GROUPBOARD/GROUPWORLD NEWSLETTER - September 2001

This is an occasional newsletter which is sent out to all registered Groupboard and GroupWorld.net customers a few times a year.

New release of Groupboard Designer with more features.
New multi-player games.
New multi-lingual versions of the Groupboard available.
Username/password logins.
Coming soon: 3d virtual worlds and voice chat.

New release of Groupboard Designer with more features

We have just released a new version of Groupboard Designer which has the following new features:

User-defined tool library, allowing you to design your own vector tools which can be saved on the server.
Gridlines with snap-to-grid.
The ability to place gif/jpeg images anywhere on the whiteboard (not just as backgrounds).

Groupboard Designer is a version of the Groupboard with extra features over the standard Groupboard, such as pan, zoom, cut and paste. It can be used as a multi-user graphic design tool, or a single-user tool for customers to mark up designs over the web.

To see a demo of Groupboard Designer, go to:

http://www.groupboard.com/mp/designer_3dlook.cgi?board_id=1577&groupconf=true&groupconf_id=1577&icon_scale=50

You can also get a 1 month trial license to test the software on your own web server.

Existing Groupboard Designer customers can upgrade to the new version at no charge - please email us. If you have a customised version, there may be a small charge to incorporate your customisations into the new release.

New multi-player games

We have recently released a new multi-player arcade game - Tank Attack. If you have set up games on your Groupboard, this new game will automatically appear in the list of games. To add games to your Groupboard, simply go to the "board info" dialog (in the admin menu) and tick the Games tickbox.

Currently the multi-player games are only available on versions of the Groupboard hosted on the groupboard.com server (i.e. the free board, 15 user Groupboard and 100 user Groupboard). If you are running the standalone server version on your own web server, please contact us if you are interested in hosting the games.

We will soon be adding more games, including a poker game with virtual betting.

New multi-lingual versions of the Groupboard available

We now have French, Danish and Spanish translations of the Groupboard available. If you are running the Groupboard from the groupboard.com server you can pick up the translated versions by changing your codebase from "java" to either:


java.french

java.spanish

java.danish

We offer free translation into any western language (languages which require 16bit unicode are not supported). Please contact us for more details.

Username/password logins

If you are running the standalone internet/intranet server version of the Grouboard, you can now set up different logins for different users via a password file. For more details, see the README file in the installation. If you do not have this feature, just download the latest version from our ftp site (you can continue using your existing license). There is no charge to upgrade.

Coming soon: 3d virtual worlds and voice chat

We are in the process of developing new features for the Groupboard, including VRML based virtual worlds which you will be able to design and put on your Groupboard, and also voice chat. We will update you with further details once the new version has been released.