The browser

A Browser tab in a conversation window shows a web page beside the conversation: the dev server your contact just started, or a page it linked to. You look at the page and keep talking, without switching to another app.

Opening it. There are three ways in:

• The Browser button in the toolbar, File > Open the browser or ⇧⌘B (Ctrl+Shift+B on Linux and Windows). So does the + after the side pane's tabs, then Browser.
• A link in the conversation. Right-click it and choose Open beside the conversation. This works for the link of the Run button too.
• A click on a link opens it in your own browser. Turn on Open links beside the conversation, in the page's ⋯ menu or in Settings > General, and a click opens it here instead. A right-click offers both either way.

The address bar takes what you would type in a browser, and a little less:

• localhost:3000, or just the port: 3000.
• example.com. A site is asked over https, and a server on your computer or your network over http.
• Only web pages. A file, or anything that is not an address, is refused and the tab says so. The exception is a file you opened with Open HTML file..., below, and the files in its folder.

Around the page. Back, forward and reload are in the bar. While a page loads, reload is stop. The ⋯ at the end has the rest.

• The tab is called what the page is called.
• A dev server that reloads the page when a file changes does so here too. For one that doesn't, press reload after your contact changed something.
• A server that isn't running yet gets a line saying so, with Try again.

The ⋯ menu:

• Open in Arc opens the page in your own browser, called by its name. Copy URL puts its address on the clipboard.
• Open HTML file... shows a page of yours from your computer, in this tab. Its links go on to the files in its folder, and to web pages.
• Viewport draws the page at the size of a Phone (375 × 812), a Tablet (768 × 1024) or a Desktop (1280 × 800), made smaller to fit the tab. Responsive fills the tab again. At a phone's or tablet's size the page is told it has a touch screen and runs on Android, and loads again so that it sees so. Each page keeps its own size until its tab is closed.
• Show dev server logs goes to the Run tab, with what the Run button started prints.
• Open links beside the conversation, as above.
• Clear browsing data forgets every site's cookies, storage and cache, after asking. Every page beside every conversation is signed out.

How much room it has. The window grows to make room for the page, and the conversation keeps its width. From there:

• Drag the bar between the conversation and the side pane to make the page wider or narrower. The conversation gives the room, or takes it. A double-click on the bar puts the pane back at the width it started with.
• Fill the window. The square button at the end of the pane's tabs has the pane take the whole window, over the conversation. Press it again to have the conversation back, as you left it.
• Both work for everything in the side pane: a terminal, a plan, the changes.

More than one. Each + > Browser opens another page in a tab of its own, up to twelve in a conversation window. A page that opens a new window gets a new tab here instead.

Keys, while you are in the page:

Putting it away and closing it are different things, as for the terminal:

• The Browser button, pressed while a page is on show, puts the pages away. So does the ✕ of the side pane. They stay as they were, and the button or ⇧⌘B brings them back.
• The ✕ on a page's tab closes that page.
• Closing the conversation window closes its pages. They do not come back when you open the conversation again.
• Going on to another contact in the same window, from your contacts beside the conversation or a chat tab, closes them too. Coming back to the contact opens them again at their addresses, where they were among the side pane's tabs, without their back and forward history.

What a page can't do

A page is a stranger to the app, whoever made it:

• It can't reach the app. It has none of what the conversation window can do: no access to your contacts, your files or the agent.
• It gets no permission it asks for: no camera, microphone, location or notifications. Downloads are refused. The one thing allowed is putting text on the clipboard when you click a page's Copy button.
• It can't open windows, close the conversation window or take it somewhere else.
• It keeps its own cookies, apart from your browser's and from the app's. You are not signed in anywhere to begin with. Where you do sign in, you stay signed in the next time you open the app, until Clear browsing data.
• It can't open a file on your computer. Only you can, with Open HTML file.... That page goes on to the files in its folder and no others, and a web page goes to none.

Good to know:

• Your contact is not told any of this. It doesn't see the page or know that you opened it.
• While you are in the page, the keys belong to the page. The window's own shortcuts, such as ⌘J for the terminal, work again once you click in the conversation or press ⌘L.
• A menu or a dialog that opens over the page shows a still picture of the page behind it until it closes.
• There are no developer tools here. For those, open the page in your own browser with Open in in the ⋯ menu.
• The live demo has no Browser tab: it is a web page itself.