habitatDesk¶
In short. Desk is where the work gets done. On Record you check a record you bring, such as an agent's session log, and keep a signed receipt of what the check found. On Words you write beside a text the Foundation holds, keep notes, save a signed history of your drafts, share the shape of your reading as a gem, and talk with invited members in a room. Everything you bring stays in your browser until you choose to save it.
The work you can do¶
Check what an agent did. Drop a session log onto Record and press Check. You see the session as plain events, whether the agent repeated something you refused, whether it wrote outside its folder, and the file's fingerprint. Download a signed trace to show someone else. Record →
Check a receipt. Drop a trace or a receipt onto Record, yours or the Foundation's, and Check tells you who signed it, whether it has changed, and for the Foundation's receipts, whether it is exactly what was published.
Write beside a text. Open a text on Words: King Lear, the Adams and Jefferson letters, climate migration documents, or a Texas AI bill. Write or paste a paragraph and press ⌘ Return. Desk sets the five nearest passages of the text beside it, in the text's own words. Nothing is written for you. Words →
Keep notes. Quote a passage with its citation, note on it, or note on your own words. Notes stay with your paragraph and go into your saves.
Save a history. Each Save writes a file holding your paragraphs, every reading and your notes, signed by your browser's key, to the place you choose: a file on your computer, or a folder in your own Google Drive. Each save names the one before it, so your saves show how the work moved. Save →
Give a gem. A gem is a small signed file that carries the positions of the paragraphs you choose, in the order they were read, and none of your words. Hand it to a teacher, a colleague or a reviewer, who can open it with Review a gem. Gems →
Talk in a room. With membership, a writer can invite other members to a room beside the draft, sharing the paragraphs with them. Remarks are tied to the words they were made on, tinted on the page, and kept in the room. They never change anyone's draft. A room's Gem-Space gathers the gems its members give. Rooms →
What Desk does not do. It doesn't write a line for you, read a meaning into your words, or decide anything. It keeps the record and makes it checkable.
The two desks at a glance¶
| Record | Words | |
|---|---|---|
| for | checking a file you bring: an agent's session log, or a receipt | writing beside a text Desk holds |
| where | habitat.ooo/desk/record | habitat.ooo/desk/king-lear and the other texts |
| access | behind the Desk password until it is fully vetted | private beta, with a password |
| you keep | signed receipts | signed saves, gems, notes; remarks in rooms |
| how-to | Record | Words · Rooms, members and gems |
Before you start¶
- Use a laptop or larger screen. Below 1024 pixels wide, Desk shows one line: "Desk is made for a laptop or larger screen."
- Light or dark follows your computer's setting.
- One browser, one key. The first time you use Desk, your browser makes a signing key. It never leaves that browser. A different browser or computer, or clearing this browser's data, gives you a new key.
- Your work lives here, not with us. Drafts and the list of receipts are kept in this browser. To keep anything for good, save it to your computer, or on Words to your own Google Drive.
Finding your way around the page¶
Both desks share one layout.
- Top left: the file drawer button (⌘ \ also opens it). Your files and saves are listed here, and on Words, the other texts.
- Top centre: the switch, Words (Words) and Record (Record), and the eye. The eye shows or hides one line saying where your work is kept and which key signs it. On Words, opening it also checks your draft.
- Top right: the drawer button. On Record the drawer is The record. On Words it holds the text, the passages beside your paragraph, your notes, and the room.
- Middle: the page itself: your file on Record, your paragraphs on Words.
- Bottom: the foot line. On Record it holds Check and Save. On Words it says when your browser last kept your draft, then Save; at the far left, the ? opens About Habitat Desk. Gems are in Room, in the drawer.
Both drawers can be resized: drag their edge, or focus the edge and use the arrow keys. While you type on Words, the corner buttons fade; move the mouse and they come back.
What is kept where, item by item: What is kept, and where