The office

XataWorks carries a set of programs for everyday work: a database, a spreadsheet, a word processor, slides, a drawing program, a text editor, a calendar, ToDo lists, mail, the Builder and reports. Each one opens as a tab in the browser panel beside your chat, so the file you are working on and the conversation about it sit side by side.

The agent works in the same open file you do. Ask it to make a spreadsheet, and the spreadsheet opens beside the chat with the agent’s work in it; ask for a change, and the change lands in that tab, as one step you can undo. This article covers what the programs share: where to find them, where your files are kept, what you are asked when the agent works in one of your files, and how saving and earlier versions work.

The programs

• Databases — related tables, layouts, finds and scripts, for records you keep and search: guest lists, inventories, invoices.
• Spreadsheets — sheets with formulas, made here or brought in from Excel or a CSV file, and sent back out the same way.
• Documents — a word processor for letters and notes, with Word files in and out, and printing or saving as PDF.
• Slides — slide decks you build, present from the app, and bring in from or send to PowerPoint.
• Drawings and text files — diagrams and sketches, and plain text and code files such as Markdown notes.
• Mail — your own mail account, read and written here, with the agent able to help.
• Calendar — calendars and events, with iCalendar files in and out.
• ToDo lists — lists of things to do, which an agent can add to and, if you choose, work through one item at a time.
• The Builder — small apps of your own, called creations, made by describing them in the chat.
• Stacks — cards you flip through one at a time, laid out and scripted by you and used together with the people you share them with.
• Reports — paginated reports the agent lays out from your data, which open in a window of their own.

Opening a program

Two menus reach every program, and both open what you choose as a new tab in the browser panel of the chat you have on screen.

• File ▸ New holds Database, Spreadsheet, Document, Text File, Drawing, Slides, Calendar, ToDo List and Creation. Each opens that program’s list page with the name box ready to type in. Database opens the gallery of templates instead.
• File ▸ Open holds the same entries, each ending in …, plus Mail. Each opens the list page.
• View has a submenu per program: Databases, Docs, Sheets, Drawings, Slides, Calendars, ToDo Lists, Builder and Mail. Its first entry, such as All Sheets, opens the list page; below it are the files of that kind already open in this chat’s browser, and choosing one brings its tab forward.

Reports are the exception: there is no menu entry for them, because a report is made by asking for one in the chat. View ▸ Show/Hide Web Browser shows or hides the panel the programs open in.

The list pages

Each program’s list page shows its files by name, with the date and time each was last changed. At the top are a name box, a button to make a new one — New spreadsheet, New document, New deck and so on — and, for every program except drawings, Import… to bring in a file from your computer. Type a name, press the button, and the new file opens.

A name can be up to 100 characters of letters, digits, spaces, hyphens, underscores, full stops and brackets, and cannot start or end with a space or a full stop. Names are compared without regard to case, so Stall Floats and stall floats are the same file.

Where your files are kept

Spreadsheets, documents, decks, drawings, text files, calendars and ToDo lists are kept in a folder XataWorks manages among its own data — not in your own Documents folder. You reach them through the app. Each is stored in the app’s own format, so to get a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file out, use the program’s Export…. Databases are kept in a folder of their own beside them.

Asking the agent to work in a file

You can ask for a file in your own words, the way you would ask a colleague: what it is called, what goes in it, and to open it for you. The agent makes it, it opens in a tab beside the chat, and the agent fills it in that tab. Ask for a change afterwards and the agent works in the same open file — it does not make a second copy.

In order, that is:

1. Type what you want into the message box, including its name and “open it for me”.
2. Press Send.
3. A question appears in the chat asking whether the agent may create the file, for example Create spreadsheet “Raffle Prizes”?. Press its main button.
4. The file opens as a tab in the browser panel and the agent fills it in.

When the agent changes an open spreadsheet, document, deck, drawing, text file or calendar, a note appears at the top of the file saying what it did — The agent changed …, The agent inserted content … — with an Undo button beside it. Each change the agent makes is one step, so Undo takes back exactly that change.

What you are asked, and when

Each of your files is asked about on its own: being allowed into one spreadsheet does not let the agent into another. Within that, what happens depends on what the agent is doing.

• Reading runs without asking. The agent can look at your own files on this computer without putting a question to you, unless you have said Never allow for that operation there.
• Making a file asks once. The question names the file, and the line under it reads Allowing this also lets the agent change “name” in this chat. Deleting anything still asks.
• Changing a file asks once per chat, unless you have already allowed changes to it in this chat.
• Deleting still asks — what each program treats as deleting, such as removing rows or a whole sheet from a spreadsheet, or removing data from a database — even after you allowed changes.
• Your own work never asks. What you do on the pages yourself is you acting, so no question is put.

The answers, as the question shows them:

• Allow changes to “name” in this chat is the main button. The agent may make the file and go on changing it in this chat without asking again. The name appears here in lower case.
• Behind the arrow beside it are Allow once, which allows this one step and asks again next time, and Always allow for this one operation on this file.
• Don't allow refuses this one and remembers nothing. Behind its arrow are Never allow for this operation on this file, and Block all access to the file, so agents may not use it at all in this chat.

A grant belongs to the chat it was given in. Start another chat and ask for a change to the same file, and you are asked again. For the wider picture of approvals, see Approvals and permissions.

Saving and earlier versions

Spreadsheets, documents, decks, drawings, text files, calendars and ToDo lists save themselves about two seconds after a change. The bar at the top of each file shows its name, whether it is Saving… or Saved, a Save button, and a ⋯ menu.

• Versions. Pressing Save keeps the file as it was as an earlier version first; saving on its own keeps one at most every five minutes. ⋯ ▸ Versions… lists them under Earlier versions, each with its time and why it was kept, and a Restore button. Restoring keeps the current state as a version first, so a restore can itself be undone.
• How many are kept. Set in the Documents section of Preferences, under Earlier versions to keep for each document:. The default is 10.
• Nothing is lost. If the file changed on disk since you opened it, your changes are kept as a version rather than written over it.
• Deleting. ⋯ ▸ Delete… moves the file to your system’s trash where there is one; where there is not, it asks first and says the deletion can’t be undone.

Databases work differently. Instead of versions, a database takes a snapshot of itself before anything is removed from it, and the database’s own page lists the snapshots so you can restore one. Databases covers it.

Good to know

• The programs open in the app’s browser panel, and the agent needs that browser to make a file: with it closed, the agent is told creating a document needs the app’s browser.
• Each chat has its own browser tabs. The View submenus list the files open in the chat on screen.
• Text files have no submenu under View; open them from File ▸ Open ▸ Text File….
• Mail has no entry under File ▸ New; open it from File ▸ Open ▸ Mail or View ▸ Mail.
• A file the agent makes is a file like any other: it appears on the list page, and you can rename, export or delete it from its ⋯ menu.