Introduction

ppInk is an on-screen annotation software under Windows, forked from gInk.

ppInk introduces new features compared to gInk, greatly inspired by another screen annotation software Epic Pen, but even more easy to use. ppInk / gInk are made with the idea kept in mind that the interface should be simple and should not distract attention of both the presenter and the audience when used for presentations. Unlike in many other softwares in the same category, you select from pens to draw things instead of changing individual settings of color, transparency and tip width everytime. Each pen is a combination of these attributes and is configurable to your need.

A set of drawing tools are introduced: Hand Writing, Line (2 points and polyline), Rectangular, Ellipsis, Arrow, Numbering Tag, Text Left/Right aligned, cliparts

In order to reduce the number of buttons, some buttons have multiple functions, selected my multiple click on those:

• Hand / Rectangular / Ellipsis :
  unfilled drawing -> filled with pen color -> filled with white -> filled with black

• Line: 2 points -> polyline -> pen color filled polygon -> white filled polygon -> black filled polygon

• Numbering :
  transparent background -> edit tag Number -> white background -> black background

• Arrow : Arrow draw at the beginning -> Arrow draw at the end

  (*) : head position when tool is first selected can be modified by option

• Text:
  Text left aligned -> Text Right aligned

• Move:
  Move 1 drawing -> Copy 1 drawing -> Move all drawings.

• Edit: Short click : modify text/number tool (text and font) or the color/pen width of a stroke Long click : edit default font (for the time of the session)

• Cliparts: Open the dialog to select image and the background/frame. This list displayed of cliparts is initialized from the list defined in the options. you can overload adding images for the inking sessions from files or from the clipboard. you can then stamp the images. you just click, the image will be stamped with the images original size. if you just draw a vertical or horizontal line, the image will be drawn with the drawn width/height respecting proportional size. else you can draw a box which will define the image size (non proportional). If you draw from bottom/right to up/left, the image will be stamped reversed.

Magnetic The magnet activates some magnetic effect :

• Find a point on the drawing next to the cursor. For rectangles, magnetic effect is available to vertices, and also to the middle of sides.(also activated pressing Ctrl)
• The 8 points of the bounding rectangle of a text.(also activated pressing Ctrl)
• On the line from the origin. The lines are horizontal,vertical and every 15°.(also activated pressing Shift) The Magnetic distance can be adjusted in the options. If only Ctrl or Shift is depressed, the global magnetic effect is switched off to only take into account the magnetic of the pressed key. Hotkeys are availables for all tools,pens (configurable throught right click on icon next to clock)

Alt+ shortcut for temporary commands: When this option is activated (yes by default), when Alt is pressed and hold, the tool/pen/mode is temporary selected, left when alt is released eg : with Hand drawing selected, press Alt and keep it down. Press and release R : rectangle is active, as long as Alt is depressed, and Hand will be reengaged when Alt is released This can be reset any combinaisons of Pens and Tools : eg : press Alt, you can engage Filled Blue rectangle, depressing R twice, and 3 (in any order), and return to previous tools/color releasing Alt This can be also used with Erasor when pressing down Alt, the cursor is also temporary change to the big arrow to ease finding it on screen.

Option Capture at toolbar opening Capture can be engaged as toolbar is opened. This option is set to false by default.

Long left click/Right click on Pens Open the Modify pen dialog box for that pen

Clear Board (Bin icon):

short click : Delete all drawings and apply last selected background Long click : Delete all drawings and select background surface color (white/black/customed color(modifiable through Options)) In options you will be able to select a default mode at opening , and customed color advice : the created rectangle can be deleted using the erasor next to the border of the screen.

cursor files: You can configure you own cursor file, saving it as cursor.ico in your exe folder (click position and size are loaded from the file). In the same you can save an image as FloatingCall.png to define the calling form image(in this case the width and transparency are in the Window_POS parameter in config.ini mouse wheel: Mouse wheel allows you to modify the pen width. this can be easily observed with the tipped cursor. in this configuration, finding the mouse may be difficult to find in this configuration : you can then depress the alt key to get the arrow(or customized) cursor

video recording: ppInk has now some capability to do some video recording. tuning is available in options/video tab :

