Projects

A project is a focus on one client or one piece of work. Choose it, and Search, your Plate and Ask show only what belongs to it. Turn it off and you're back to everything.

What a project shows

A project shows what you can already read that belongs to it. It never lets anyone read more. Two people on the same project can see different things: your own mail is still yours, and theirs is still theirs. Each of you sees what you can read, and nothing tells you that someone else's view is different.

When a project is on, a strip across the top of every page names it, and All work turns it off. It stays in view as you scroll, and on a wider screen it also says which pages the project narrows (Plate, Search and Ask). A project you choose lasts the day: the first time you open Louvain on a new day, it starts on everything again.

Making a project

Anyone in the workspace can start a project: open the project switcher under the workspace at the top of the sidebar (it reads All work when no project is on), then New project…, and name it. Louvain makes a collection for it that only you can read until you share it, with you as its manager. You can share it with the people you name; opening it to everyone in the workspace, or having Louvain read it as knowledge, is a workspace admin's choice. A collection that already exists can be made a project by its manager, from its ⋯ menu → Project…. A project's people are its collection's people, at the roles they already have there, and its files are the collection's files. Making a project changes nobody's access.

To work in one, choose it in the project switcher: open projects first, finished ones after and greyed. All work goes back to everything. On a phone the switcher is in the navigation drawer (☰). Choosing a project from a page it doesn't narrow opens your Plate. Choosing a project turns off a client you had chosen, and the other way round.

What belongs to it

The collection's manager, or a workspace admin, says what belongs with rules, in the same Project… dialog. Only they see a rule's addresses and domains; everyone else on the project sees what the rules gather:

• An address: everything sent from, to or copied to ana@northquay.example.
• A domain: everything with an address at northquay.example, or any address under it, such as eu.northquay.example.
• Leave out: any rule can leave things out instead, such as a newsletter address at the client's domain. Leaving out wins over a rule that brings something in.

Before you add a rule, Check tells you how many items you can read that it would match. Some rules are refused because they would gather far too much: a free mail domain such as gmail.com, a domain many organisations share such as co.uk, and your own organisation's domain, which would bring in all your internal mail.

On your plate, each item under a project says why it is there: the address or domain its rule matched, if you can see the rules. A complete project stays in the list, marked complete, and can still be chosen.

Adding one of your own items

While a project is on, an item that came through one of your own connected accounts (your mail, your files) has Add to project in its ⋯ menu when you open it, and Remove from project to keep it out even when a rule matches it. Let the rules decide takes your choice back. Only you can do this for your own items; nobody can for theirs.

Adding an item shares nothing. It is shown in the project for you, and for anyone else on it who can already read it. Nobody gets new access.

Asking about a project

A conversation you start while a project is on answers from what belongs to the project, as you can read it. It reads up to the newest 500 items and says so when there are more. A count in a project's answer is "at least" the number it found.