Open a document with other people and it comes alive. Everyone sees each other move, select, and edit in real time, so it feels like working at the same whiteboard. Nothing needs setting up: as soon as two or more people are in a shared document, presence just appears.
Live cursors
You see everyone else's pointer move around the canvas, each labelled with their name in their own colour. Cursors are tied to a tab, so you only see the cursors of the people looking at the same tab as you. When someone moves to a different tab, their cursor follows them there.
Moving things together
When someone drags, resizes or reshapes something, you see it move as they do, with any arrows attached to it following along, and it settles where they let go. If they press Escape halfway, it simply goes back. Editors can move anything, Participants only what they added themselves, and Viewers nothing.
Who is here, and where
Each person is given a colour and a name. Signed-in people show their account name; everyone else gets a friendly auto-generated name like "Curious Otter". You can see who is around in two places:
- On each tab, small initials show who is currently looking at that tab, so you can tell at a glance where everyone is working.
- A coloured ring around someone shows whether they are active, away (after five quiet minutes), or have gone offline. Hover an avatar for their name and status.
Collaborators
Click any avatar on a tab, or the +N badge when a tab is busy, to open Collaborators. It lists everyone in the document grouped by the tab they are on, so you can see where the whole room is at once rather than hovering tab by tab. The person you clicked is highlighted.
- Your own tab is marked You're Here. Every other tab has a Go to Tab button that takes you straight there.
- Each person shows their name, their role when it is known, whether they are online, away or offline, and how long ago they were last active.
- Follow beside someone makes your view follow theirs (it changes to Stop Following while you do). See Following someone for how it works.
- The buttons to hand out the facilitator role live here too, on each person's row.
Seeing what others have selected
When someone selects an element, a small disc with their initials appears on its top-left corner, so you always know what a teammate is working on. While an Editor or Participant has it selected, that element is gently locked for everyone else, so two people can't fight over the same shape at once. A Viewer's selection only shows the disc. It frees up again the moment they click away. When you zoom far out, the discs hide until you zoom back in.
Freeing an element someone left selected
The lock clears by itself when the person clicks away, switches tab or leaves. What it can't fix on its own is someone who is still connected but has wandered off with something selected, leaving an element nobody else can touch. When that happens, it can be freed:
A small In use menu opens, with one row per person holding it, such as "Release Jae's Hold".
Who can do it. While someone is the facilitator, only they can. While nobody is facilitating, any Editor can. Participants and Viewers can't free a hold: for them, right-clicking a locked element opens nothing, as it does for an Editor while somebody else is facilitating.
What the holder sees. As the menu says: "They keep their work; it just stops being theirs to edit." Their selection is dropped, and if they were typing into the element, that editing ends too, but the element itself is not changed. A short notification tells them "The facilitator freed an element you were holding", so it doesn't look like a glitch. Nobody else in the room is told anything; the element simply stops looking locked.
Agents at work
An AI agent or a script working on a document with an API token can show itself while it works. It appears under its owner's name and colour, never as a new person:
- What it is doing shows beside its owner: in the hover card on their avatar, on their row in Collaborators, and in what a screen reader announces. When the owner is not on that tab, the agent gets an avatar of its own there.
- What it is looking at is outlined with a thin ring in its owner's colour. The ring never locks anything: you can keep working on those elements.
- It leaves on its own a little while after it stops working, so a finished or stopped agent never lingers.
Agents are listed in Collaborators, but they are not counted as people, can't be followed, and never hold the facilitator role.
Shared laser pointer
The Laser Pointer is built for presenting together: when you draw with it, everyone on the same tab sees your glowing trail in real time, then it fades away. It is perfect for "look over here" without changing anything on the canvas.
Who can see presence
Live presence works for everyone in a shared document, including guests and people opening a share link to view, not just signed-in editors. A private document you have not shared has no presence, since it is just you, except for your own agent while it works on it.
Names and colours are chosen automatically, and a colour is nudged if two people happen to get the same one, so everyone stays easy to tell apart.
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