• basic recording with FFmpeg: You need to first install ffmpeg. and select the option in the video tab. In this case the button will be proposed. you can start/stop recording. Names and destination folders are defined throught the command line.
• advanced recording with OBS-studio: You need to first install and configure OBS-studio(https://obsproject.com/fr/download) with OBS-websocket(https://github.com/Palakis/obs-websocket). select the required option (recording or broadcasting). with this program you will be able to start/stop broadcasting or start/pause/resume/stop video recording. file names and folders are defined in OBS-studio. Note : ppink is now compatible with release 4.8 of OBS-websocket. this should be fixed in very next release. for the moment,prefer to stop recording when stopping Ink mode

UI customisation You add arrow.ani/cur/ico and eraser.ani/cur/ico to put your own cursors. if you use ico file the cursor is down with the file sized ( you can then put a bigger or smaller image) toolbar Background Color can be changed in the options. currently a draw hickup make the background color incorrect during opening. transparency is currenly ignored Button Images can be customized putting Png files in the ppink exe folder. the name to be used are the same as the one from the src folder.

Alt+Tab engaging Pointer When the option is set in the options, switching application (with alt+tab) will engage pointer mode. Also, when pointer mode is activated (by any means, ie button click, alt+tab, global short cut), the toolbar is folded automatically, and when pressing undock button, alt+tab, or global shortcut,the inking mode is restored and the toolbar is unfolded. Note that you can still fold toolbar when drawing without engaging pointer mode with the dock button.

Download

https://github.com/PubPub-zz/ppInk/releases/

Change log

https://github.com/pubpub-zz/ppInk/blob/master/changelog.txt

How to use

Start ppInk.exe and an icon will appear in the system tray and possible a floating window(*) (which can be moved using RightClick) to start drawing on screen.
Inking is started :

• clicking on floating icon
• clicking on the icon in the system tray
• using the global shortcut (ctr+alt+G by default)
• immediately after start Pping if "--startInking" (case insensitive) has been added tocommand line
• ppInk is run once more (no extra instance is started)

(*) activation and position saving are available in options.

Click the exit button or press ESC to exit drawing.

Features

• Compact and intuitive interface with customizable hotkeys.

• Inks rendered on dynamic desktops.

• Drawing tools: Hand Writing, Line, Rectangular, Ellipsis, Arrow, Numbering Tag, Text Left/Right aligned

• Stylus with eraser, touch screen and mouse compatible.

• Click-through mode. (note : once inking is engaged, global shortcut enters and exits this mode)

• Multiple displays support.

• Pen pressure support.

• Snapshot support.

• Hotkey support.

• Magnetic effect when drawing shapes

• Filled shapes

• Video recording

Tips

• There is a known issue for multiple displays of unmatched DPI settings (100%, 125%, 150%, etc.). If you use gInk on a computer with multiple displays of unmatched DPI settings, or you encounter problems such as incorrect snapshot position, unable to drag toolbar to locations etc., please do the following as a workaround (in Windows 10 version 1903 as an example): right-click ppInk.exe, Properties, Compatibility, Change high DPI settings, Enable override high DPI scaling behavior scaling performed by: Application. (only after v1.0.9, which will be released soon)

• There is a very few hidden options you can tweak in config.ini that are not shown in the options window.

How to contribute translation

gInk/ppInk supports multiple languages now (ppInk introduces a few new sentences where internationalization has not be implemented.). Here is how you can contribute translation. Simply create a duplication of the file "en-us.txt" in "bin/lang" folder, rename it and then translate the strings in the file. Check in ppInk to make sure your translation shows correctly, and then you can make a pull request to merge your translation to the next version of release for others to use.

gInk
https://github.com/geovens/gInk
https://github.com/geovens/gInk
Weizhi Nai @ 2019

ppInk https://github.com/pubpub-zz/ppInk Pubpub-ZZ @ 2020