Get started with live collaboration

Add your group's collaboration server, sign in, open a project someone shared with you, and manage your servers and devices.

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To join a shared project, you need two things from the person who runs your group’s server: its address, and a way in. They add you by email address, by sign-in name or by your institution’s domain. A project owner can also invite you as a guest.

If you got an email from the server, it has an Add to Oleafly link. Select it and Oleafly adds the server for you. Otherwise, add it by hand.

Add the server

First, turn on Live collaboration in Settings → Experimentation.

Open Settings → Collaboration and select Add server.
Enter the Server address you were given, such as collab.example.edu, and select Continue. Oleafly checks the server before you sign in. Collaboration servers need an address that uses https.
Choose a way to sign in. The options depend on what the server’s admin set up.

A browser sign-in: you sign in with your provider, the server checks who can join, and Oleafly carries on by itself.

With your institution or GitHub

Select Continue with followed by the option you want, such as Continue with GitHub or your university’s login. Your browser opens. Sign in there, then come back to Oleafly. Oleafly never sees your password.

With an email link

If the server offers it, select Continue with Email. A page from the server opens in your browser.

Enter your email address and select Email me a link.
Open the email on the same computer and select its Sign in button.
On the page that opens, select Sign in. Oleafly carries on by itself.

The link works once, for 15 minutes. If you already signed in to this server another way with the same verified address, the link signs you in to that same account.

With a code

Some computers can’t send the browser back to Oleafly after a sign-in, such as a locked-down lab machine. Use Sign in with a code there. Oleafly also offers it when a browser sign-in takes more than 20 seconds.

Oleafly shows an address on your server and an eight-letter code.
On any phone or computer, open that address, type the code and select Continue.
The page names the computer that asked. Check the name, then sign in with any option the server offers. Oleafly finishes signing in by itself.

A code works once and stops working after 10 minutes. If you didn’t start the sign-in, select Stop, this wasn’t me.

When you’re done

Oleafly says Connected to and the server’s name. Select Done. The server now appears in Settings → Collaboration as Signed in.

If the server answers “You’re not on this server’s list yet”, ask its admin to add you. Troubleshooting covers other sign-in messages.

Open a project shared with you

Projects shared with you appear in the library under Shared with you, above your own projects. Each row names the owner, the server and your role. Select Open. Oleafly copies the project into your library and opens it.

From then on, the project sits in your library like any other, with a Shared flag. Its files are real files in your projects folder. Its main document and engine are set for the whole project, so they’re the same for everyone.

Open a project from a link

People can also send you a project’s link.

From an email, the link opens Oleafly directly.
From anywhere else, open Import in the library, choose Open shared project link…, paste the link and select Open.

Before you join, Oleafly asks “Join this shared project?” and shows the project, its owner, the server and your role. Joining copies the project’s files to this computer. Only select Join if you know who sent you the link.

If the link belongs to a server you haven’t added yet, add the server first, then open the link again.

Start editing

Type as you would in any project. Your changes reach the others as you type, and theirs reach you. Work together explains what you see on screen.

If you’re a reviewer, what you type becomes a suggestion. If you’re a viewer, the editor is read-only, and you can still read, compile and export. Roles lists what each role can do.

Choose what others see

Under What others see in Settings → Collaboration, pick one:

Show my cursor: others see your cursor, your selection and the file you’re in.
Show only which file I’m in: others see the file, but not where you are in it.
Hide me: others don’t see your cursor or which file you’re in.

Set it separately on each computer.

More than one server

You can add several servers, for example one for your lab and one for a project with another university. Each shared project lives on one server. Shared with you lists projects from every server you’re signed in to.

Your devices

Sign in on each computer you use. The server’s card in Settings → Collaboration lists Your devices, with the date each one was added and last seen. Select Sign out beside a computer you no longer use. That computer stops syncing until someone signs in on it again.

When your account signs in on a new computer, the server emails you the device’s name, its system and the time, if the server sends email. If it wasn’t you, sign that device out.

On a shared computer, each person needs their own user account. If someone else already signed in to the server from the same user account, Oleafly won’t sign in a second person.

Email from the server

When someone adds you to a project, the server can email you the project’s title, who shared it, your role and a link that opens it. To stop these, turn off Email me when someone shares a project on the server’s card. Projects shared with you still show up under Shared with you.

When someone mentions you in a comment, the server emails you about it. Read Mention someone.

If the server doesn’t send email, you won’t get these messages. Everything else works the same.

Sign out

Select Sign out on the server’s card. Oleafly first tries for a few seconds to send any changes the server doesn’t have yet.

If some still haven’t gone out, Oleafly asks what to do with them:

Keep a local copy keeps each of those projects on this computer as an ordinary, unshared project named “project (local copy)”, with your changes in it. Then it signs you out.
Stay signed in keeps you signed in, so you can try again once you’re back online.

Remove on the server’s card signs you out and forgets the server. It asks the same question about unsent changes. Projects already on this computer stay where they are.