rollApp blog

After almost two years of development Inkscape team released new version with lots of great improvements. New Inkscape is already available on rollApp cloud platform.

This release brings important new features:

support for Mesh Gradients

New path effects including Envelope/Perspective, Lattice Deformation, Mirror and Rotate Copies

Updates to Spray tool and Measure tool

BSplines (and more) for the Pen tool

For more details check out announcement and full release notes on Inkscape site.

Latest update to 2.2 branch of LyX – a document processor that combines power of LaTeX and ease of use of graphical user interface – brings important bugfixes and the latest version 2.2.2 is already available online on rollApp.

LyX 2.2 brought a number of substantial new features:

Horizontal scrolling for large insets

Improved control of paragraph breaks

Improved text color support

Reworked instant preview

New text display algorithm

Time is one of the most valuable resources in our lives. Do you know how much time do you spend on typing a Facebook post, for instance? There are two great apps for your Chromebook that will definitely help you save precious minutes, no matter what you do with a computer. All of us write messages, emails, tweets, reports or essays. With no doubt typing skill is an essential part of computer literacy and everyday life for adults and for kids.

It used to take at least a minute to type a name with two fingers. Luckily that time has gone long ago. Now there is an alternative - touch typing with all ten fingers without even looking at the keyboard. How to learn it? The first application called KTouch really knows the answer.

It’s a typing tutor specifically designed to gain and improve touch typing skills. The app has an effective set of typing lessons and exercises. You can use any free moment to work on typing speed and accuracy wherever you have your Chromebook and Internet connection. All your results are saved in statistics so you can easily track your progress.

The other app, Klavaro, buids your competence in typing in four stages. First, you learn positions of the keys and fingers “assigned” for typing each symbol. Then you work on adaptability, speed, and fluidity of your typing. As the result, you will be able to type the whole paragraphs quickly, rhythmically and without misprints. Amazing, isn’t it? 

Besides, Klavaro supports many languages, different keyboard layouts and allows to import your own texts for typing practice.

By the way, Guinness World Records states that the fastest time to type a text message on a touch-screen is 18.19 seconds. Can you beat that with your keyboard? Here is the text :

The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.

We already discussed some of the best apps for Chromebook for working with text and documents. Not surprisingly image manipulation is also very common thing we do with computers. Let’s take a look at some useful instruments for a Chromebook that you can use to work with graphics.

There are two main types of graphics: raster (or bitmap) and  vector graphics.

You have definitely seen files with extensions .jpg, .gif, .png, .tif, and .bmp. All these files, including photos you take with your camera or smartphone are examples of raster graphics images. These pictures are comprised of pixels of different colors.  Raster images are really ubiquitous – you can view them on any computing device. However, they have shortcomings: they become blurred, when you scale them, and objects found in the picture can not be easily changed.

In contrast to raster graphics, vector graphics uses curves, lines, and shapes to create a picture. Since picture is a set of objects, they can be easily manipulated to change color, size or shape. Thanks to that it is possible to enlarge or scale the image down and it will not lose any details or sharpness.

Working with photos on Chromebook

When you think of working with graphics on a computer the first thing that comes to mind is Adobe Photoshop. It is well known for its omnipotence and complexity. But do you know that there is another awesome app as capable as Photoshop available online? It is called GIMP. Many art and graphic design schools, photographers and game developers choose GIMP for its plentiful functionality in creating, editing and converting image files highlighting that it is a powerful tool for serious tasks. And you can take advantage of it on your Chromebook with GIMP on rollApp right now!

If you need a capable graphics editor but you don’t have time to learn all the intricacies of Photoshop or GIMP you may like Pixlr Editor.  Its interface is similar to familiar desktop apps and has all the necessary functions – you can work with layers, remove red eyes, and apply numerous filters and effects to your photos with this great free application.

Another great tool for editing photos is  PicMonkey – amazing photo editor, simple and accessible even for kids. According to PC Magazine, it is one of the Top 100 best online apps. By the way, during this holiday season you can apply outstanding winter effects to your pictures and make snowy collages for your Facebook profile in this great app.

Those who like painting will definitely appreciate Krita. It’s a perfect app for sketching, making exquisite concept art, comics and cartoons. Just as GIMP, Krita used to be exclusively a desktop application. But with Krita on rollApp you can create digital art masterpieces online with no download!

