Collaboration Guide

Turning collaboration on

1. 1

   Save the puzzle

   An invite link points at a saved puzzle, so a brand-new one has nothing to point at yet. You also need to be signed in — an invite has to come from an account.

2. 2

   Open the Collab tab

   It is the last tab in the editor's side panel, after Info.

3. 3

   Tick Enable collaboration

   The rest of the panel appears: invite links, the list of people on the puzzle, comments, and version history.

Invite links and roles

Only the puzzle's owner can create links. Pick a role and an expiry, press Create invite link, and send the link yourself — nothing is emailed for you. The link is shown once: it is stored only as a fingerprint, so if you lose it there is no way to recover it and you simply make another.

What the owner keeps

Publishing, deleting, and the collaboration settings themselves stay with the owner. An Editor can change every square in the puzzle but cannot publish it, cannot delete it, and cannot invite anyone.

Managing links and people

• Expiry. 7, 14 or 30 days, or never. A link is multi-use until it expires — the same link can bring in a whole test-solving group.
• Restrict to one email. Optional. With an address set, only the person signed in with that address can use the link, so a forwarded link is useless to anybody else.
• Revoke. Stops anyone who has not used the link yet. People who have already joined keep their access — remove them from the collaborator list instead.
• Change a role. Use the dropdown next to somebody's name. Their editor switches over live; they do not have to reload.

Comments

Comments are notes for your team — "this crossing is rough", "can we lose the abbreviation?". Only people on the puzzle can read them. Solvers never see them, not even after the puzzle is published.

• On a clue. Select a clue in the Clues panel and use the comment control on its row. A clue that already has comments shows a permanent count badge, so you can see at a glance where the discussion is.
• On the puzzle as a whole. Open puzzle comments in the Collab tab. This is also where notes end up if the clue they were written against gets renumbered away — they are grouped under On removed clues rather than being silently deleted.
• Replies are one level deep. A reply lives wherever its root does.

Resolving a thread

Resolve marks a whole thread as dealt with and takes it out of the way. Resolved threads are not deleted — they collapse behind Show resolved at the bottom of the panel, and anybody can reopen one.

• The owner and Editors can resolve any thread.
• A Commenter can resolve threads they started.
• Resolve the first comment; a reply cannot be resolved on its own.

The count badges only ever show open comments, so resolving a thread clears its badge from the clue row and from the Collab tab's button.

Version history

Every save of a puzzle is recorded automatically — collaborating or not. Open Browse saved versions in the Collab tab to see them, newest first, with who saved each one and when.

• Pick a version to compare it with what is in your editor right now. You get a count of the squares and clues that differ, a mini-grid with every changed square outlined, and the actual before-and-after text of each changed clue.
• Restore puts that version back into your editor. Your current state is snapshotted first — labelled Before restore — so a restore is never a one-way door.
• A restore is not saved for you. It loads into the editor and the puzzle goes dirty; nothing is written until you save, so you can look at an old version and walk away from it.

History is available to the owner and to Editors. A Commenter cannot open it, because restoring ends in a save and a Commenter cannot save.

Solving together

The other half of collaboration, and the one for solvers rather than constructors: several people, one grid, one clock. It works on any published puzzle.

1. 1

   Press Solve together

   It is in the player's toolbar, and under More on a phone. You do not need an account to start one.

2. 2

   Share the link

   You get one straight away, and Invite hands it out again later. Anyone with the link can join.

3. 3

   Your guests pick a name

   Opening the link asks for a display name and drops them straight into the grid — no sign-up, no email. If you are already signed in you skip that step and join under the name on your account. The name is shown to the others in that session and nowhere else.

What is shared

• Every letter. Typing appears on everyone's screen as you go.
• Check, Reveal and Clear. These act on the shared grid, so they are session-wide. One person revealing an answer reveals it for the whole table — agree before you press it.
• The clock. One timer, started when the session was, reading the same number on every screen. It cannot be paused: one solver must not be able to stop another's clock.
• Where everyone is. Each person's square is marked in their own colour.

Leaving

Leave returns you to your own solve, with your own progress and your own clock, right where you left them. The others carry on without you, and the link still works if you want to come back.

If something looks wrong