A community-maintained DrawPen build for teaching on Fedora 44 and Windows x64
Important
This is an unofficial community derivative of DmytroVasin/DrawPen. It is not published, maintained, or endorsed by the upstream author. The original copyright notice and MIT license are preserved.
This edition keeps the upstream DrawPen structure and adds classroom-oriented drawing tools. It runs natively on Fedora 44's Wayland session, on any desktop environment, instead of forcing the X11 compatibility path. A separate drawpen-x11 package remains available for cases that still need X11 (for example, desktops without a working GlobalShortcuts portal). A separately identified Windows x64 package carries the classroom tools while leaving the Linux-only code inactive.
- Runs natively on Wayland, with an X11-forced
drawpen-x11build for desktops that still need it. - Stable toolbar placement while switching between Pointer Mode and Draw Mode, including restoration after restart, on both Wayland and X11.
- X11 input-region shaping so Pointer Mode allows clicks to pass through to applications underneath the canvas (
drawpen-x11build). - White, cream, blue, slate, and black boards with configurable size, opacity, spacing, dots, lines, grid, or polka patterns.
- Full-screen capture saved to the user's
Pictures/Screenshotsdirectory. - Pen width slider from 2 to 32 px with live cursor preview.
- Preset and custom drawing colors shared by drawing tools.
- Straight and dashed lines (adjustable dash size and spacing), arrows, squares, rectangles, circles, ovals, triangles, and configurable tables/matrices.
- Numbered horizontal or vertical lines for axes, with configurable bounds and classroom-friendly label spacing.
- Bold text support.
See CHANGELOG.md for the complete change summary, FEDORA_44_COSMIC.md for Fedora notes, and WINDOWS.md for Windows installation and trust information.
Download the RPM from the latest release, then install it with:
sudo dnf install ./drawpen-<version>-1.x86_64.rpmThis runs DrawPen natively on Wayland. If you need the X11 compatibility backend instead (for example, on a desktop where the global show/hide shortcut doesn't register under Wayland), install the drawpen-x11 package from the same release:
sudo dnf install ./drawpen-x11-<version>-1.x86_64.rpmAfter installation, launch DrawPen (or DrawPen (X11)) from your application launcher. The release notes include the SHA-256 checksum for each package — verify the downloaded file with sha256sum before installing.
Download DrawPen-Classroom-Windows-x64.Setup.exe from the Windows classroom release and run it as your normal user. Administrator privileges are not required by the Squirrel installer.
Warning
This community build is not digitally signed. Windows SmartScreen may display an unknown-publisher warning. Verify the SHA-256 checksum published in the release before running it. Do not disable SmartScreen globally.
The Windows package uses the application name DrawPen Classroom and a separate application identifier so it is distinguishable from the official DrawPen package. See WINDOWS.md for portable ZIP, installation, verification, and testing details.
| Action | Shortcut or control |
|---|---|
| Switch Draw/Pointer Mode | Ctrl + Shift + A |
| Pen | P or 1 |
| Cycle shapes | 2 |
| Numbered line | N |
| Text | T or 3 |
| Toggle bold while editing text | Ctrl + B |
| Highlighter | H or 4 |
| Laser | L or 5 |
| Eraser | E or 6 |
| Switch color | 7 |
| Switch width | 8 |
| Show/hide toolbar | Ctrl + T |
| Show/hide board | Ctrl + E |
| Clear drawings | Ctrl + K |
| Settings | Ctrl + , |
Pointer Mode makes the full-screen drawing surface click-through while keeping the compact toolbar interactive. Draw Mode captures pointer input so you can annotate the screen.
Prerequisites:
- Fedora 44 on x86_64 or Windows x64.
- Node.js 22.22.x.
- C compiler, X11 development libraries, and RPM packaging tools for Fedora builds.
For the complete development and packaging instructions, see CONTRIBUTING.md.
This repository is based on upstream DrawPen 0.0.56. General-purpose fixes and features should be proposed to the upstream project whenever they can be separated cleanly from the Fedora/Linux compatibility layer. Include the operating system and display configuration in platform-specific reports.
DrawPen was created by Dmytro Vasin and contributors. This derivative preserves the upstream copyright notice and is distributed under the same MIT License. See NOTICE.md for attribution and project-status details.