Excalidraw

Excalidraw is a lightweight virtual whiteboard designed for hand-drawn sketches and visual brainstorming. Its intentionally rough, hand-drawn style makes it approachable for workshops, lectures, and collaborative planning sessions. Excalidraw is an education-specific Beta component in openDesk Edu and serves as an alternative whiteboard option.

Key Features

• Hand-drawn style: All shapes and lines render with a natural, sketch-like appearance.
• Real-time collaboration: Multiple users draw on the same board simultaneously with live cursors.
• Shape recognition: Draw rough shapes that snap to clean rectangles, circles, diamonds, and arrows.
• Export options: Export boards to SVG, PNG, and JSON for sharing and later editing.
• Simple and fast: Minimal interface loads instantly in the browser with no login required for anonymous boards.

Integration with openDesk Edu

Excalidraw integrates with openDesk Edu through Keycloak-based SSO using SAML 2.0 and OIDC. Users access the whiteboard from the unified Nubus portal. It deploys as a modular Helm chart as an education-specific Beta component. Excalidraw is an alternative whiteboard option to CryptPad diagrams for institutions that prefer a lighter, sketch-focused tool.

Learn More

• Official Documentation — Official docs and resources