Pizarra

A digital, vectorial and infinite chalkboard.

Downloads

How so?

Pizarra is a desktop application for free-hand drawing. It is designed for making live explanations, complex diagrams and eventually presentations.

Pizarra UI

The user interface is clean to maximize the drawing surface on screeen and the tooling minimal to keep it simple.

What can I do with it?

Showcase of the five essential tools of pizarra: the line, the
        circle, the polygon, the rectangle and the ellipse

You have in front of your eyes an infinite canvas in every direction, including inwards and outwards zoom (ok, there might be a technical limit for it). There are also some basic drawing tools:

Aditionally you can adjust the thickness and transparency of the pen.

How do I do it?

Detail of the options in the pizarra UI

What is the file format?

The format in use for saving and opening files is SVG. It is an standard image format for vector drawing compatible with the web. From this format I use an unspecified subset (It tends to grow very little in some pizarra versions).

More precisely this is what happens: if a file was created with Pizarra it will be opened with any later version and any other SVG-compatible software. If a file was created with any other program opening it with pizarra is undefined behavior. I can't promise it will work.

Aditionally there is the possibility of exporting your drawing as PNG image. This files, however, cannot be opened with Pizarra again. Exporting files is meant to share the view of a drawing in platforms not compatible with vector images (like social networks).

Some keyboard shortcuts

LSwitch to the pen
RSwitch to the rectangle
PSwitch to the polygon
CSwitch to the circle (from center and radius)
KSwitch to the circle (from three points)
ESwitch to the ellipse
GSwitch to the eraser
QSwitch to the grid
Alt + QSwitch to the free grid
+Zoom in
-Zoom out
0Go back to the original zoom
Alt + CChange color
Ctrl + SSave as SVG
Ctrl + Shift + EExport as PNG
Ctrl + ZUndo last action
Ctrl + Shift + ZUndo last undo

For whom is this?

Pizarra, from me for you with love

If you like making drawings to accompany your explanations for other people or yourself, this might be the right tool.

The motivation behind its creation was the need to have a clean interface with mostly canvas where I could make diagrams and complex explanations. Like in a chalkboard but for the computer and of infinite size.

And of course to take advantaje of my wacom tablet. Although in a touchscreen it is just as useful.

Ok, how do I install it?

Btw, I use Arch

Me too! The easiest way is using the AUR packages, either the binary (pizarra-bin) or compiling from scratch (pizarra-git).

If you use Manjaro Linux you can use Add/Remove software program searching for Pizarra (If you can't find it you might need to enable AUR support in the settings).

I use Debian/Ubuntu

Awesome, A package for that platform just came out of the oven. Search for the latest version in the download list

I use some other linux

No problem, chances are you can download the binary for the latest version and run it without problems.

I use Windows

I made an installer for you! And let me tell you it wass a PITA. It works for 64-bit windows.

Download the last version, See all the downloads or learn how to build it yourself.

I use Mac

Ok, this is the deal: I don't have myself a mac, therefore I cannot build the installer. So unless someone does this for me you have to build pizarra yourself. Don't worry, is not that difficult, it's a matter of doing these things:

And doing the following:

      
# Install the required packages for the installation
brew install gtk+3 adwaita-icon-theme
# Clone the repository
git clone https://gitlab.com/categulario/pizarra-gtk.git
# compile and run
cd pizarra-gtk
cargo run --release
      
    

I have trustworthy information that this works. If you try it don't hesitate to write to me so I can extend this information.

I don't trust your binaries, give me the code

You certainly don't have to. So here is the source code in case you want to compile from scratch. It can be done from any Linux or windows and in case you need a hand I'm here to help (find me on mastodon or twitter as categulario).

During development I've found (and I've been told of) other software with similar purpose. Here is the list.