Finding your way

Member·4 minutes to read

What this does for you

The sidebar on the left is your bots and little else: who you are talking to, what each one said last, and three controls at the bottom. Everything else Botseon has is one click away in your account menu.

Before you start

You have at least one bot (see Your first ten minutes). With no bot yet, Botseon opens on the first-bot screen and there is no sidebar.
On a phone-width screen the sidebar is a drawer: tap the menu button in the top corner to open it, and tap a bot, or outside the drawer, to close it.

Steps

Read your bots. Each row shows the bot's avatar, its name, when it last spoke, and the start of its last message on one line. A long message is cut with an ellipsis; open the bot to read all of it. A bot you have not talked to yet shows just its name, with no line under it. A dot or a number at the end of the row means the bot needs you or has messages you have not read.
Search, or start something new. At the top of the sidebar are two buttons:
- Search opens the command palette, where you find a bot, a message or an action. The button shows its shortcut: ⌘K on a Mac, Ctrl K elsewhere.
- New starts a new chat. Pick a bot, or create one.
Use the three controls at the foot of the sidebar. There are exactly three, from left to right:
- Your avatar opens your account menu (the next step).
- Connect apps opens the plugins sheet, where you connect apps such as Gmail or Slack and add plugins and skills. It is what Plugins used to open.
- The bell is your one notices button. With nothing to report it takes you to Activity. When work is running or waiting for you, it shows how many, and still takes you to Activity. In the desktop app, when an update is ready, it says Update ready and opens Settings on its Updates tab.
Open the account menu. Click your avatar. The first rows are the places that used to be links in the sidebar:
- Activity — every run of your bots, working, queued, waiting on you or recently finished.
- Routines — every routine of every bot you own.
- Library — your documents.
- Marketplace — the in-app marketplace of plugins. Bot templates are on the web marketplace it links to.
- More — Canvases, Disk Saver and, in a team organisation, Shared files and Team bots.
Below them come your weekly usage and plan, Settings, Organisation (in a team organisation), help and feedback, switching or adding an account, and Log out.

Every page kept its address. A bookmark or a link to /routines, /activity, /library, /canvases, /marketplace or /disk-saver still opens the same page.

A worked example

You come back after lunch. The sidebar shows:

[Search          Ctrl K] [+ New]

(o) Butler                   6:39
    Saved a note to memory
(o) Slack Check               Sun
    Nothing new yet
(o) Research
                                      ← no messages yet: no second line

(FM)   Connect apps          🔔 2

The bell says two things are running or waiting for you. You click it and land on Activity, where one row is waiting for your approval. Later you want last week's routine runs: you click your avatar, then Routines.

What can go wrong

What you see	Why	What to do
A bot shows no line under its name.	Nothing has been said in its chat yet, or its last message was a card with no text, such as an approval.	Open the bot to see its chat.
You cannot find Plugins in the sidebar.	It is called Connect apps now, at the foot of the sidebar.	Use Connect apps; it opens the same sheet.
You cannot find Routines, Activity, Library, Canvases, Marketplace or Disk Saver in the sidebar.	They moved into the account menu.	Click your avatar at the foot of the sidebar. Canvases and Disk Saver are under More.
There is no Team bots or Shared files under More.	They exist only in a team organisation.	Ask your team's owner to add you to the team.