Getting started

Canopy keeps a world: the people, places, groups, events and lore you make up, linked to each other. If you run games, it also keeps your campaigns, plans the sessions and shares exactly what your players should know. If you write, a world for writing shows nothing for games at all (see For writers).

New to Canopy? Read about Canopy, right under the title on the start page, says what Canopy is and who makes it. It's also in the World menu as About Canopy.

Try it first

On the start page, Try the sample world opens Thornmere, a small world with a running campaign, The Drowned Crown. Its home page shows where the campaign stands: open it to see sessions planned scene by scene, and what the players have been told. Click around freely: changes to the sample aren't saved anywhere. Writing a book instead? Sample for writers opens the same world as the setting of a short story (see For writers).

Your own world

Sign in first: every world is kept in your account, so it follows you to your phone, tablet and laptop, and you can invite players to it. Create a new world, on the start page once you're signed in, asks for a name and a short description, two questions you can skip, and your name (for the credits).

The two questions:

• What's this world for? Running games or Writing a book or a series. It decides which next steps Canopy suggests (see below). A world for writing has no game words or game features: private notes, hidden truths and Readers instead, with Readers in the World menu until you make a group. Change it any time in World settings.
• Have you run a game before? Asked once, with your first world for games. If you're new to it, an empty world offers to show you the sample's prepared adventure first; otherwise it offers to bring in the notes you already have.

You can keep three worlds in your account; campaigns you play in don't count. To start a fourth, delete one first (Delete this world in World settings).

Your world is still plain Markdown: Download as zip in the World menu gives you every file, ready to open in Obsidian or any other app. You can also start from notes you already have: see Your files.

Worlds you made in this browser or a folder

Canopy used to be able to keep a world only in your browser, or in a folder on your computer. Those worlds still open and save as before: the start page lists them under Only in this browser, or offers Continue with and the folder's name. Inside one, a note says nobody else can see it. Copy to your account puts a copy in your account (sign in first), and Download as zip saves it as files. Both are in the World menu too. New worlds can't be made there any more.

Getting an account

Canopy is open by invitation while we test it with a small group of pioneers. If someone sent you an invite link, open it: You're invited to Canopy shows, and under Make your account you can Sign in with Google or make an account with your email (Create an account). One link can let in one person or a few; it stops working 30 days after it was made. Players who get a link to a campaign can always join: see For players.

Your name

Canopy shows the name you choose, never the one from Google. With a new account, the first thing Canopy asks is What should we call you? (when you make an account with your email, that's Your name). It's the name your game master and other players see, and it doesn't have to be your real name. Canopy fills it in when you join a campaign or answer a date poll, and there you can still go by something else. To change it later, press Change name under Signed in as on the start page. With an email account, Change password is next to it.

Canopy is early in development, so for now it's open by invitation. Without an invite, the start page offers Join the waitlist: press Join with Google, or type your email address and press Join the waitlist, then open the link we email you. Once you're on it, we send you an invite when there's room, and the start page asks once whether you'd like news while you wait. If you just press Sign in with Google without an invite, no account is made and the start page offers Join the waitlist as one tap. We keep your address only for this, and remove it once you're invited or ask us to. Rather not wait? Leave your email under Hear when Canopy opens to hear when Canopy opens. How Canopy handles your data is on its Privacy page.

Canopy Plus

To hear when Canopy opens to everyone, leave your email under Hear when Canopy opens on the start page and press Keep me posted: we email you a link, and once you open it you're on the list, to hear when accounts open (once they're open, the same box is called Hear what's new). We only write about Canopy, and every email has a link to unsubscribe. Signed in, the start page has News from Canopy instead: Keep me posted uses your account's email (with a Google account you're on the list straight away; otherwise we email you the link first), and Stop news takes you off. Canopy asks about news once: on one day after you've made a world, a note under your worlds offers Keep me posted or No thanks, and it never asks again after that day. Right after you're on the waitlist, the same question asks whether you want news while you wait. Nobody is put on the list without saying yes.

If your account has Canopy Plus, the start page says so under Signed in as: Canopy Plus, founder for a founder, who has it for life, or Canopy Plus until and the last day it counts.

With Canopy Plus, the start page also has Understory, the map maker at the bottom (or go to canopy.quest/understory). Understory is Canopy's map maker on its own, outside any world: give a map a name, start from open sea or from a picture of a map, and shape its land and sea, plates and mountains. While you draw, your changes are kept in your account (Changes kept); Done keeps the map, and Leave without these changes in the editor's menu goes back to how it was at the last Done. Your maps are listed there to open again, download (the map's file) or delete. To put one in a world, open the world's Maps, then New map, Draw a world map, Open a saved map. When Plus ends, your maps stay listed there, to download or delete.

What to do next

The world's home page shows one card with a next step, worked out from what the world already has:

• an empty world: Write your first article, or, in a world for games, Where to start: New article or Start a campaign. Running a published adventure? Start with the campaign (see Campaigns);
• a few articles: Add a few more articles (a place, someone who lives there and some trouble are enough to start);
• enough to play: Next: plan your first session, which starts a campaign; then + Session on its Sessions plans the first session as a few beats;
• a session planned, in a world in your account: Next: invite your players.

In a world for writing, the steps are about articles and then giving the world's history a calendar. Each card links to the chapter of this manual that explains it. Not now puts that step aside on this device; the next one shows up when you get there.

