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Software Screen Overlay

 A little program to help groups doodle on each other's designs
  (+6)
(+6) 		  [vote for,
against]

(This is a bit sensible for the HB, really, but I'm all riled up and need to tell *someone*)

I was chatting to my boss earlier about one of our designs. We were huddled round my PC, and I had the thing up on the screen, big green blocks in glorious false technicolour. We were discussing adding some bits to it, and waving our hands around quite a lot, and I thought "What I need is a transparent sheet over the monitor, so we can doodle on the screen."
And then I thought, "Hell, that's a software fix if ever I saw one", so I started looking for one.

But I can't find it. I don't believe it. All I'm thinking of here is a very simple program that acts exactly like an OHP transparency placed over the screen. You can doodle on it, and it's not connected to anything underneath - it just acts exactly like an overlay. You can deactivate it by minimizing the window (the windows bar can be visible, who cares about that). How hard can that be? Admittedly, I can see how featuritis could quickly sink a little app like that, but even so. Where the heck is it? Am I going to have to write it myself? (That's a bad idea, incidentally).

—moomintroll, Dec 02 2005

(??) I *think* this is the one I was reminded of. who_20has_20been_20...allpaper_20again_3f
[po, Dec 02 2005]

Browsing a little, I think this is what you're after http://www.download...65.html?tag=lst-0-3
[DrCurry, Dec 02 2005]

Anything interesting, here? http://www.sharewar...tles/annotation.htm
[Ling, Dec 02 2005]

Tweakwindow makes any window semi transparent http://www.absolute...nsparent_window.htm
free. we use it at work all the time. Paint or anything over anything else. [pashute, Apr 30 2006]

Patent http://www.freepate...ne.com/5577188.html
Believe it or not, someone had this idea all the way back in 1994. [yigal, May 31 2006]

How about this one? http://www.cs.umd.e...irtualTransparency/
[yigal, Jun 03 2006]


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Annotation:







       Thanks [po], but none of them seem quite right. the Wallpaint sounded promising, but I want to be able to draw on top of everything, in a superimposed kind of way. Simply can't believe this doesn't exist!
—moomintroll, Dec 02 2005
   

       Maybe not exactly what you want, but you could fake this in Windows by doing alt-print screen in the window you're in and pasting the result into an image editing program that supports layers (gimp will work if you don't already have one).
—NoOneYouKnow, Dec 02 2005
   

       Nah, that would be a bit faffy. The idea is for a couple of people, hanging round a computer, to be able to scribble on the screen just using a mouse, without hurting anything. A little button on the taskbar you click on is about as technical as I think it should go.
—moomintroll, Dec 02 2005
   

       You could always just write on the screen itself with a dry erase marker...   

       But I think you can get software like this. There is certainly post-it-type software out there that comes close.
—DrCurry, Dec 02 2005
   

       Yeah, we do what [DrCurry] said, dry erase marker on monitor -- works perfectly.
—Zuzu, Dec 03 2005
   

       Would it be too hard to get a couple of bits of tape, a real (gasp!) OHP transparency and stick it over your monitor?
—methinksnot, Apr 30 2006
   

       You should make it network/internet compatible.
—leif980, May 31 2006
   

       [+] I'm a graphic/media designer. This would be golden for me to explain to everyone my ideas in seconds without having to "quickly mock something up", a phrase I'm getting sick of.
—kuupuuluu, May 31 2006
   

       there was a computer lab in my middle school that had a projector aimed at a digital white board, when the whiteboard markers were used, they drew over the surface of the screen, didn't interact in any way with the stuff below, and were good for presentations.
—tcarson, May 31 2006
   

       I hope you guys all know that this really has nothing to do with transparency, since computer screens are only one layer and a single image. It works by averaging the color numbers of each pixel that would be overlapping, of multiple programs by using software.
—BJS, May 31 2006
   


 

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