Collaboration

DocuShark supports real-time collaboration: when your document lives in a workspace, everyone editing it sees each other's changes live, with no manual saving or merging.

What a workspace gives you

A workspace is where documents go to be shared — cloud storage, effortless real-time collaboration, sync across all your devices, and integrations as they arrive. Your local documents stay local; they never touch the network unless you move them into a workspace.

Free workspaces

Free workspaces don't include every advanced collaboration feature — some are limited by the network and data demands of real-time sync at scale.

Connecting to a Workspace

Open the Documents screen (press Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+O, or use the Documents button). The simplest way to connect is:

1. Click Sign in with DocuShark Cloud.
2. Your browser opens to a verification page showing a short code — confirm it matches the code in the app, and authorize.
3. The app finishes connecting automatically. You'll see your signed-in identity and a Disconnect button.

Once signed in, opening a workspace document joins its live session. The status bar shows whether you're connected and whether the current document is actively syncing.

Collaboration Features

Live Cursors

See where other collaborators are working:

• Each user's cursor appears with their name
• Cursor colors are automatically assigned
• Cursors fade when idle

Selection Awareness

See what others have selected:

• Shapes selected by other users are highlighted in their color
• User name labels appear on remote selections

Presence Indicators

The toolbar shows who's connected:

• User avatars/initials with status
• Click to see the full participant list
• Each user's color matches their cursor

Real-time Sync

All document changes sync live — shape creation, modification, and deletion; property changes; prose edits, pages, and structure. If two people edit the same thing at the same time, DocuShark merges the changes automatically — there's no "their version vs. yours" prompt to resolve.

Offline Support

DocuShark is offline-first. Collaboration degrades gracefully when the network drops.

How Offline Mode Works

1. Connection lost — you keep working normally
2. Changes queued — your edits are stored locally in an offline queue
3. Reconnection — queued changes sync automatically when the connection returns
4. Conflict resolution — everything merges automatically, with nothing to resolve by hand

The offline queue is persisted locally, so pending changes survive an app restart and replay once you're back online.

Connection Indicators

The status bar shows the current connection state:

• Connected — real-time sync active
• Reconnecting — attempting to reconnect (with retry count)
• Offline — working locally, changes will sync later

Manual Reconnection

If automatic reconnection doesn't recover:

1. Check your network connection
2. Confirm you're still signed in
3. Use the reconnect action in the status bar

A Note on Authentication

You never give DocuShark a password to collaborate. Signing in obtains a short-lived access token from your identity provider (DocuShark Cloud by default) — DocuShark itself never stores passwords or mints its own credentials. Sessions, multi-factor auth, and account management all live with the identity provider.

Troubleshooting

Can't Connect

• Confirm you completed the browser sign-in step (the code must be authorized)
• Check your network connection
• If you're on a self-hosted setup, verify it's running and reachable

Changes Not Syncing

• Check the connection status in the status bar
• Confirm the document is actually in a workspace (local documents don't sync)
• Look for error notifications
• Try disconnecting and signing back in

High Latency or Slow Initial Sync

• Large documents take longer to sync on first join
• Check your network bandwidth
• Subsequent edits sync incrementally and stay fast

Under the hood

DocuShark's real-time sync is built on Yjs, an open-source CRDT (Conflict-free Replicated Data Type) library — the reason edits merge automatically instead of prompting you to resolve a conflict. DocuShark's sync engine is open source too; see the DocuShark repository if you're curious how it fits together.