by open source contributions but organized by Christopher. So cool to see what enthusiastic devs can hack together in short order

bmuzakparov 7y ago

I made my first open source contribution on this project and watched how it evolved day by day. Absolutely love it! Here is the repo: https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw

Numberwang 7y ago

Looks really good. I'd love to be able to import from plantuml.

amflare 7y ago

What's the deal with lines that are composed of two lines with a space in the middle? This seems a very odd choice for something "hand drawn" Eg: https://excalidraw.com/?id=5650452045627392 https://excalidraw.com/?id=5650452045627392

ygra 7y ago
It's how rough.js approximates hand-drawn sketchy lines. It looks great in some cases, okay in many others, but if they diverge too much, it looks weird. I think the intent is to evoke the style of sketching where everything is stroked multiple times with short lines.
shihn 7y ago
It's an artifact of how Rough.js renders sketchy lines. It does that by creating some random offsets. For some random values, it may create this effect for long lines, which is not ideal. This is less pronounced in shorter lines. The latest release has tried to reduce this effect, but there is a small probability that it may still happen: https://roughjs.com/posts/release-4.0/ https://roughjs.com/posts/release-4.0/

capableweb 7y ago

In the future, would be great if outsiders wouldn't try to influence what gets to the frontpage of Hacker News. Here is the author of this project trying to push people to upvote: https://twitter.com/Vjeux/status/1219340291603230721 https://twitter.com/Vjeux/status/1219340291603230721 I'm pretty sure I have read somewhere on HN that people should not ask for upvotes. Here is a example of just that happening. If more people flag the submission, it'll eventually get removed from the frontpage. Edit: annoyingly, the author (vjeux) seems to have deleted the tweet by now (not sure what the accomplishes?) and I took no archive of it. Life goes on

vjeux 7y ago
Sorry about that! I don't really know what's the etiquette about this. I've always asked people to upvote for the initial submission so that it has a chance to get to the front-page. I'm happy to stop if that's against the rules.
- capableweb 7y ago
  Just found the place where it's mentioned, which I'm sure you've read before ;) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Don't solicit upvotes, comments, or submissions. Users should do those things when they run across something they personally find interesting, not because someone has content to promote. Going forward, it would be smart of you to assume that any community that uses voting, it's usually against the etiquette to solicit for votes. Especially if you haven't read the guidelines :)
  - vjeux 7y ago
    Thanks for linking to the guidelines! I deleted my tweet about it. I'll wait to see if it goes to Hacker News by itself then :)
- tptacek 7y ago
  It is very against the rules; it's too bad, because this is neat and probably would have (in fact, probably did, given the ring detection stuff HN does behind the scenes) done fine on its own. I appreciate the gracious response and cancelled my flag on this post. But a comment pointing out vote manipulation, even if it's well-intentioned, is on topic and deserves its place on the thread.

ako 7y ago

Using hand-drawn sketch diagrams is useful, as it suggests it's a draft, not a finished diagram. However, you can do all of this and more with powerpoint, it's my default sketching tool at the moment. More info: https://blog-insider.office.com/2019/07/03/sketchy-shapes-for-word-powerpoint-and-excel/ https://blog-insider.office.com/2019/07/03/sketchy-shapes-fo...