Live presence

See who else is looking at the same map right now and where their cursor is.

basic

Live presence shows you who else has the same map open right now. Each viewer gets an avatar chip at the top of the canvas, and their cursor position appears on the map as a colored arrow with their name.

This is the simplest signal that you're not working alone. When you're walking a teammate through a map over a video call, you can move your cursor over the spot you're talking about and they see it land in real time without you having to describe coordinates.

What you see

  • Avatar chips in the top-right of the canvas, one per active viewer. Your own chip is included so you can confirm the connection works.
  • Cursor markers for everyone else: a colored arrow with a small name label, drawn at their mouse position on the map. Your own cursor isn't drawn (no point self-watching).
  • Distinct colors per viewer, drawn from a palette of eight high-contrast options. Two adjacent viewers always get different colors.

How it works

The map editor prefers a live WebSocket so cursors update quickly. If the socket cannot open (proxy, firewall, brief outage), it falls back to the original HTTP heartbeat poll. Avatar chips and cursor markers look the same either way; only the smoothness of motion changes.

When you stop moving the cursor, your "last known position" stays where you left it for a few seconds, then your chip drops off until you wiggle the mouse again.

Cursors that have been idle for more than 5 seconds disappear so the canvas doesn't get cluttered with stale arrows.

When you close the tab or navigate away, your chip drops off immediately for everyone else.

Privacy notes

  • Only viewers who can already read the map ever see anyone else's presence. A private map's avatar list is gated by the same permission check as the map itself; nothing leaks.
  • Presence is signed-in only. Anonymous public-link visitors do not appear in the avatar strip.

Live markup co-editing

When two signed-in people open the same markup set, edits merge over a short-lived CRDT room (Yjs) instead of last-write-wins on the whole feature list. Only the set author or a map editor can write; other viewers with map access can watch. Anonymous markup stays on the older REST path. If the live socket cannot open, markup falls back to ordinary save-and-refresh (no pretend merge). Cursors still use the presence WebSocket above.

  • Markup for leaving persistent pins on the map.
  • Comments for threaded conversations.