Recently Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9. If you upgrade to IE9, you will need Oracle Java version 1.6.0_24 (Update 24) or later to use Sketcher. This update is required to satisfy the new security requirements imposed by IE9. If you use a different browser or older version of IE, you should be able to continue to use Sketcher with an older version of Java without issue.
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As an experiment, we have created a way of accessing Sketcher rooms without an ArtGrounds account. Any unregistered user attempting to enter a Sketcher room will be signed in as "Viewer" followed by a random number, for instance "Viewer1234".
For obvious reasons, viewers aren't allowed to interact with the room in any way, except for entering or leaving it. Chat is read-only for viewers, to avoid disruptions, so do not expect any replies from them. At some point, we may add an "Allow/Deny chat from viewers" option in the client and let you decide for yourself instead...
We released an update to Sketcher that drastically improves the compression algorythims. Users should see a noticible improvement in Sketcher load times.
(more)The Doodle layer and the Pen tool are now selected by default when starting Sketcher. This should make things easier for beginners. Patched bug where tool would switch when other users signed in.
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