Creating vector drawings on Chromebooks

Vector graphics is based on completely different principles and is indispensable, when you need to be able to manipulate and adjust objects and shapes that comprise your picture. Vector Paint is a great start for those making first steps in creating vector drawings. This intuitively clear web app written especially for Google Chrome can help you create unique designs with different shapes, color gradients and layers for posters, diagrams, schemes and other graphics..

The next app called Inkscape is considered to be one of the best solutions for professional web designers and illustrators. It has a wide range of powerful tools for work with layers, contours, text and filters. Inkscape supports many vector and raster graphics file formats, and can convert between them.

Last but not least in our today’s review is online vector graphics editor YouiDraw. It offers a set of modern independent tools for drawing, painting, and making logos and website elements. They come with hundreds of templates, customized brushes and other useful features to help your creative work.

Applications for education take special place in our cloud app collection. All of them are special and allow to study particular area of science or practice a useful skill. If you are into geometry GeoGebra on rollApp is definitely worth checking out.

GeoGebra is a mathematics app for learning geometry and algebra, and working with tables, graphing, statistics and calculus in one easy-to-use package.

You can do constructions with points, vectors, segments, lines, conic sections and more.  For example, you can easily, well, easily if you know how,  inscribe a circle in a triangle:

You can work with functions and change them dynamically afterwards. Great feature is that you can enter equations and coordinates directly. Just choose "Perspectives" menu and there "Algebra & Graphics". It gives you great tool solve equations and plot graphics.

Other features of GeoGebra include:

Adding of unique objects: Points, Lines Through Two Points, Polygons, Ellipses, Angles, Reflect Objects, and Sliders;

Customization and configuration of each added object;

Creating and managing of new tools via a simple wizard;

Multilingual interface, and more

GeoGebra developers make their application available in the Chrome Web Store. Using GeoGebra on rollApp you can work (export and import) with your files in cloud storage - Google Drive, Dropbox, and others. And with rollApp it will work not only on Chromebooks, but also on iPads, Android tablets and other devices. All you need to advance your math is just a web browser.

As the number of online applications grows choosing apps for your Chromebook may become really challenging. To help you with that we would like to present you with some of the best apps for Chromebooks which will unlock full potential of your Chromebook device.

Working with text is the most common thing done with computers. Of course, there is Google Docs, which is the first natural choice for Chromebooks. However, many of the power users miss great document editing features available in desktop apps. And among the online text editors, we would like to highlight OpenOffice Writer as one of the best online apps for working with text documents. Its functionality is quite impressive: it will allow you to work with simple and complex documents from your Google Drive or other cloud storage.  It comes with every feature you can expect from a modern text processor: use various fonts, styles, and text frames, create tables and diagrams, layout document, and all of that right in the browser. OpenOffice Writer supports many document formats including files created with Microsoft Office (.docx and .doc file extensions). Together with other applications from the OpenOffice family, it can become full-fledged office productivity solution for your Chrome device.

Apart from working with texts your Chromebook can do some fairly unexpected and sophisticated tasks.

For example, you can design entire house interior with Autodesk Homestyler online. It does not require any special skills – everyone can quickly create a plan of his house or apartment and fit it out with real furniture from real catalogs of the world’s best brands. You can do that in 2D and fast 3D mode. The application allows to draw inspiration from other people’s projects or create and share your own designs. Try on a new wallpaper in your living room, move furniture in your bedroom or visualize the house of your dream on your Chromebook with this great online application.

Even the stars can become closer with Stellarium, the online planetarium on your Chromebook. You can explore the sky and learn interesting astronomy data about more than 600,000 objects in our endless Universe. The app creates  admirably realistic night sky view, bright constellations, the Milky Way, dawns and sunsets from any point of the world.

As you can see, Chromebook is quite useful for work and education. It can bring you a lot of fun, too. If you are up to a five-minute break, check out these nice games for Chromebook.

The first game we want you to try is a charming online puzzle called Entanglement. Your goal is to make the longest path through hexagonal tiles. You can play different strategies in single-player mode or take part in the competition with other players. Relaxing soundtracks and beautiful backgrounds create a pleasant meditative atmosphere. Maybe we will find your name on the leaderboard some day!

Another choice to kill a spare minute is simple but absorbing puzzle game 2048. You get some tiles numbered 2, 4 on a 4×4 grid. Your goal is to make a tile with a value of 2048. You do that by pushing the tiles around the grid with the arrows on your keyboard. Tiles will slide, when two of the same value collide, they will merge into one with twice the value. This game is good for kids and adults, everyone can have fun playing it online for free.

