Players and spoilers

Players only ever get what you give them. Their copy of the world is made on the server from what you shared, so nothing else (your notes, your board, your plan, articles you didn't share) ever reaches their device.

Inviting players

Worlds in your account can have players. On the campaign's Players tab, Create invite link and send it to your group. A player opens it, signs in, picks a name (and their character) and they're in. New link makes a fresh link; Turn off stops the link working. Players who joined are listed under Joined.

What's new

The bell at the top (next to the world's name, or in the top bar on a phone) shows when a player joins one of your campaigns, answers a date poll, or shares a note with you. The number is how many are new. Tap the bell to see the list of the last 30 days; opening it marks them as seen. Tap one to go to that campaign's Players tab, where you can read the note. The list never shows a note's text, and notes a player keeps to themselves never show up.

What to give them

The introduction: the first thing every player reads, at the top of their page and their primer. Write the introduction on the Players tab.
The primer: what they read before play. Suggested primer offers their characters and the places and people around them; tick what fits. Players read its articles in the order of the Primer list on the Players tab: drag one by its handle, or tap the up and down arrows. Until you change it, players read them in the order you shared them: first shared, first read. The order only sorts what each player already has: putting an article in the order never shares it. In the campaign's file it's a plain list of links, primer_order:.
During play: hand things out from the session (see At the table) or from a beat's handouts.

You can share these kinds of things:

An article: its text and fields.
A secret: one secret from an article's GM notes, without the article itself.
A passage: a part of an article held back with Later, released by name.
A map: its picture (the players' version, if it has one) with the pins for the articles they have.
A pin on a map that isn't an article: The Sunken Chapel, room 14. A pin for an article follows that article instead. See Maps.

Every share goes to Everyone or to chosen players. Share an article, Share a secret, Share a map, Hand out… and Release… end with one button for each choice: Everyone, and one per player. Tapping one sends it to exactly who it names, in one tap; nothing goes out before. Several… lets you tick more than one player, then press the button. Before the campaign has players, the only button is Everyone in the campaign: whoever joins later gets it. In an article's share button, tick a player's name to share with only them; that unticks Everyone.

Held back on the Players tab lists the Later passages in articles you shared. Release… asks who gets the passage: tap Everyone or a player, and nothing goes out before. Released to some players only, Release to more… gives it to others too; Take back hides it again.

If an article has nothing players could read yet (all of it GM only, held back, or not written), Canopy says so before you share or hand it out, so nobody opens an empty page.

Players see what's new since they last looked at the top of their page, and when something was handed out in a session, its number ("Handed out in session 3"), never the session's name. What players see is in For players.

Sharing a secret on its own

Write the secret in the article's GM notes (each heading there is one secret). Then any of these:

On the article: with a campaign picked as Active in the sidebar, every secret in the GM notes has its own share button. No campaign Active? The GM notes offer Share these secrets with the players of…: pick the campaign and the buttons appear.
On the campaign's Players tab: Share a secret, type the secret's title (or pick the article and the secret), then who gets it.
During play: Hand out… on the session; you can type the secret's own title to find it.

Players get the secret's title and text, not the article (unless you share that too), and never your Only for you lines. The form says so under each title (Players see this title when you share the secret), so keep private labels out of it.

The share button

With a campaign Active (see Campaigns), every article has a share button under its title. Every share on the Players tab has one too. It says Not shared, or who has it and when (in the primer, or during play in a numbered session). The ⓘ says exactly what they get: the summary they'll see on hover, the secret's text, fields left out (by the names the article shows), that how its histories tell it stays with you, and a date or a history that still holds it back. A dot on the ⓘ means there's something worth reading before you share. See it as opens the article as that player sees it.

Asking a player to write

Players write their own character from the moment they join, and any page you ask them to write. To ask, open the page's share button: Ask a player to write this… is at the foot of the box. Pick who should write it (Robin playing Nell Fenwick). Under the share button, that page then says Robin writes this page, with Stop asking. From To write, Ask a player… on a name's card does the same in two taps, and Your players write lists what your players are writing, characters included.

They get the page to write: its text and fields, never your GM notes. You can still edit it, and sharing stays yours: the other players get it only when you share it.
A page a player writes holds nothing hidden. GM only and Later aren't offered on it, and asking on a page that has them first offers Move to GM notes: GM only lines become notes, and each Later passage becomes a secret you can still share on its own. A character page you wrote before its player joined is theirs once you ask.
What they can't see stays as you wrote it when they save: a field that names something they don't have, or a link to a page they don't have.
The bell says Robin wrote on Whispering Oaks, once per page until you open it.
Credits lists your players with what they wrote on. Someone whose account was deleted shows as A former player.

