Live Presence

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. Only people who can edit the document move things; someone on a view-only link can't.

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 they have it selected, that element is gently locked for everyone else: hover the disc and it reads "Locked to (name)", so two people can not fight over the same shape at once. It frees up again the moment they click away. When you zoom far out, the discs hide until you zoom back in.

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 in the document 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.