Share your app
Send your app's link, and understand what a visitor sees on a public or private app.
Publishing gives your app an address. This guide is about handing that address out: the link to copy, the code you can show, and what the people who open it will see.
Copy the link to send
- Open the app, select Open Session, then select Publish in the bar above the app.
- The App Link field shows the live address.
- Use the copy control beside it, or select the address to open the app in a new tab.
There is also a QR code control next to the copy control. It becomes available once the app is published, and shows a code a phone camera can read.
Before you send it
The link only serves what you last published. If you have changed the app since, publish again so visitors see the current version. See Publish your app.
If you have changed the app's subdomain, an address you sent before no longer opens. Copy the current App Link and send that one; Claim a short address explains what happens to the old name.
What a visitor sees
A public app can be opened by anyone who has the link, with no AppHandle account, and search engines may list it. A private app asks every visitor to sign in, and only you and the people you have added can open it.
That setting is separate from the link itself. Choose who can open your app explains which one to use and how to change it.
If the app has its own sign-in, it still applies on a public app. Public means a visitor does not need an AppHandle account to see the pages; anything the app keeps behind its own login stays behind it.
Adding people to a private app
- Open the app and select Open Session.
- Select the Settings tab, then Team.
- Select Add a teammate, enter their email address, and choose an Access level: View lets them use the deployed app, and Edit lets them open it in the desk and work on it as you do.
- Select Add.
If they do not have an AppHandle account yet, the invite link appears in the panel for you to copy, and AppHandle also emails it to them when email is set up. You can remove someone or cancel a pending invite from the same panel.
What changing the setting does
Making an app public turns off its use of your connected accounts. The app keeps working, but anything that depends on a connected service stops until the app is private again.
Making an app private locks out everyone except you and the people in Team, including people who were using the app's own sign-in. Their saved records are not deleted, and each of them can open the app again once you add them.
If you share an app before publishing
The address is reserved as soon as the app exists, but it serves nothing until you publish. A visitor opening it early sees a page saying the app is not live yet. Publish first.
Where to go next
To take an app back out of circulation, see Take an app down or delete it. To serve it on a name of your own, see Connect your own domain.