Published: February, 15th 2008 HiveBoard
The online shared WhiteBoard
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Introduction

Welcome to the HiveBoard Web site!

HiveBoard is an online shared whiteboard conferencing system. HiveBoard is free to use according to the Apache License Version 2.0.

HiveBoard is made in Java. It has a server part that can be hosted by a Servlet Container (like jakarta Tomcat) and requires a SQL database with a JDBC driver (eg MySQL). It has rich client applications that connect to the server and can access a shared whiteboard.

If you don't understand what all this means, don't be afraid! HiveBoard also comes in a "stand-alone" server package for which the only pre-prequisite is to have an installed Sun JVM.

The HiveBoard project has started early 2005. As of today, version 0.6.0 is available and is almost a full-fledged version with two exceptions (that might not be relevant to you): it does not yet offer the multi-server feature and packaging is not very professional (no installer). Besides, It is not missing many features as of now.

HiveBoard highlights

These highlights are related to the future system (version 0.6.0 does not implement all features yet).

  • Client/Server system 100% written in Java
  • Uses standard http/https protocol as a "transport tunnel" for all data transfer, allowing usage on Internet even through firewalls
  • Optimized client/server communication for fast screen refresh even on low bandwidth connections
  • Secure system (user authentication, whiteboard access control)
  • Multi-server option to faster dispatch information to sites with high concentration of users (not implemented in 0.6.0)
  • Easy to use and powerful graphical client application with many drawing tools
  • Full screen mode
  • Simple chat capability

For a complete list of planned HiveBoard features, check the features page.