Permissions
How long an answer lasts
You want to know who an answer applies to, and for how long — because it decides how often the people using your application are asked about it.
An answer has a width: the chats it applies to. There are five, and which one an answer gets depends on the answer and on two settings the person controls.
Once
Allow this call only and Deny this call record nothing. The call is answered, and the next one is asked about again.
This chat
Every other answer is recorded for the chat it was given in, and lasts as long as that chat does — including across a restart of XataWorks. A new chat starts with nothing allowed. Where a question’s wording can say so, it does: the site question’s refusal reads Deny for this chat.
The exception is Never allow “…” on …, which is held in memory and ends when XataWorks is restarted.
Seeing and withdrawing what a chat allowed
The ⋮ menu in the chat header has Permissions for this chat. It lists every answer the chat holds, with its status and its width:
Each entry has a Withdraw button. Withdrawing returns the permission to undecided — the next call asks again — rather than turning it into a refusal.
A group of chats
Chat groups are off by default. With Use chat groups turned on, in Preferences › Browser › Chat groups, chats can be gathered into groups that share one set of browser tabs — signed in to one account in one group and another account in the next.
A group’s own menu then offers Share permissions across this group. While it is on, answers given in any chat of the group are recorded for the group, and the refusal reads Deny for this group. A chat’s own answer is read before the group’s, so one chat can still be stricter than its group. Turning sharing off asks first, then withdraws the shared answers.
Every chat
With chat groups off, the same Preferences section offers Share permissions across all chats. Its own help text says what it does: “When chat groups are off, an answer you give for a chat is given for every chat — ‘Approve for all chats’ instead of ‘Approve for this chat’.” The site question’s refusal then reads Deny for all chats, and Permissions for this chat tags such answers All chats.
Preferences is described here rather than photographed. The tool that captures this section’s figures cannot yet open a particular section of the Preferences window, and a drawing of it would be a guess. The labels above are quoted from the application’s source.
An agent
Two kinds of permission belong to an agent rather than a chat, and apply to every chat that agent runs in:
- The shield on the browser toolbar opens Permissions · xataworks.ca, says which agent it applies to, and offers Use this site’s page tools with a reach — Only tools that read, Tools that change things too, The consequential ones too — plus Read this page, Allow all and Turn all off. It shows the agent’s durable permissions, not a chat’s answers, so an answer you gave in a chat does not tick it.
- Declared web permissions are sites an agent’s author allowed in advance — see agents on the bus.
A chat’s own refusal is read before either, so a person who said no in a chat is not overruled by the agent’s settings.
What this means for your application
Most people will answer once per chat. Make that one answer easy: a clear description on every tool, honest hints so the read-only tier covers your lookups, and consequential tools kept to the operations that deserve a question each time.