Computers are now everywhere. Yet, how useful a computer is for a given purpose is often defined by an application employed for the task. Happy choice can bring tremendous productivity gains, unfortunate choice can instead slow things down.

Choosing applications for school is no easy task. Sheer breadth of uses for computers in school prompts for a whole range of applications. From basic math and language in elementary school to geography and geometry in middle school to advanced writing and science in high school – no single application can cover all the needs of a modern classroom. So, it makes all the sense to look for a suite of applications to make school computers an effective learning and teaching tool.

Another thing with computers in schools is that applications for students have to be installed on all of them. Also, more than 3.9 million Chromebooks and more than 2.7 million iPads were shipped to schools only in the last year. This adds complexity and costs related to managing schools’ IT infrastructure. This also raises the bar for educational applications even higher: they now have to be available across wide range of computing platforms.

With all that online applications accessible via the Web are a great match schools and students:

online applications are instantly available without installation

based on Web technology online applications are usually accessible from wide range of devices and computing platforms

students can use the same set of applications can in the classroom and at home

Sure, online is great, but what about proven and trusted applications we use on our desktop computers? – you would ask. This is exactly where rollApp comes to help. It combines the best of both worlds by making desktop apps available online in one easy to use and manage package.

A little while ago we created rollApp Wishlist – a place for you to suggest applications you would love to see on rollApp and vote for apps suggested by others. We've got some great suggestions so far and learned a few things about what kind of applications users want to use online.

Today we are ready to make first wishes come true Skype and Dwarf Fortress are now available online on rollApp.

Everybody knows Skype – great chat and voice and video calling application. Skype on rollApp does not support multimedia features (yet), but it allows to stay connected with your friends, participate in group chats and send and receive files in your Dropbox, Google Drive and other connected storage.

Drawf Fortress is another beast – very special fantasy game for those, who understand. You can control a dwarven outpost or an adventurer in a randomly generated, persistent world. With rollApp you now can do that online from almost any device.

Word processors like LibreOffice Writer and OpenOffice Writer unsurprisingly one of the most used applications on our platform. No wonder users of these apps were the one asking for ability to print their documents most vocally. And the day has come: you can now print your document form LibreOffice and OpenOffice applications on rollApp!

Printing works the way you would expect: you go to the File menu, click Print..., select rollApp Cloud Printer in the Print dialog and click OK to print the document.

When the application is done printing the document, it will be sent to your computer and another print dialog will appear. There you can double check settings of your printer and when you click Print it will start transferring your document to the paper.

This is still an experimental feature and may not be readily available in all the applications, but it will as update them. Stay tuned!

We continue to build our collection of educational apps. If you are looking for tools to help you get started with programing – we have great apps for learing programming, which you can use on any device online. Today we'll have a closer look at BASIC-256 and KTurtle.

BASIC-256 is a great app which will help anyone to understand the basics of computer programming. BASIC-256 has a built-in graphics mode which lets you draw graphs in minutes and can also help with mathematics assignments. This would be especially interesting to middle and high-school students.

KTurtle is a great tool for the youngest programmers that makes learning to define algorithms as easy as possible. One of the best things about KTurtle is that it allows to translate programs into plain English (or another natural language for that matter). This is one of the many ways KTurtle tries to make learning to programming more simple. Other features to aid in learning programming include intuitive syntax highlighting, simple error messages, integrated canvas to make drawings on, integrated help function, slow-motion or step execution, and more.

We also have powerful tools for professional developers available via the rollApp platform on any device. Check them out too!

We have diverse collection of the applications available on our online platform, including any apps for educations. Today we want to tell you about applications that can help you in studying chemistry.

Simple and effective gElemental is a periodic table viewer that provides detailed information on the chemical elements. It offers a broad, up-to-date data set, thematic coloring and a sortable list view.

Another app is Cain: it allows to perform simulations of chemical reactions and can spawn multiple simulation processes. The reactions may have mass-action kinetic laws or arbitrary propensity functions. Once you have run a simulation to generate trajectories (possible realizations of the system) you can visualize the results by plotting the species populations or reactions counts.

Kalzium is an all-around chemistry application. Kalzium includes a Periodic Table of Elements, chemical reference, chemical equation solver, and 3D molecule viewer. With the help of rollApp you can launch it from any device online!

