Getting in

On the webThe web app is live at one fixed address

Open the address you were given in any browser, on a phone or a computer. It is the full app, laid out for whatever screen you're on. Every LifeOps has its own address, so this guide fills in the one you are reading it from rather than naming somebody else's.

The page asks for a username and a password before it lets you in. Together they keep your journal from anyone who finds the address. A brand-new LifeOps has no login at all. Its sign-in page says so and offers to create the first account instead, and you choose the username and a password of at least twelve characters yourself, right there. Enter them once and you stay signed in, so day to day you go straight to your journal.

Five wrong tries lock sign-in for fifteen minutes. A password you know is changed in the app, at Settings → Account → Change password. A password you have forgotten is a job for whoever runs your LifeOps: "Set my web login" in the owner's guide sets a fresh one, which also clears the lock.

If your session ends while you are working, the app says so and asks you to sign in again on the page you are already on. Your writing stays where it was. Sign in, press save again, and it stores. Opening a fresh page on an ended session does go to the sign-in page, and signing in there finishes the trip by opening the page you asked for.

On iPhoneThe iPhone app installs through TestFlight first

You get the iPhone app as a TestFlight invite from whoever runs your LifeOps. TestFlight is Apple's own app for trying an app before it's in the App Store. You install TestFlight, tap the invite, and the app installs alongside your other apps. Later it will be in the App Store and install the normal way.

Whether your invite has gone out yet is a question for whoever runs your LifeOps. Until then, use the web app on your phone. It works in Safari and looks the same.

Once the app is installed, most changes reach it without a store or a new install. It asks for an update every time it opens and runs the one it fetched at your next open, so the open that collects a change still shows you the version you had. A change to the installed program itself, a new permission or the icon, arrives as a fresh TestFlight build for you to tap Update on. The owner's guide covers which changes take which route.

On AndroidThe Android app is still to come, by direct install or the Play Store

The Android app will install one of two ways: a file you tap to install straight onto the phone, or a normal Play Store listing. Either way it is the same app as the iPhone one, built from the same code. Both ways are still to come, so for now use the web app on your phone. It works in Chrome and looks the same.

Connecting the phone appThe phone app asks for the username and password you use on the web

The first time it opens, the phone app shows a sign-in and stays there until you are through it. It already knows which server it belongs to, so there is no address to type: the line above the fields names the server it is signing you in to. Type your username and password and press Sign in.

Behind that, the app asks the server for a token of its own and keeps that token in the phone’s secure storage. Your password is not stored on the phone. When the check passes the screen reads Connected as with your name, and the app opens. You sign in once.

When the phone cannot reach the server, a strip across the top of the screen names the trouble, Server updating or Network issue, and clears on its own once the server answers again. A wrong username or password fails at Sign in instead, and stores nothing. Too many wrong tries in a row shuts the door for fifteen minutes, and the screen says how long is left rather than repeating that you were wrong.

If you already have an access token

Under the sign-in is I have an access token instead, which opens the older pair of fields: a server address and a token. That is for a phone pointed at a server its build does not know about, and for anyone who was handed a token rather than a password. You make a token for yourself in the web app at Settings → Account → Your phone, which shows it once; making a new one never signs anything else out. The same two fields are on the phone’s Settings tab afterwards, behind the Server row that names the server you are connected to.