The rise of the COVID-19 pandemic propels videoconferencing to the stratosphere of user adoption. Almost overnight, the previously unknown app Zoom became a household technology name. Technology behemoths like Google and Microsoft scrambled to beef up their own videoconferencing products to match Zoom's success.
Zoom allows the meeting presenter to share their desktop with other participants. Google Meet and Skype also have that screen sharing feature. What Zoom offers, as of today, but not Google Meet or Skype, is the ability to annotate the shared screen in real time.
Undoubtedly, Google and Microsoft will eventually incorporate screen annotation in their respective products, but for the time being, gromit-mpx is a viable stopgap solution.
With gromit-mpx, presenters can annotate their desktop using free-hand drawing. It is true that Zoom as well as several third-party open-source annotation apps such as ardesia and pylote give presenters more bells and whistles, for instance, to draw geometrical shapes such as solid or dashed lines and to enter text. Yet the no-frills gromit-mpx is tailor-made for videoconferencing because of its non-obtrusive, hotkey-based mode of operation.
In contrast to Zoom and pylote, gromit-mpx does not have a toolbar, thus saving valuable screen space. In lieu of a toolbar, gromit-mpx functionalities can be activated using hotkeys(see the table below). The inconspicuous use of hotkeys is generally less obtrusive to the presentation than the clicking of the mouse on a protruding toolbar.
| Hotkey combo | Corresponding action |
|---|---|
| F9 | Toggle drawing |
| Shift-F9 | Clear screen |
| Ctrl-F9 | Toggle visibility |
| Alt-F9 | Quit app |
| Click | Draw with red pen (default) |
| Shift-Click | Blue pen |
| Ctrl-Click | Yellow pen |
| Wheel-button click | Green pen with arrow |
| Right click | Eraser |
Installation
To install gromit-mpx on Debian or Ubuntu, enter:
# apt install gromit-mpx
Conclusion
If a videoconference presenter has the most basic requirement for an annotation tool, for instance, to draw meeting participants' attention to an area of the screen, gromit-mpx fits the bill well. Its handy hotkeys make annotation more seamless and speedy than the clunky toolbar used by more feature-complete apps, even Zoom.
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