Panels
Messages
Open it with ⌘K and recados, contatos, caixa or correio. There is one panel per canvas, and
the mailbox belongs to this Mac: the same messages appear in whichever canvas you open.
Messages are part of the Team plan. See license.
Getting on someone's list
Nobody is findable by search. The link is created by invitation, in Settings → Contacts.
- How you appear: the name your contacts see. Saving changes the name for whoever already added you, and the screen says how many contacts now see the new name. With no name you show up as "No name yet" on other people's lists, and you become unreachable by name, including for Nina and for the agents.
- Invite someone: generates a 6-character code, valid for 10 minutes and for one person only. The invitation window replaces the code with the name of whoever came in the moment somebody redeems it.
- I have a code: the other side of the invitation. Type the code the person gave you.
- The contact list: shows the name, how many Macs that person has and the fingerprint of their key. The not receiving messages label marks whoever has CanvasCode inactive.
- Remove: cuts the link immediately, on both sides. To come back, one has to invite the other again.
The link is always mutual. Neither side sees the other's canvas, files or agents.
When a message arrives
Two things arrive: an alert inside the canvas, which stays on screen until you act on it, and a macOS notification. Clicking either one opens the message on top of the canvas.
An open message shows who sent it, the fingerprint of the origin key, the signature verified seal, the text, the addresses mentioned in the body and the attachments.
- Reply: writes the reply and sends it back to whoever wrote.
- Send to an agent: hands the whole message to an agent in this canvas or another one, with the sender, the subject, the text and the files already written to disk.
- Open an agent with this: replaces the highlighted button when the message proposes work. The agent is only born when you click.
- Archive: takes the message off the screen and keeps it in the panel.
A message from a newer version of CanvasCode does not open: the screen says so and it stays stored until you update.
What you can do with what came along
| what arrived | what you can do |
|---|---|
| image | Paste into the canvas · Open in the canvas · Save as… · Send to an agent |
| text, code, markdown | Open in the canvas · Save as… · Send to an agent |
| a screen design | Import into my canvas · Save as… · Send to an agent |
| any other file | Save as… · Send to an agent |
| an address in the body | Open in the browser, or Open in media when it is a video |
Importing a design creates a new file in this canvas, with the tokens and fonts of whoever designed it, and touches none of yours.
The panel
- Received: what arrived, with a bar on the left marking the unread and the replied label on what already has an answer. Clicking a message opens it.
- Sent: what left this Mac, with delivered and to how many Macs, or the reason why the send did not go through.
- The filter: narrows the tab to one person's correspondence. It only offers names that have something in that tab.
- New message: writes a message to a contact.
What lives where
The content is sealed on this Mac and only opens on the Mac of whoever receives it. The keys stay on this computer, and go neither to the server nor to iCloud. Moving to another Mac means new contacts, and the history does not come along.
When a contact's keys change, the app shows the change in the list: a reinstall and a hijacked account arrive here as the same request, and the one who knows the difference is you.
The agents send too
An agent lists your contacts, reads what arrived, replies to a message and sends a new one, with a file of up to 5 MB attached. Reading a message through a tool marks it as read, and the panel stops showing it as new. Attachments are not read by it: they come cited by name, and the one who opens them is you. See the agent uses your lists.