To administer your board, you will first need to log on as admin. At the password prompt, type in your admin password and you will have access to the admin functions of the board. If your board does not have a password prompt then you can put one in by adding the following line to your html:
<param name=NEED_PASSWORD value=true>
(If you already have a NEED_PASSWORD parameter, simply change the value from false to true).
If your board doesn't have a default password (i.e. if users can log onto your board without typing a password), then it's probably better having a separate admin web page containing the password prompt, and leaving the main page (which your users will connect to) without a password prompt.
If using one of the JavaScript user interfaces to Groupboard, the admin functions will appear as buttons on the left hand side of the whiteboard when you log on as an admin. If using the standard Java user interface, you will need to bring up the board in its own window, by clicking the Float button (or using the ALWAYS_FLOAT option - see below). The admin functions will then be available in the Admin pull-down menu at the top of the window. The following admin functions are available:
This brings up a dialog which allows you to ban certain IP addresses. Type the address to be banned into the text field, and then click Add. A '*' indicates a wildcard. e.g.:
192.22.12.* - bans anyone from subnet 192.22.12
143.117.1.89 - bans anyone from IP address 143.117.1.89
To find out the IP address of someone connected to the Whiteboard, use the Drawing Log (see below).
Banned addresses can be removed from the list by selecting the address and clicking Delete. You can search through the list for a particular IP address by entering the full address or just the beginning, and pressing Find.
If you click OK then the ban list will be saved. Clicking Cancel closes the dialog without saving the changes.Note that simply adding an IP address to the ban list will NOT kick off any users who are currently logged on from that IP address.
You can also ban users by clicking on their name in the chat box and clicking on Ban - they will be immediately kicked off the board and their IP address will be added to the ban list.
This allows you to see who is drawing on the Whiteboard. Each time a user draws, it displays the IP address, name, colour, and any text which was drawn (the name is taken from the chat window, so it will be blank if you don't have a chat window).
Selecting this option prevents any users (except admin) from clearing the whiteboard. Clearing is enabled when the admin user who disabled it logs off.
Selecting this option prevents any users (except admin) from loading or setting a background picture on the whiteboard. Loading is enabled when the admin user who disabled it logs off.
Selecting this option prevents any users (except admin) from drawing on the whiteboard. Drawing is enabled when the admin user who disabled it logs off.
Displays usage information (the number of people visiting your board), and lets you modify information such as the board title, your email address, etc.
When logged on as admin, you can delete pictures from the gallery (click on Load) and messages from the message board. Simply select the message/picture to delete and click on the Delete button in the appropriate dialog.
To upload a background picture, just press the "Set Background" button, then click on the "Upload" button. You can then upload background images from your hard disk.
You can put a link on your page which will list all of the saved pictures. Simply use the following link:
<a href="http://www.groupboard.com/mp/gallery.cgi?board_id=ID">gallery</a>
You can add parameters to set the size of the whiteboard when viewing the gallery, as follows:
&width=600&height=520&board_width=600&board_height=400
You should set the board_width and board_height to be the same as for your Groupboard, and set the width and height slightly larger.
If your board uses a password, use the following link:
<a href="http://www.groupboard.com/mp/gallerypw.cgi?board_id=ID">gallery</a>
If you are using Groupboard Designer, using the following link instead:
<a href="http://www.groupboard.com/mp/designer_gallery.cgi?board_id=ID">gallery</a>
(where ID is the id of your groupboard.)
The following html parameters can be placed between the <applet> and </applet> tags. A parameter can be added to your html code as follows:
<param name=always_float value=true>
If you are using the javascript user interface, you should add parameters like this:
d.writeln('<param name=always_float value=true>');
WIDTH: sets the overall width of the applet (NOTE: this parameter must be inside the APPLET tag)
HEIGHT: sets the overall height of the applet (NOTE: this parameter must be inside the APPLET tag)
SAVE_FILENAME: if set to the name of a file, then users are not prompted for the name to save the picture as, it will always save to the file given by the parameter.
BACKGROUND_PIC: if set to the name of a background picture, then the picture is automatically loaded as a background (including each time the whiteboard is cleared).
GALLERY_PIC: if set, then the picture is automatically loaded from the whiteboard gallery (saved pictures), and the whiteboard drawing controls are disabled (i.e. the picture can be viewed but not modified).
MULTI_USER: if set to false the board will work in standalone mode (i.e. each user connected will see their own session). You can set up two web pages, one which has MULTI_USER set to false and the other which doesn't - the standalone version will allow people to connect to your board and load/save pictures but they won't be able to see what anyone else is drawing. Users connected to a standalone board do not contribute to the maximum user limit for the board.
DISPLAY_NUM_USERS: if set to false then the number of users connected to the board will not be displayed.
