Settings Reference
BlackboardView includes a Settings screen where you can adjust how the app looks and behaves to fit your classroom, your eyesight, and your projector. This guide explains every setting and what it does.
How to Get to Settings
From the Home screen, look for the Settings option (often shown as a gear icon). Tap it to open the Settings screen. Any changes you make take effect right away and are remembered the next time you open the app — you don’t need to save them manually.
Every Setting, Explained
Color Scheme
Controls whether the app appears in light mode, dark mode, or follows your iPad’s system-wide setting.
- System (default) — matches whatever your iPad is currently set to.
- Light — always use light mode, regardless of your iPad’s setting.
- Dark — always use dark mode, regardless of your iPad’s setting.
Tip: dark mode can be easier on the eyes in a dimly lit classroom during a projector-based lesson.
Notes Text Size
Controls the size of the text in your private Notes, and also the size of the Blackboard content as shown on your iPad (not the projector — see “Blackboard Text Size” below for that). The default is a comfortable reading size for a device you’re holding close to you.
Increase this if you find yourself squinting at your own notes; decrease it if you’d like to fit more text on screen at once.
Blackboard Text Size
Controls the size of text on the external display only — your projector or TV. This is a separate setting from Notes Text Size because the right size for something you’re holding close to your face (your iPad) is very different from the right size for something students are reading from across a room. The default is significantly larger than the Notes default, calibrated for classroom visibility.
If students in the back of the room have trouble reading the board, increase this setting before your next class.
Overflow Mode
Controls what happens when there’s more text in a blackboard column than fits on screen at once:
- Shrink (default) — the text automatically gets smaller to fit everything in view at once.
- Paginate — instead of shrinking, the text is split across multiple pages you can page through, keeping the text size consistent.
Choose Shrink if you’d rather see everything at a glance, even if smaller. Choose Paginate if consistent, larger text matters more to you than fitting everything on one screen.
Keep Screen Awake
When turned on (the default), your iPad’s screen will not automatically dim or lock itself while you’re actively teaching a lesson — useful since you don’t want your screen going dark, or worse, your projected content disappearing, in the middle of a class discussion.
Turn this off only if you have a specific reason to let your iPad sleep normally during a session (for example, to save battery during a very long, mostly hands-off session).
Last View Mode
This isn’t a setting you change directly in the Settings screen — it’s simply BlackboardView remembering whichever of Notes / Blackboard / Both you last used while teaching, so the next lesson opens in the same mode automatically. See View Modes for more on how these work.
What’s Next
- View Modes — more on Notes, Blackboard, and Both
- Multi-Column Layout — how Overflow Mode affects long text in columns
- Saving and Reopening Files — how your lesson files are stored and reopened