Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: Telestrator software
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2025 13:09:39 -0700
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On 3/1/2025 3:50 AM, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
> Don Y wrote:

>> Do you want to leave your markings on the screen, regardless of
>> how the intended content changes "under" it?
> 
> That might be useful sometimes, but I'm thinking of the way a
> telestrator works, where the lines disappear as soon as you finish
> looking at them.

So, is your intent to use this as a *presentation* tool?
I.e., where your audience makes mental note of your markups
before you move on to the next issue?

I could see value in that.  I use an "electric whiteboard" for
my presentations:  a "background image" with "magic markers"
that let me draw (4 colors) on top of it and an "eraser" to
adjust my markups.

But, the underlying image is completely static.  E.g., a schematic,
petri net, mechanical assembly, etc.

The "live" approach (yours?) would be more versatile as you could
interact with the "background" without having to treat it as a
slide projector.

> So, press a hotkey to activate the utility, make annotations, press a
> key to clear it and restore normal mouse function. That would be good
> enough. There are some programs with descriptions that sound almost
> right but it turns out they don't do this.

I think W10 has a built-in facility to do something similar
(I don't run W10 so can't give testimony).

Under X Windows, it would be relatively easy to create such a
tool:  overlay a transparent window on the screen, capture
keystrokes/mouse movements to scribble on it, etc.  I.e., let
the window system handle all of the heavy lifting.

I'd be curious to hear of anything you find (as well as your
intended use)!