Here are some of the basics of using Net Painter. Read through all of this before attempting a Net Painter session. There are many variables that can cause Painter to freeze, cause a disconnection, or cause all participants not to see the same things painted on the Canvas. In my sessions with Jeffrey Kraus and his Anderson High School students in Ohio, we had many a crash and many a disconnection. Through trial and error, what I type below is what we learned (and still, there were times when we had problems, perhaps due to servers, network traffic, and poultergeists). We did have many successful and enjoyable Net Painter sessions too, and plan to continue now that school is back in session.

After you've read through this material, print it out. Just before it's time for our Net Painter instruction meeting go to theMessages area of the netpainting group send a "hello" message to the group so everyone will know you've arrived. Then open an second browser window and go to the netpainting group Chat room where we'll hold the meeting. If possible, open Painter 6.0.3 so you can refer to the Painter interface while we chat. 

We're not going to do a Net Painter session until we finish this meeting, so please don't try setting it up or making a connection until the meeting's over and two or more of you decide to give it a try. It's easy to get excited and want to begin, but it'll pay off to stick around until everyone's finished asking and answering questions and bringing up things we hadn't thought of before that might encourage a successful Net Painter session.

1. All participants need to use the same Painter version, including patches (this may not be a requirement in all cases, but in my experience doing sessions with Anderson High School students, it seems to have been, as we crashed or could not connect when not using the same version).

2. All participants need to use the same libraries (using all, and only, default libraries is the safest). Any Brush variants, for instance, that have been created by one of the participants will not be present in the other participants' libraries unless they've been sent to all participants and all participants have them in their Painter 6\Network Folder so if they're used the other participants won't see painting done with them.

NOTE: Prior to connecting for a Net Painter session, arrange your palettes so that maximim area in the center of the screen is available for the Canvas. On my 17" monitor, a 500 x 500 
300 ppi Canvas fits nicely between the palettes with room to stretch the window and see the Canvas edges. I have a custom Net Painter palette arrangement saved so I can quickly choose it before doing a session. Since my Objects palette covers the Art Materials palette, I use Ctrl-3 (Art Materials) and Ctrl-4 (Objects) to toggle them off and on and bring one or the other of them to the front without having to change their positions. If a palette is behind another palette, use the keystrokes once to close the palette, and a second time to open it and bring it to the front.

Take a look at a screen print of my Net Painter palette arrangement and learn how to save your own palette arrangement.

3. Only when all participants are connected, use the Net Painter Chat window to decide who will begin the session. No one else should open a Canvas, except the first participant to take control of the Painter screen. Agree on the Canvas dimensions and resolution before beginning. This will be important since all participants may not have the same screen size. The size should accomodate the smaller of all participants' screens.

NOTE: It works pretty well when each participant paints for 5 minutes or so before turning control over to the next participant, but that time can be agreed upon by the participants.

4. Participant #1 clicks the Green Light in the upper Net Painter window. When the light turns Green, he/she has control of the Painter screen and opens the Canvas.

Other participants will see a new Canvas open on their screen, but Painter is disabled at their end. They will, however, be able to position the Canvas in the center of their screen and stretch 
its window. 

5. Before painting, Participant #1 saves the new Canvas with a unique name that will make some sense to all participants (for instance, Jin-Troy-9-9-00.rif or J-T-M-9-9-00.rif) then begins to paint. The other participants should see the new file name appear at the top of their Canvas window. 

NOTE: We will need to test this to be sure, as I can find nothing in the Painter documentation that explains it, but I believe that when a participant saves the file, it is also saved in the other participants' Painter 6\Network Folder. If each participant saves the file just before turning over control to another participant, all participants should then have the same version in their Painter 6\Network Folder. 

If one or more of the participants experiences a Painter crash or loses connection, all participants can disconnect, close the file, wait 5 to 10 minutes, then reconnect to the host computer. The last participant to save the file while all participants were still connected can send it to the other participants.

