Running OpenBoard in a window

May 10, 2021 by Roberto Puzzanghera 15 comments

Edit: this patch has been merged into OpenBoard 1.7.0, so this issue is closed.


These days I'm forced again to do lessons from remote. My school asked me to refer to Google Meet for the videoconferences and one thing I disliked was the Jam interactive whiteboard, which is completely inadequate for scientific subjects. On the other hand OpenBoard, my favourite board tool that I successfully use with Zoom, seemed not to be recognized as an application to be shared, because it runs fullscreen.

After some googleing I found a patch from this guy (I big thank for his work!) which forces OpenBoard to run in a window, but at the cost of passing a variable at compilation time. I modified the logic of that patch so that a user can set how OpenBoard will run just by modifying an option in the config file. The "run windowed" feature is disabled by default, so it will not bother those teachers who are already familiar with the interface, but it can be easily switched on by advanced users.

To get OpenBoard running in a window just switch this option to true in the /opt/openboard/etc/OpenBoard.config file

[App]
RunInWindow=true

Each user can do the same by overriding this setting in his/her personal ~/.local/share/OpenBoard/OpenBoardUser.config file.

Installation steps

The following prerequisites must be already installed: libpaper libass x264 libfdk-aac ffmpeg quazip-qt5 qt5-webkit. My patch is for the 1.6.3​ version.

wget https://notes.sagredo.eu/files/hacks/openboard/run-in-a-window.patch
wget https://github.com/OpenBoard-org/OpenBoard/archive/refs/tags/v1.6.3.tar.gz
tar xzf v1.6.3.tar.gz
cd OpenBoard-1.6.3
patch -p1 < ../run-in-a-window.patch
qmake-qt5 OpenBoard.pro -spec linux-g++
make
make install

You may want to reproduce these steps when building the package for your specific distro.

Comments

Such a feature should be implented in the official version

Could you send them a patch, so that they integrate it in the official version?

Reply |

Such a feature should be implented in the official version

I already posted my patch on their github.

Here is the pull request. It has been merged on the 1.7-dev branch on Sep 27, 2021

Reply |

Somebody tried it on Mac OSX?

Just wanted to know if somebody tried (and succeeded) on Mac OSX Monterey. And if there are specific instructions.. Thanks

Reply |

Somebody tried it on Mac OSX?

They added it in the new branch: https://github.com/OpenBoard-org/OpenBoard/issues/340#issuecomment-1087455729, so you can grab the latest GitHub 1.7-dev and compile

Reply |

OpenBoardW

Hi,

I could not manage to run OpenBoardW on Debian 10.4.

The command

qmake-qt5 OpenBoard.pro -spec linux-g++

is not running on Debian 10.4.

So no make, no install ... no OpenBoardW ...

Reply |

OpenBoardW

what error do you get? 

Unfortunately I can't test it on Debian myself

Reply |

Hi

Hi, thanks for your work.

Should it works on windows 10? I found OpenBoard.config  on C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenBoard\etc and added the line RunInWindow=true, because "RuninWindow=" wasn't there under [App], but still, nothing changes. 

Reply |

Openboard binaries for windows

You have to patch and compile the source code.

You can find binaries for windows here http://webdiis.unizar.es/~spd/openboard. The patch applied is a little bit different from mine but it has the "run windowed" feature already active and hard coded.

Reply |

Running OpenBoardW

Hi!

Please could you describe the exact steps and commands to be done in order to apply this patch and make OpenBoard work in a separate window on Ubuntu 20.04.  I have read the discussion and many related articles and still haven't found out how to do this. 

Reply |

Running OpenBoardW

Here you can find two builds Openboard which run on a separate window for Ubuntu 20.04 64bit:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1d1ClbmZDifC72fMbcjDhwRlsb9qTxTLH?usp=sharing

openboard_ubuntu_20.04_1.6.1-a.1102w is builded with patch by Roberto Puzzanghera

Reply |

Running OpenBoardW

Thank you, appreciated

Reply |

Running OpenBoardW

Hi, I added the installation steps in the page above. The patch has to be installed on top of the RC version.

Reply |

Running OpenBoardW

Hi Roberto,

I wish I could be able to use your solution to run OB, but I simply don't understand what I am supossed to do. I suggest you to take some time and write a proper tutorial so every person interested in your fix is able to use it.

Reply |

Running OpenBoardW

Hi Jose, I feel your frustration and I know how it can be without a nice product like OB.

The installation steps above describe what to do for a linux administrator, not for a linux user. Some skills of linux administration are required. Explaining what's behind those commands is beyond the scope of these pages. I'm so sorry, I haven't got the time.

For an immediate use of OB in "windowed mode" I suggest to browse this page http://webdiis.unizar.es/~spd/openboard/ to download the installer for some linux distributions and for windows

Reply |

Running OpenBoardW

Thank you very much for your response

Reply |

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