A tour of the project page

#Opening a project

Click Projects in the sidebar, then the project you want. Your latest projects are also listed under Projects in the sidebar itself, each with a dot for its state, so you can jump straight to one. A project always opens on its Studio tab: the conversation and the preview side by side.

On a laptop or desktop the two sit next to each other. On a narrow screen, such as a phone, the conversation comes first and the preview sits underneath it.

#The top bar

The bar across the top says where you are. On the Studio tab it reads Projects and the project's name. On any other tab the tab's name follows, then any section or view you have opened inside it, for example Projects / Crumb & Co bakery / Settings / Domain. Each part before the last is a link back to it. On a wide screen the project's live address sits beside its name and opens the site in a new tab.

Under that line is a row of tabs in words, with the open one underlined. On a phone the row scrolls sideways, and the line above it shows only the project's name.

At the far right of the bar, once the site has been published for the first time, you'll see a grey Preview tag and a Publish button. Every build lands at a preview address first. It is kept out of search engines, and messages sent through its forms are kept in the studio rather than emailed. Publish runs a launch check and, if nothing needs fixing, takes the site to production. After that the button reads In production, and clicking it offers Back to preview.

#The conversation

The left side is a running conversation between you and Briks. Your messages sit on the right in dark bubbles and Briks's replies sit on the left. Under each reply is a small line with the credits that request was charged and roughly how long it took. Above the conversation, a status pill shows where the site stands (Draft, Building, Live or Needs attention) and, once anything has been charged, the project's running total in credits.

• Ask for a change in plain words, such as Add our Saturday hours to the footer: 9am to 1pm. Briks builds and publishes it. See Making changes.
• Ask a question, such as When did the site last change?. Briks answers in the thread without building anything. See Asking questions.
• Answer Briks's questions before a first build, or approve its words, look or hero if those steps are switched on. See Approve as it builds.

The box at the bottom reads “Change the hero, add a page, adjust the colours…” until you type. Enter sends, and Shift with Enter starts a new line. Beside the box are three buttons: Attach pictures, Add from your media and Speak your request. Under it is a switch, Check the site after this change, which looks at the published site at four screen sizes and repairs anything that renders broken. It adds a few minutes, and your choice is remembered for that site in your browser.

If your role is Viewer, the box is replaced by a note: “You can view this project. Changes are made by Editors, Admins and Owners of this workspace.” You still see the whole conversation and the preview.

While something is building

A panel appears in the conversation with a timer, the steps the job goes through and one line underneath saying what Briks is doing right now. For a change the steps are Applying your changes, Verifying build and Publishing, plus Checking the published site if you switched the check on. A Stop button sits beside the timer. The box stays open and its button changes to Queue, so you can line up your next request while this one finishes.

#The preview

The right side is your real, published site in a frame. It isn't a picture: you can scroll it, click its buttons and use its own menu to move between pages. The tag above it reads Live preview with the time of the last publish, and the frame reloads by itself a moment after every publish, so you always see what visitors see.

Before the first publish there is no site to show yet, so the preview lays your page out part by part as Briks plans and writes it. Once other pages are planned, small tabs (Home and each page's name) let you look at each one. Watching a build explains that view.

#The Settings tab

Settings gathers everything that isn't a tab of its own. It opens on General, with every section listed down the left in groups. On a narrow screen, such as a phone, the list folds under one control that reads Settings: and the name of the open section. Tap it to choose another.

Links saved before these sections moved to Settings, such as ones in older emails, still work: they open the same section here.

#A first look, step by step

#What each role sees

Roles belong to the workspace, not to one project. Members and roles has the full table.