Whiteboards
A free-form canvas channel for sketching, diagramming, and brainstorming. Built on Fabric.js with a tool palette for pens, shapes, and text — and a saves panel so you can snapshot the canvas state and come back to it.
Overview
A whiteboard channel is a single shared canvas. Open it, pick a tool from the toolbar, and start drawing. The canvas state lives with the channel — every member of the server can open and edit it.
This is for the visual stuff that doesn't fit in chat: system architecture sketches, UI flow mockups, planning a feature on a grid, sketching out a database schema, or just brainstorming on a virtual whiteboard.
Creating a whiteboard
Add a new channel of type whiteboard — sidebar quick-create (small + next to a category) or Server Settings → Channels. The canvas is blank by default.
Tools
The toolbar runs across the top of the canvas. Click a tool to activate it, then click/drag on the canvas to use it.
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Select (V) | Pick existing objects to move, resize, or delete. |
| Pen (P) | Freehand drawing. Pick a color and stroke width from the palette. |
| Text (T) | Click anywhere to drop a text box. Type, then click elsewhere to commit. |
| Rectangle (R) | Click-drag to draw a rectangle. |
| Circle (C) | Click-drag to draw a circle. |
| Line (L) | Click-drag for a straight line. |
| Arrow (A) | Click-drag for a line with an arrowhead. |
| Eraser (E) | Click objects to delete them. |
Single-letter shortcuts are case-insensitive and work whenever the canvas has focus.
Colors & styles
The toolbar's right side has a color swatch and a stroke-width slider. Click the swatch to pick a fill/stroke color. For shapes, you can independently set fill and stroke. Text inherits the current color.
Selecting and editing
With the Select tool active:
- Click an object to select it
- Drag to move
- Drag handles on the bounding box to resize
- Drag the top handle to rotate
- Delete or Backspace to remove the selected object
- Shift-click to add to selection
Saves panel
Click the saves icon in the toolbar to open the saves panel on the right. From here you can:
- Save snapshot — capture the current canvas state with a name.
- Load — replace the canvas with a saved snapshot.
- Rename or delete existing saves.
Snapshots are per-whiteboard-channel. Use them as checkpoints during a brainstorm, or to keep multiple variations of a design you can switch between.
Live collaboration is coming. v0.1.1 saves the canvas state when you save a snapshot — multi-user live cursors and real-time co-drawing are on the v0.2 roadmap.
Zoom & pan
The canvas is much larger than what fits on screen. Use:
- Scroll wheel — zoom in/out
- Space + drag — pan around the canvas
- Fit to screen button in the toolbar — zoom out to see everything
Export
Click Export in the toolbar to download the current canvas as a PNG. Useful for sticking a sketch into a doc, sharing it outside SynStacks, or archiving a finished diagram.
When to use a whiteboard vs a board
Project boards are for tracked work items — cards with assignees, statuses, dates. Whiteboards are for thinking — sketches that don't need to live in a workflow. A common pattern: sketch an idea on a whiteboard, then once you've agreed on the shape, break it into cards on a project board.