The home page

Under the world's name (with Where we are beside it on a big screen), Start a new article lists every template, each with its icon on a small tinted square, the first few articles written with it, and how many there are (and 10 more). A template with nothing written yet is greyed, its square empty. Tap a template's name to start a new one; tap an article to open it. On a laptop or bigger they sit in columns, up to four side by side. Still to write runs across the bottom, with the first names still to write.

Finding your way

• The sidebar lists your articles by template (Characters, Locations…), plus Campaigns, Timeline and Maps. On a phone it's behind the menu button at the top left.
• Search (or Ctrl K / ⌘ K) jumps to any article by its title, another name or words in its text.
• The World menu, at the bottom of the sidebar, has Templates, Calendar and histories, Pictures, Credits, About Canopy, World settings, downloading the world as a zip, adding notes from a folder or zip, closing the world and this Help.
• This page isn't here means the address is old or mistyped. Go to the start page takes you back; your worlds are where you left them.

Something not working?

Choose Report a problem, under Help in the World menu (players: under Help for players). It's also at the top of the Help page, on the start page next to Sign out, and next to Dismiss when Canopy shows an error at the top of the page. Say what happened; the form shows exactly what else is sent: Canopy's version, the kind of screen (such as Article or Map, never its name), whether you're the game master or a player there, your screen size and your browser. Nothing from your world goes along unless you tick Include the address of this page. It's sent from your account, so we can write back. You need to be signed in.

We read every report. A report is deleted 90 days after we've dealt with it, and at the latest a year after it arrives; deleting your account deletes your reports too.

Themes

At the bottom of the sidebar (and of the start page), the round swatch picks a theme. Each is named after a place in the sample world, with its own colours and typeface:

• Thornmere: moss and lichen, the original look;
• Brasshollow: stone and bronze, for the dwarves' hold;
• Silverwood: moonlight and sage, for the elves' forest;
• Sunken Chapel: lake water and candlelight;
• Ivy Hall: parchment and the faded crimson of House Vey;
• Ember Road: rust and ochre at dusk;
• Rose Garden: blush and raspberry pink, for the town of Rosegarden;
• Atlas: sea and forest, sea blue for buttons and forest green for links, in Source Serif 4;
• Wisteria Isle: lilac and violet, for the island in the lake.

Next to it, choose light, dark or match system. Both choices are remembered on this device.

Your own themes

Make your own… at the bottom of the theme list (or Themes in the World menu) opens the theme editor. Pick five colours for light and five for dark (the page, the text, buttons, links and links to articles not written yet), and a typeface. A small preview shows each, and Canopy warns you if something would be hard to read. Start from copies the colours of another theme to change from there.

Your themes belong to the world: each is a Markdown file in its themes folder, so it goes along when you download the world or open it on another device. The one you choose stays on this device even when you open another world.

Saving and never losing work

Articles are saved when you press Save. While you type, Canopy keeps a copy of your text on this device. If the tab closes, the browser crashes or a save goes wrong, you get it back the next time you open the editor: Restore or Discard. Nothing is ever put back without you choosing it. If you start typing instead of choosing, your new typing is kept too and the earlier copy stays on offer, so pressing Restore later swaps them rather than losing either.

If you edit the same article on two devices (say a laptop and a tablet), Canopy never quietly saves one over the other. When you press Save and the article was saved on the other device in the meantime, nothing is saved yet: the editor shows what the other device changed, with Show their whole text to read all of it, and you choose:

• Keep both adds their changes to yours in the editor. Where you both changed the same lines, yours come first and theirs right after, for you to tidy. Check it, then press Save.
• Use mine saves your version; their changes are dropped.
• Use theirs puts their version in the editor in place of yours. Nothing of yours is saved, and Put mine back brings your text back.

When you come back to a world in your account (you switch back to its tab, or unlock your phone), Canopy loads what you saved on your other devices since: new and changed articles, deleted and renamed ones, and pictures. It only fetches what changed, so even a big world catches up in a moment on phone data. While you're writing, it waits until you've saved or cancelled.

When a new version of Canopy is out, a bar at the bottom offers to reload. Your open article is saved first. The bar's See what's new opens What's changed in a new tab. The version number (Canopy v…) under the World menu opens it too.

A reload brings you back to the same page of the same world, with the sidebar's list where you left it. A saved link or bookmark to an article or campaign in a world in your account (or in a world you made earlier in this browser) opens that page too, in a new tab as well. A world you made earlier in a folder asks for permission again, so it starts on the start page.

On a phone or tablet you can put Canopy on your home screen, with its logo: in Chrome on Android, open the browser menu and choose Add to home screen; on an iPhone or iPad, tap Share in Safari, then Add to Home Screen. It opens like an app, without the browser's address bar.

Every chapter of this manual has its own address, such as canopy.quest/help/maps, to bookmark or send to someone, and so do About Canopy (canopy.quest/about) and Privacy (canopy.quest/privacy). They open without signing in.

What Canopy keeps about you, who sees it, and how to have your account deleted: Privacy.

About Canopy Plus

Canopy Plus adds to Canopy; it never takes anything away. Everything in this manual works without it, and a map from your own picture stays the way to make a map.

What Plus adds: drawing world maps, shaping their land and sea, mountains and rivers yourself (coming soon). There is no price yet.

When Plus ends, what you made stays: maps you drew keep their picture, pins and file, your players keep them, and they're in Download as zip. Only editing a drawn map needs Plus again. Your players never see anything about plans.