Just like snowflakes, every online whiteboard has a different look and feel. Today, I tried out Dabbleboard, an application that takes its own unique approach to replicating and enhancing the whiteboard experience. More specifically, it turns your squiggles into straight-line approximations of what the application thinks you’re trying to draw, making it somewhat of an intelligent whiteboard. So if you try to draw a triangle, Dabbleboard straightens out the lines. And if you try your hand at a Nike-like swoosh, Dabbleboard turns it into a smooth curved line. Unfortunately, the whiteboard can get the approximation wrong and turn a random squiggle into a diamond or triangle, sort of like someone spotting constellations in the nighttime sky. You can fix it by clicking the Freehand button before you begin, but it takes some discipline to do this every time you log in.
Otherwise, Dabbleboard provides a pretty comprehensive feature set for an online whiteboard. You can undo your last markerstroke, undo your undo if you’re feeling especially indecisive, upload a photo, make an arrow, choose from two different thicknesses for your marker and two font sizes for your text, download a JPEG version of your drawing, and utilize four different marker colors. In addition, you can click on each object you draw and move it around, delete it, replicate it, or resize it. If you sign up for a free account, Dabbleboard enables you to share your whiteboard with friends and colleagues via email or through a public URL that contains embeddable HTML for blogs and other social tools. The sidebar to the left of your whiteboard saves your drawings for future use.
Overall, I like Dabbleboard for its look, feel and functionality. My only major recommendation would be to make the drawing tool freehand by default, with a button you can click to straighten up your shapes. Otherwise, Dabbleboard makes a good all-around online collaboration board that should only improve over time.
Posted by Taeho Lim