WHITEBOARD_BACKGROUND_RED: if set to a value between 0 and 255, gives the red component of the background for the whiteboard
WHITEBOARD_BACKGROUND_GREEN: if set to a value between 0 and 255, gives the green component of the background for the whiteboard
WHITEBOARD_BACKGROUND_BLUE: if set to a value between 0 and 255, gives the blue component of the background for the whiteboard
BACKGROUND_RED: if set to a value between 0 and 255, gives the red component of the background for the entire applet (NOTE: some browsers have problems setting the background for certain parts of the GUI)
BACKGROUND_GREEN: if set to a value between 0 and 255, gives the green component of the background for the entire applet
BACKGROUND_BLUE: if set to a value between 0 and 255, gives the blue component of the background for the entire applet
FOREGROUND_RED: if set to a value between 0 and 255, gives the red component of the foreground for the entire applet
FOREGROUND_GREEN: if set to a value between 0 and 255, gives the green component of the foreground for the entire applet
FOREGROUND_BLUE: if set to a value between 0 and 255, gives the blue component of the foreground for the entire applet
BOARD_WIDTH: sets the width of the whiteboard (not available in the standard version)
BOARD_HEIGHT: sets the height of the whiteboard (not available in the standard version)
ALLOW_SAVE: if set to false then the whiteboard Save button is disabled
ALWAYS_FLOAT: if set to true then the groupboard will start up in a separate window
ALLOW_LOAD: if set to false then the whiteboard Load button is disabled
ALLOW_SET_BACKGROUND: if set to false then the whiteboard Set Background button is disabled
ALLOW_GALLERY_EDIT: if set to true then any picture loaded using the GALLERY_PIC tag can be edited
ALLOW_NONADMIN_UPLOAD: if set to true then non-admin users can upload background pictures (NOTE: only available on standalone server version of the Groupboard)
NEED_PASSWORD: if set to true then the user will be prompted for a password when connecting
PASSWORD: if set to a string, then that string will be sent as the default password (note: you must also set NEED_PASSWORD to TRUE)
SHOW_IP_ADDRESSES: if set to true then IP addresses are shown in the chat window
USE_COMPRESSION: if set to false then data compression will not be used for the whiteboard. Switch this option off if don't want the delay in the drawing appearing on other user's screens.
USE_LOSSY_COMPRESSION: set to true to enable lossy compression (saves some bandwidth, but makes lines more jagged).
MIN_ACTIONS: if set to true then only Freehand and Text drawing options are available in the whiteboard
CENTRE_IN_WINDOW: set to true to force background images to be centred in the window
SET_NAME: if set to a string, then that string will be the initial value for the name in the chat window
ALLOW_CHANGE_NAME: if set to false, users will not be allowed to change their name (used in conjunction with SET_NAME)
CLEAR_ON_SET_BACKGROUND: if set to false then the whiteboard is not cleared when a new background is set
USE_TUNNEL: if set to true then firewall tunnelling will be used for the board. This allows the Groupboard to run through proxy servers which allows connections to http port 6666.
DISPLAY_TITLE: if set to false then the title is not displayed at the top of the applet
DISPLAY_DRAWING_USER: if set to true then the name of the currently drawing user is displayed
DRAWING_USER_FONTSIZE: the font size (between 1 and 10) to use when displaying the name of the current drawing user
VIEW_ONLY: if set to TRUE then users connecting through this html page will not be able to draw on the board
EXTENDED_PALETTE: set to TRUE to get an extended colour palette of 226 colours. NOTE: this has no effect if you are using a javascript GUI (in which case there should be a "Colours" button which brings up the extended palette)
CLEAR_ON_SAVE: specifies whether or not the drawing is cleared after it is saved. Defaults to TRUE in the standard Groupboard, and FALSE in Groupboard Designer.
HIDE_GUI: set to TRUE if you want to completely remove the GUI and control the Groupboard using javascript instead. The functions available from javascript are listed below.
NEED_USERNAME: if need_password is also set to TRUE, this brings up a login box asking for username and password. Note that this requires a password file to be setup on the server.
USE_SCROLLBARS (Groupboard Designer only): set to FALSE to remove the panning scrollbars around the whiteboard.
SCALE_TO_FIT (Groupboard Designer only): set to FALSE to prevent background pictures being scaled to fit the width or height of the whiteboard window.
SHOW_FLOAT_BUTTON (Groupboard Designer only): set to TRUE to show the FLOAT button.
MULTI_USER_PAN (Groupboard Designer only): set to TRUE to enable multi-user pan. When this is set, all users will see the same view of the board when one user pans or zooms.
SHOW_LINETYPE_WINDOW (Groupboard Designer only): set to FALSE to disable the line preferences window (which normally appears when you choose the LINE tool).
WHISPER_BEEP_IDLE_TIME: set to the minimum number of milliseconds of idle time after which it will beep if another user whispers to you (default: 30000).
