Use images and files
Bring a logo, photo, or document into your app, and control who can see it.
Apps look better with real material: a logo in the header, a photo beside each product, a PDF that visitors can download. AppHandle keeps those files with your app, and the agent can place them on any page once they are uploaded. If you need a picture that does not exist yet, Make and edit images covers the Image Studio.
Finding the Assets list
Open the Settings tab above the app, then Assets in its menu. The list shows everything uploaded to the app so far, with a search box for finding older files. A file can be up to 50MB.
You can add files in three ways:
- Upload files in the Assets list, or drag files onto it.
- Attach a file to a chat message with the paperclip, drag it into the chat column, or paste a screenshot or file from your clipboard with Ctrl+V (⌘V on a Mac), and describe what to do with it in the same message — or send the picture on its own when it is the whole request. The file stays with that message afterwards, so it is always clear which picture went with which request. See what happens to an attachment.
- Select an image element in the preview and upload a replacement from its Content controls.
The Assets list holds the files your app uses. A chat attachment is the quick way to show the agent something — a screenshot to work from, a logo to try — and the agent moves it into the app's files once it turns out to belong there.
What happens to an attachment
A file you attach to a message is temporary, and it is not one of the app's files. It is kept apart from the Assets list, it is never part of your app's saved code, and it is deleted with the session's workspace — so a screenshot you sent stays with that conversation, and nothing else about your app changes.
Because of that, tell the agent when a file should outlive the conversation: "use this logo in the header" makes it part of the app, and the agent moves it into the app's files before it finishes. A file the app does not use goes away by itself.
Any picture can be attached — PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF, and also SVG, AVIF, BMP or TIFF. The desk prepares a copy the model can look at, so a logo saved as SVG works like anything else; the original is kept as you gave it, which is what the agent uses when the file itself matters (an SVG logo stays a vector).
If a session ever stops accepting requests because of a picture sent earlier in it, the error offers Start a fresh conversation. The app, its code and its files are untouched and the messages stay on screen; the agent simply starts again without the old conversation.
Putting an image on a page
Once the file is in the Assets list, name it in a request:
Put the logo in the header, on every page.
Add the shop photo to the home page beside the welcome text.
The agent places the image, sizes it for the space, and writes a short description for people who cannot see it. To swap one later, upload the new file and say which image it replaces — the agent updates it wherever it is used.
Choosing who can see a file
Every file you upload is either public or private, and the difference matters once your app is published:
- A public file loads for anyone who opens the app, whether or not they are signed in. Use this for logos, product photos, and anything that belongs on a public page.
- A private file is for you, the people you have invited to work on the app, and anyone you have hired to work on it. A visitor who is signed in to your app cannot load it, and on a private app even the public files need an account.
Images placed on a page a visitor can see are public, because a visitor's browser has to fetch them. If a file must stay private, keep it off public pages and say in your request that it is for signed-in people only — for example, "this report is only for staff".
If you own the app, every file in the Assets list has a small control beside it: a globe while the file is public, a padlock while it is private. Select it to move the file to the other one; the control's label reads Make public or Make private, and only the owner sees it at all. Moving a file that a page already uses to private can stop that page showing it, so move it back if something disappears.
You can also ask:
Is the supplier price list visible to anyone with the link?
Where the files live
Your files are stored with the app itself, so they stay available for as long as the app exists, and a copy of the app carries its files with it. Removing a file from the Assets list removes it from the app, so check before deleting: an image that is still in use will stop appearing.
For the pages those images sit on, see Add pages and navigation. For the data your app stores, see Store and use data.