Boards
Introduction
Boards let you post a URL into a room so everyone can view. With boards:
- You can share interactive content, including the ability to collaborate in real time with others.
- You can become more energy efficient and reduce battery drain. In our tests, we reduced energy use by 30% vs. an equivalent screen share.
- You can view content in high resolution and decent frame rate.
How It Works
Unlike a screen share, different people in the room may see different views of the board, depending on how they interact with it. For example, they may navigate to a new screen.
When any user edits the board's URL, it automatically updates to all people in the room. Take care when doing this; an update will reset all users actively interacting with the board.
Because of browser limitations, not all URLs will be compatible or fully work. URLs that work on iOS may not work on web. Pro tip: To increase the size of board content, hide the map and/or videos.
The guide below lists web sites we've tested and use ourselves. For the URLs below, any text [in-brackets] should be replaced with your content ID.
Images, Videos & Livestreams
Embed a YouTube livestream or video so people can have a viewing party!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/[video-id]
Use a Vimeo video as a greeting that autoplays and repeatedly loops in your guest lobby.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/[video-id]?autoplay=1&loop=1&muted=1
To ensure autoplay occurs, you must mute the video as shown in the URL above. This is due to browser restrictions.
For YouTube videos, you can use this URL to autoplay muted videos:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/[video-id]?mute=1&autoplay=1
Many items in Google Drive can be embedded. For images and videos specifically, you need to get to the embed code, which is a bit hidden:
- Open the image/video to preview it
- Tap three dots in the top right and select "Open in new window"
- In the new window, tap three dots again in the top right an select "Embed item"
- Use the URL in the src for your board
Audio Livestreams & Internet Radio
iHeart Radio URLs work either directly or by extracting the embed URL. Note that the embed URL does not have volume controls, and that depending on the size of the board, the volume controls may not be visible. This may become problematic in active conversations when the music is too loud.
If you have some coding skill, you can use Codepen to craft your own background music player. We can share a few examples if you email us.
Guided Presentations
Guided presentations are when one person controls what's seen, so that all viewers see the same thing. The main benefits of a guided presentation over a traditional screen share: works better for those with spotty Wi-Fi and shows graphics/text in crisp, high-res rather than pixelated.
Use PowerPoint Present Live to present to others using just your Chrome browser — no native PowerPoint app needed! (To bypass full-screen presentation, tap Command-T or Control-T to force the presentation into a tab.)
Use the URL starting with https://ppt.ms provided by PowerPoint. Alternatively, set the board to https://ppt.ms, then share the code manually to participants.
By downloading the Figma plugin "Slide Show" you can also share guided presentations. To embed a Figma prototype, you modify the embed code to just the src link, then add %26hide-ui=1 at the end. Below is a sample of what that URL should look like:
https://www.figma.com/embed?embed_host=share&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.figma.com%2Fproto%2F23g6bRTiIOhH7tTa3Tv3Fg%2FLexGo-Onboarding%3Fnode-id%3D2%253A49%26viewport%3D-51%252C645%252C0.43952667713165283%26scaling%3Dcontain%26hide-ui=1
To improve that Figma share, you might want to set the background color of the prototype to match your presentation. Additionally, if you see something other than "contain" at the end of your URL, you might want to change it to "contain" so that it scales automatically with the board.
We continue to research other options, and will have more updates in the near future.
Non-Guided Presentations
Ingage works really well with LexGo Work, and comes highly recommended for this use case. Here's a sample link (kindly provided by Ingage) if you want to test it out for yourself:
https://web.ingage.io/p/M44frmU?c=lextech
Prezi works if you use the embed link. Unfortunately you cannot auto-start a presentation; the viewer must press it first.
Figma works well and offers rich animations and various slide sizes. A presentation can either be created with automatic navigation (triggered after a delay), manual navigation or both.
You can share a Keynote uploaded to iCloud if you create a link that anyone can view. All you have to do is modify the link from something like:
https://www.icloud.com/keynote/[file-id]#[file-name]
to: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/[file-id]?embed=true
This won't show animations but will display your slide content.
While you can share a view-only version of a Google Slides document just fine, we still haven't figured out how to share just the view-only presentation itself. We continue to investigate this and other options.
Interactive Whiteboards
Get the URL of your Miro whiteboard by following these directions. For LexGo, you do NOT need the full URL embed code: Just the part in quotes that starts with https://miro.com, e.g.
https://miro.com/app/embed/[your-id]
If you want to share a Miro board that people can edit, you need to change the URL slightly, and make sure all participants have edit access to the board you're sharing, e.g.
https://miro.com/app/live-embed/[your-id]
We continue to research other options, and will have more updates in the near future.
Drawing & Design
Similar to Miro above, using Figma you can extract the URL from the embed code to share design work and prototypes with others. You do NOT need the full URL embed code.
For collaborative drawing, try excalidraw.com. Create a live-collaboration session and put that URL on the board:
https://excalidraw.com/#room=[room-id]
CryptPad.fr has a Whiteboard option that can be embedded. To get the shared URL link, tap "Share" in the toolbar and check "Embed Mode (hide toolbar and user list)" to get the URL. It works great with Apple Pencil in the iOS app!
For design documents that just need view-only access, Whimsical embeds work just fine. Just use the "embed" URL and enable public access.
For viewing 3-D models, we have tested Sketchfab.
Chat & Shared Text Files
Many Google Drive documents should work with the shared URL link.
For those looking for an alternative to Google Drive, CryptPad.fr has a suite of tools that can be embedded in any board. To get the shared URL link, tap "Share" in the toolbar and check "Embed Mode (hide toolbar and user list)" to get the URL.
For quick snippets of shared text, writeURL.com makes it easy to generate a link to a new doc for anyone in the room to type in. (Note: Anyone in incognito mode will not be able to view the doc).
While we are 100% against chat in LexGo, we also know we can't stop you. We tested minnit.chat and it worked well. To do an embed of just the chat window, just add "?embed" to the end of your URL.
Web Sites
If your web site allows for embedding (or whitelists the lexgo.live domain) then your web site should be shareable. Unfortunately some web site hosts (e.g. Webflow) do not allow for embedding.
Although Notion is not embeddable, services that let you convert Notion pages to web sites are embeddable. We've tested sites hosted by super.co can be embedded.
Gaming
Games are great for building connection between peers and co-workers! Many games you play online work well in LexGo. Two favorites are skribbl.io (which incidentally works great on the iPad app with Apple Pencil) and codenames.game. If planning a private game, please generate your unique game URL first.
Another game, which is a bit more challenging but fun and competitive is setwithfriends.com which you can set up with both participants and observers.
The site jklm.fun has two games that work well with LexGo: A typing word completion game called BombParty, and an image-based trivia game called PopSauce.
For traditional card games, check out deckofcards.net.
The following sites work in LexGo once you get the custom URL for your specific game:
Real-Time Dashboards
We use Geckoboard and recommend it to others.
Technical Support
If you're running events in LexGo, one helpful tip is to set up one or more rooms for tech support. For instance:
- Participants having mic or camera issues can be invited to a "A/V Troubleshooting" room, in which you can embed minnit.chat to work out issues via text chat.
- Prior to the event, presenters can visit a "Bandwidth Test" room, in which you can embed https://broadbandnow.com/speedtest to make sure they have a solid internet connection prior to hitting the stage.