To do this, from the Net Painter dropdown menu, choose Send File on Net, find the file in the Painter 6\Network Folder and hit the OK or Send button (I can't check this wording for accuracy since the Send File on Net option is greyed out, while I'm not connected to another computer but it should be something close to that.) When the file is recieved by the other participants, it will automatically be placed in their Painter 6\Network Folder. 

If the file is large, it may be better to either e-mail the file to each of the other participants or upload the file to the Files area of the netpainting group. Another option would be to upload it to a server where the other participants can use FTP software to download it (this would require arranging the FTP setup prior to beginning the Send File on Net session so it may be the least practical or convenient option. 

If the file is not sent through Send File on Net Send File on Net, once the file is received by each of the other participants, they need to manually place it in their Painter 6\Network Folder.

When all participants have checked their Painter 6\Network Folder to see that the file has arrived, or they have received the file and manually placed it in their Painter 6\Network Folder the painting session can continue. 

6. When Participant #1 has finished painting and saved the painted Canvas again, he/she clicks the Red Light to allow the next participant to take control and lets the other participants know via the Net Painter Chat window.

7. Participant #2 clicks the Green Light and begins to paint. 

8. When Participant #2 is finished painting, he/she saves the painted Canvas again and clicks the Red Light to allow the next participant to take control, letting them know via the Net Painter Chat window.

9. The next participant clicks the Green Light and begins to paint, then repeats the procedure as described above, always remembering to save the painted Canvas again before turning over control to the following participant.

SOME NOTES:

• The Yellow Light is used to "stand in line" waiting for your turn. If you click the Yellow Light, you'll automatically be given the next turn, depending on who clicked the it before you (if there are more than two participants).
• In my Net Painter sessions with Jeff Kraus and his students, I connected to their IP number at Anderson High School. 
• We had problems when Jeff tried to connect a second computer at their end. 
• We found that corresponding by e-mail when we had problems was a huge help. This way, Jeff and I could discuss possible other ways to make it work, including his giving me an alternate IP number to try. Sometimes, even then, we just had to give up for the day. 
• Most of our successful sessions occurred when there was only one computer connected at their end and if there was more than one student, they took turns on the same computer.
• I also think that some of our crashes occurred when we tried to use some of the features of Painter that made too much demand on system resources. This would vary with the systems being used and other variables.
• Jeff and I tried once connecting while we had FireTalk (voice chat) running. That crashed my system.. and I think it's because it was competing with Net Painter to send and receive. (FireTalk is fun, but it messes up my system even beyond the problem with Net Painter.)

1. In the Objects palette, Net Painter section, click the small arrow at the upper right corner to open the Net Painter dropdown menu.

2. Click Setup. At the top of the Setup dialog box, you'll see Host IP Address:
000.000.0.0 (your IP number). If you're using a dialup account, you'll probably have a different IP number assigned by your ISP each time you log on to the web.

3. Next to User Name: type in the name you want to use.

4. Next to Chat ID: type in the nickname you want to use.

5. In Port for Painter: the number is automatically there. Don't change it. This number has to be the same one used by all participants so if all participants leave it at default, it should be the same. In my Painter 6.0.3, the default port is 2000.

6. Be sure the box next to "Disable Network Pain" is not checked. (Honest, that's not a typo. It really does say Pain in my Setup dialog box though I have a strong suspicion that it should be Painter.)

7. Although I am not able to explain the Debugging Options, leaving No Debug checked has worked for me. 

8. I leave the Display Net Stat's in Chat Ar box unchecked. (Again, Ar is not a typo. Could it be.Area?)

9. In the Objects palette, Net Painter section's dropdown menu, below Setup, click Connect and type in the IP number for the computer to which you're going to connect (that computer is the Host). Obviously, you don't need to do this if the other participants are connection to your computer (your computer is the Host).

That's about all I can think of for now. You're going to have to test this all out yourselves since we all have different computers and different ways of connecting to the internet (from home with an ISP dialup connection, DSL, Cable, from work behind a firewall, etc.)

See you in our Net Painter instruction meeting, and we can see what I didn't cover. Maybe you can add some techie expertise that I don't have and we can improve on this material as we gather more experience. 

Jinny