LightweightWhiteboard:FAQ and Troubleshooting

FAQ

Can I open a board without the extension?

Yes. A .whiteboard file is a PNG image. Rename it or a copy of it to .png and open it in any image viewer. See Files and Saving.

Can I move a line or shape after drawing it?

No. Everything you draw goes straight into the image pixels. There are no objects or layers. Use undo to take a step back. Only an inserted image can be moved and resized, and only until it is placed. See Images.

Can I change the size of a board?

Not in the board. New boards get their size from vscWhiteboard.defaultWidth and vscWhiteboard.defaultHeight. Change these settings before you create the board. See Commands and Settings.

Why does the eraser paint white on my PNG?

The eraser always paints white. It does not make pixels transparent. The same applies to Clear board. See Drawing Tools.

Can I write text on the board?

There is no text tool. You can write with the pen or insert an image that contains text.

Where are my own colors stored?

In the user setting vscWhiteboard.customColors. They are not stored in the board file and are the same in every workspace. See Colors.

Is the UI available in other languages?

No. Since version 1.1.0 the board is in English only. Version 1.0.0 also had a German UI.

Troubleshooting

Dropping an image from the Explorer or the desktop does nothing.

Hold Shift while you drop. Without it VS Code handles the drop itself and opens the file in a new editor instead of passing it to the board. See Images.

This is not an image that can be inserted.

The dropped or pasted data could not be read as an image. Check the format against the list on the Images page. When dragging from a web browser, try dragging the image itself instead of a link to a page.

Not an image when dropping from a browser.

The web server did not return an image for that address, for example because the link points to a web page or a login is required. Save the image to disk first and insert the file.

The file could not be read as an image.

The file is not a valid PNG. The board shows a blank board instead. Saving would overwrite the file with that blank board. Close the tab without saving if you want to keep the file.

The keys for the tools do not work.

Click on the board first. The keys do nothing while a text field, for example the hex field in the color dialog, has the focus.

A PNG still opens in the normal image preview.

That is the default. Use View: Reopen Editor With... and choose Whiteboard (edit PNG), or set workbench.editorAssociations. See Commands and Settings.

Undo does nothing on a very large board.

The history keeps up to about 384 MB of image data per board. Older steps are dropped when it gets larger. After Revert File the history starts empty, so steps from before the revert cannot be undone.

The whiteboard did not respond in time.

Saving waited 30 seconds for the board to hand over its image and got no answer. The file was not written. Try to save again.