This is going to be our shortest blog post ever.

There are many great apps available online on rollApp and today we would like to tell you about gEDA. gEDA project is developing a toolkit of Electronic Design Automation tools for electrical circuit design, schematic capture, simulation, prototyping, and production. The tools involved in the suite enable professional-quality design of schemes of low- to mid-level complexity. Using the gEDA tools, you can create PCB of up to 8 layers with an unlimited number of components and nets.

Another great tool for the creation of professional schematics is KiCad. It comes with a rich set of libraries with 3D models and allows to design printed circuit board up to 32 copper layers.

gEDA and KiCad on rollApp make it possible to work on your schemes on any device – even tablet or smartphone. It works great on Chromebooks, which makes it a great tool for students, who study electronics.

For thousands of years people have been looking up at the stars at night. The invention of the telescope was a major step in the study of our universe. Today, technology has leaped forward and we can look at the stars, learn the constellations and galaxies with a computer. Stellarium on rollApp allows to explore the skies on any device – tablet, Chromebook, or smartphone online.

Stellarium is a planetarium for your device. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.

This application is a great lense to learn about the Universe with default catalogue of over 600,000 stars, asterisms and illustrations of the constellations, realistic Milky Way, very realistic atmosphere, sunrise and sunset, planets and their satellites and much more!

Krita is a powerful digital painting program used by artists all over the world. And latest and greatest version of Krita (2.9.4) is now available on rollApp.

Krita has a lot of interesting functions like multiple brushing and blending modes, advanced symmetry and masking tools, and allows to create true digital masterpieces. Check out examples of great work done in Krita in the artwork gallery.

Here is what Dmytro Bidnyak, Senior Designer at rollApp, says about Krita: "I’m really impressed with Krita 2.9. This is very interesting solution for digital painting and sketching. It has stunning performance and a magnificent collection of brushes. I think, Krita's digital pencil is one of the best I ever saw." Take a look at Dmytro's work on his site.

Krita developers have set an ambitious goal to make their software faster than Photoshop when working with big canvases with big brushes. Krita Foundation currently runs Kickstarter campaign to support further development. Let's help make great software even better!

Guest post by Andrew McClure, director AgSense (NZ)

A few weeks ago an email came in from the QGIS developer mailing list about this new provider that was offering QGIS in the cloud. Included was a link to rollApp rollapp.com/app/qgis.

This was very exciting news. For the last few years we'd been working to develop a plugin to integrate temporal telemetry data into the spatial data tools provided via QGIS using the increasingly popular I.o.T (Internet of Things) protocol MQTT. We called our plugin Telemetry Layer (see screen shot with our farm below).

Finally we could offer farmers access to their farm maps (and telemetry data from their sensors) from anywhere with internet connectivity.

Moreover, it opens up a new paradigm of opportunities for the nascent UAV imaging/surveying industry — a cloud based QGIS project could have its raster layers updated by a 3rd party with high speed internet access. Additional 3rd parties could then access the data and provide analytics. The opportunities are many and varied.

On initial investigation we found a few glitches with the QGIS implementation available but Dima Malenko (CTO of rollApp) and the team at rollApp were quick to address these and get our plugin working. They have been great to deal with!

Today I used node.js to roll a generic dynamic mqtt proxy so that our clients will be able to login to a single host/port and have QGIS via the cloud connect to their local MQTT enabled sensor devices. All the pieces are in place for an I.o.T. solution — bar some minor tidy up.

Telemetry Layer has been open sourced if you are interested in our approach for your own project. See: plugins.qgis.org/plugins/TelemetryLayer.

Continuing to update apps in rollApp cloud apps collection we made available new release of Brackets, which recently upgraded to version 1.3. Brackets is a lightweight, yet powerful, modern text editor for software developers. What differentiates Brackets from other text editors for developers is the convenience of in-browser developer tools: make changes to CSS or HTML and you'll instantly see those changes on screen. Also there is the Extract for Brackets (Preview) extension. It lets you pull out design information from a PSD including colors, fonts, gradients, and measurement information as clean, minimal CSS via contextual code hints. 

Version 1.3 brings a lot of features such as command line integration, code folding and Brackets Health Report to help further improve the application. Check out release notes for the complete list of changes in the new version. 

With rollApp you can use Brackets on any device with just a web browser. You can even turn your iPad or Android tablet into web development powerhouse. Try it online on rollApp now!