Keeping secrets secret

GM notes (on every article) are never shared. Write secrets there, one per heading, so you can share them one at a time.
Only for you: each secret has a second box for page references and reminders. That part never goes out, even when the secret does.
GM only in the editor's toolbar does the same for lines inside an article.
Todos (lines starting with - [ ]) never go out either, ticked or not (see Writing articles).
Later holds a passage back until a date, until an event is over, or until you release it (see Time and the timeline). Players never get the event's date with it.
Players know up to: events dated after the campaign's present day stay hidden, even when shared. The share button and the Players tab say Hidden until ….
Histories: players get The world, and the histories you pick under Histories they get in the campaign's Edit details, each one whole or not at all. They only get eras that have begun by their present day, without how long the current one will last. A history's own names for events, its accounts and how much events matter to it always stay with you. An event only in histories they don't get stays hidden, even when shared: the Players tab says Hidden: it's only part of…. A date written in the count of a history they don't get reaches them in the world's count. A history that split off is shared with what it shares from before the split, up to their present day, even when the history it came from isn't; players never learn where it came from, and on their side those events aren't greyed. A people's, faction's or faith's page shows players its History tab only for a history they get.
Titles: players only see holders whose pages they have, nobody who takes a title after their present day, and not when a holder will give it up (see Titles).
Fields that name things they don't have ("Owner: Kharros") are left out for players, because the name alone can be the spoiler. You're told which.
The summary is player-visible. Keep secrets out of it.
Links to pages they don't have reach players as their words only: the [[The Drowned King|king]] is just "the king" on their side, and the page it pointed to isn't named anywhere they get. A link with no other words keeps the name you wrote ([[Brasshollow]] is "Brasshollow"), so use other words when the name itself is the secret. Hidden HTML comments in your text never go to players either.
Pictures go to a player only when something they were given uses it: an article, a secret or a released Later passage with it in the text, or a portrait or crest on an article they have. A picture in GM only lines, a Later passage not yet released, your GM notes or an article they don't have is never sent to them, even when the same picture is also used somewhere they can see. Canopy checks this every time their phone asks for a picture, so taking a share back works straight away. They see the picture's credits, never your note on it or its group. A map's picture is described to them by the map's name, not by your description, which might name places they don't have.
Routes are articles: a route you haven't shared stays with you, and so does one to a place they don't have. Their How far to… only uses the routes they have, so a secret path never shows up as a short answer (see Maps and travel).
Maps: a map you haven't shared stays with you. A shared map only holds the pins a player may see, never your pin notes or sources, and uses its players' version of the picture when it has one; the picture with your markings is never sent. That holds wherever you put that picture: shown in an article, a secret or the introduction, players get the players' version in its place (the What they get box says so). See Maps.

Checking

See what they see on the Players tab (See as everyone, or a player's name) shows the world exactly as they get it: their articles, primer, maps, timeline and search. Stop viewing as player in the sidebar brings you back. While you see as a player, the bell, New since you last looked and the green New marks work as they would for them, from the moment you first looked in this tab; nothing about it is saved.

Player handbook

Player handbook on the Players tab makes a book of everything a player has: the introduction, the primer, what you handed out during play and the secrets you shared with them, with contents and links between the pages. Choose who it's For: one player, or Everyone for what's shared with all of them. It's made from exactly what that player sees, so it never holds GM notes, secrets you kept, Only for you lines, Later passages, anything held back until a later date, or links to pages they don't have. Print or save as PDF prints it or saves it as a PDF to hand out.

Players have the same Handbook on their own page and in the sidebar, for everything they've been given.

Your players' side

Players get their own page with the introduction, the primer (Read as one page, Summaries only, Print or save as PDF), what was handed out, a Handbook with all of it as one page, and the timeline up to their present day. They can keep private notes: a notes page for the campaign and a note on each page they've been given. Notes are theirs; you only see the ones a player chooses to share, under Notes shared with you on the Players tab.

Last time…: after a session, a recap can open their page. A recap stays yours until you tick Players see this recap under it, and players only ever see the last played session's recap. Read it through first: everything in it goes to them, except GM only lines.
Links: the address of every page a player opens names its campaign, so a link they keep, bookmark or send to each other opens on that page of that campaign, even in a new tab. Back stays in the campaign each page belongs to.
Their start page: someone who only plays sees Campaigns you play in first. Making a world of their own waits under Make your own world.