Web, iOS and Android
Where Entz runs today, what a browser needs to edit, and what changes when you write on a phone.
Entz is one app with the same library, editor, status bar and Settings everywhere, drawn with each platform’s own menus, sheets and controls. The web is open to everyone; the phone apps are in testing.
| Platform | Where to get it | State |
|---|---|---|
| Web | entz.app, in a current browser | Available |
| iPhone and iPad | TestFlight | In testing, not in the App Store yet |
| Android | No store listing | Built and in testing, not on Google Play yet |
The web
Section titled “The web”Open entz.app: there is nothing to install. The site works in a phone’s browser too.
Entz draws the page itself, with your device’s graphics hardware: through WebGPU where the browser has it, and through WebGL2 where it does not, which looks the same and asks more of the processor. Current Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox all edit documents.
A browser with neither WebGPU nor WebGL2 still opens your documents, read-only. It shows the document as a plain page you can read, select and copy from, with links that open in a new tab, under a note that says why it cannot be edited there.
Until you sign in, your library lives in this browser’s storage, so another browser, a private window or a phone starts with a library of its own. Once you sign in to the same account, each of them shows the documents you have on the server (Offline and sync).
Some things only the web does:
- Dropping files anywhere on the library imports them (Import and export).
- A right click in a document opens a menu with Cut, Copy, Paste, Select all and Find in document, after a table’s own commands when you click in a cell.
- Pasting an image, and saving a drawing, a diagram or a formula as a PNG (Images and drawings).
iPhone and iPad
Section titled “iPhone and iPad”Entz for iOS is in testing through TestFlight, Apple’s service for trying apps before their release. It is not in the App Store yet.
Android
Section titled “Android”The Android app is built and being tested, but it has no Google Play listing yet, so there is no public way to install it.
On a phone
Section titled “On a phone”The editor answers to your finger:
| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
| Tap | Places the caret and brings up the keyboard. A tap on a task’s box ticks it without the keyboard, and a tap on a word the grammar check underlined shows its suggestions (Grammar). |
| Double tap | On iPhone and iPad, selects a word. |
| Long press | Selects a word and shows its handles. Drag a handle to change the selection, with a magnifier over your finger. |
| Drag | Scrolls. The keyboard goes away while you read, and the next tap brings it back. |
| Flick | The page keeps moving and slows down; touch it to stop it. At either end it stretches and springs back. |
| Touch the left margin | Shows the grip of the block beside your finger. Drag from the margin to move the block. |
A few things work differently from the web:
- Formatting. Selecting text brings up the phone’s own menu (copy, cut, paste), with a Format entry holding Bold, Italic, Underline, Strike, Code, Link and Comment. The web shows a floating menu over the selection instead (Writing and formatting).
- The status bar rides on top of the keyboard. The search or the assistant’s field takes the whole bar while it is open, and its close button brings the other tools back.
- Images. Phones show every image, but they cannot paste one yet. Add one with Image in the
/menu, which picks an image file from the phone. Saving a drawing, a diagram or a formula as a PNG works on the web only. - Files. Import files… opens the phone’s file picker. An export writes a file into Entz’s own folder on the phone and opens it: on iOS the Files app shows it, on Android the app that reads that kind of file opens it. A second export under the same name replaces the first.
- Signing in opens the sign-in page in the system’s browser sheet, which returns you to the app.
Links to a document
Section titled “Links to a document”On the web, a document’s link has the form https://entz.app/doc/<id>, where <id> is the document’s id. Opened in a browser, it opens the document; someone who is signed out is asked to sign in first, and the document waits in their library until they do (Sharing and access).
The phone apps open links of their own, which start with entz:, and Copy link in a phone app copies one of those. The apps do not open https://entz.app links, so on a phone such a link opens in the browser. To open it in the app, press New…, choose Open by id… and paste the link or the id. The same field on the web takes a link copied on a phone.