# Excalidraw: Collaborative Virtual Whiteboard

Excalidraw is a virtual collaborative whiteboard tool that lets you easily sketch diagrams with a hand-drawn feel. It's excellent for brainstorming, creating flowcharts, planning project workflows, or mapping out campaign strategies.

## Key Features

*   **Hand-drawn Feel**: Creates diagrams that look informal and approachable.
*   **Real-time Collaboration**: Multiple users can work on the same drawing simultaneously.
*   **Simple Interface**: Easy to learn and use, with essential drawing tools.
*   **Export Options**: Save your drawings as PNG, SVG, or `.excalidraw` files (for later editing).
*   **Library Support**: Create and use libraries of reusable components.
*   **Self-Hosted**: As part of Changemaker, your Excalidraw instance is self-hosted, keeping your data private.

## Getting Started with Excalidraw

### Accessing Excalidraw
1.  **URL**: Access Excalidraw locally via `http://localhost:3333/` (or your configured external URL).
2.  **No Login Required (Typically)**: Excalidraw itself usually doesn't require a login to start drawing or collaborating if someone shares a link with you.

### Basic Usage

1.  **Start Drawing**: 
    *   The interface presents a canvas and a toolbar with drawing tools (select, rectangle, diamond, ellipse, arrow, line, free-draw, text).
    *   Select a tool and click/drag on the canvas to create shapes or text.

2.  **Styling Elements**:
    *   Select an element on the canvas.
    *   Use the context menu that appears to change properties like color, fill style, stroke width, font size, alignment, etc.

3.  **Connecting Shapes**: Use arrows or lines to connect shapes to create flowcharts or diagrams.

4.  **Collaboration (If needed)**:
    *   Click on the "Live collaboration" button (often a users icon).
    *   Start a session. You'll get a unique link to share with others.
    *   Anyone with the link can join the session and draw in real-time.

5.  **Saving Your Work**:
    *   **Export**: Click the menu icon (usually top-left) and choose "Export image". You can select format (PNG, SVG), background options, etc.
    *   **Save to .excalidraw file**: To save your drawing with all its properties for future editing in Excalidraw, choose "Save to file". This will download an `.excalidraw` JSON file.

6.  **Loading a Drawing**: 
    *   Click the menu icon and choose "Open" to load a previously saved `.excalidraw` file.

## Use Cases within Changemaker

*   **Brainstorming ideas** for campaigns or projects.
*   **Creating sitemaps or user flow diagrams** for your website.
*   **Designing simple graphics or illustrations** for your documentation or blog posts.
*   **Collaboratively planning workflows** with team members.

## Editing the Site

Editing of the main Changemaker documentation site (the one you are reading now) is done via **Code Server**, not Excalidraw. Excalidraw is a tool *for creating visual content* that you might then *include* in your documentation (e.g., by exporting an image and adding it to a Markdown file).

## Further Information

*   **Excalidraw Official Site**: [Excalidraw.com](https://excalidraw.com/) (for general info and the public version)
*   **Excalidraw GitHub Repository**: [Excalidraw on GitHub](https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw) (for documentation, source code, and community discussions).