USE_UTF: set to TRUE to enable multi-byte (Unicode) character input throughout the Groupboard. Note that when this option is set, the TEXT tool on the whiteboard will pop up a dialog box when you click on the whiteboard (as this is the only way to input Unicode characters in Java). Also note that the "dont_strip_ctrl_chars" option must be set to TRUE in the server options file to be able to use Unicode characters in the chat window correctly.
RIGHT_TO_LEFT: set to TRUE to enable right-to-left text input, if you want to use Hebrew or Arabic text.
HIDE_CHAT: set to TRUE to initially hide the chat box. Use this if you want to bring up the chat window using the show_chat() javascript function (see below).
CHAT_ROWS: sets the number of rows of text in the chat area (default: 9)
CHAT_COLS: sets the number of columns of text in the chat area (default: 45)
DISABLE_PRIVATE_CHAT: set to true to disable private chats (whispering)
LOCK_DXF_LAYER (Groupboard Designer only): set to TRUE to prevent the contents of a DXF drawing being modified using cut/paste/select tools.
FONT_NAME: change the whiteboard font (can be serif, sans-serif or monospaced, with the default being serif)
DEFAULT_THICKNESS: set the default drawing tool thickness (between 1 and 10): default value is 1.
BBOARD_ROWS: set the height of the message board window (default=20).
BEEP_ON_LOGIN: if set to true, emits a beep when a new user connects.
PUT_UP_HAND: if set to true, displays the Raise Hand button for non-admin users in the chat window.
MAX_DRAW_ARRAY_SIZE: the maximum number of drawing elements that can be drawnon the whiteboard (default=100000, maximum possible=400000).
The following functions are available:
set_thickness(int value)
(where value is between 1 and 10)
set_tool(int tool)
where tool is:
select = 0 (Groupboard Designer only)
line = 1
circle = 2
text = 3
freehand = 4
rectangle = 11
filled circle = 12
filled rectangle = 13
pointer = 49 (Groupboard Designer only)
place image = 55 (Groupboard Designer only)
tool library = 61 (Groupboard Designer only)
flood fill = 64
polygons = 67 (Groupboard Designer only)
solid polygons = 68 (Groupboard Designer only)
hatched polygons = 69 (Groupboard Designer only)
set_colour(int colour)
(where colour is between 0 and 255):
white = 0
red = 1
green = 2
blue = 3
pink = 4
orange = 5
black = 6
grey = 7
magenta = 8
cyan = 9
brown = 10
[11-226 = extended palette]
load() - brings up the "load picture" window
set_background() - brings up the "set background" window
save() - brings up the "save picture" window
clear() - clears the whiteboard
make_float() - floats the whiteboard/chat/games windows
make_unfloat() - unfloats the windows
show_help() - shows the help page
show_games() - shows the games window (if board has games)
show_chat() - shows the chat window (if board has chat). NOTE: you must also use the HIDE_CHAT html tag
show_extended_palette() - shows the extended palette window
show_message_board() - shows the message board window (if board has message board)
print_pic() - prints the contents of the whiteboard to the printer.
The following functions are available:
show_banlist() - brings up the banlist window
show_drawing_log() - brings up the drawing log window
show_board_info() - brings up the board info window
set_allow_drawing(boolean new_state) - enable or disable non-admin users from drawing on the board
set_allow_loading(boolean new_state) - enable or disable non-admin users from loading saved pictures or backgrounds
set_allow_clearing(boolean new_state) - enable or disable non-admin users from clearing the board
The following functions are available in Groupboard Designer:
zoom_in() - zoom in by factor of 1.5
zoom_out() - zoom out by factor of 1.5
zoom_in(float factor) - zoom in by the given factor
zoom_out(float factor) - zoom out by the given factor
set_zoom(float value) - set zoom level (1.0 = 100%)
copy() - copy selected items into java clipboard
cut() - cut selected items into java clipboard
paste() - paste selected items from java clipboard
select_all() - select all items
clear_selection() - clear clipboard of selected items
delete_items() - deletes selected items
set_const_thickness(boolean new_state) - sets or resets constant thickness of lines (for AutoCAD compatibility)
undo() - undo or redo last action
set_gridlines(boolean new_state) - switches gridlines on or off
save_as(String filename) - saves the picture into the gallery, with the given filename. If the filename ends with .gif or .GIF, it is saved as a gif to the backgrounds directory instead of the gallery
set_save_filename(String filename) - when the user presses save, the picture will be saved under this filename without bringing up the save dialog
load_pic(String filename) - loads the given picture from the gallery.
print_view() - prints the current view of the whiteboard to the printer, rather then the entire picture
set_background(name) - loads a given background image onto the whiteboard, e.g. set_background('test.gif')
set_paste_image(name) - sets a given image (which must be in the backgrounds directory) as the current "place image" and sets the current drawing mode to place image, e.g. set_paste_image('icon.gif')