Ways to use CTXR

Before the steps, the shape. There are three ways to engage with CTXR, and they ask for steadily more of you — from nothing at all, to an identity, to a site of your own. Knowing which one you actually need saves you from setting up more than you have to.

1. Anonymous — just visit a space

The lightest way is no setup at all. A space is a normal website: you visit a link and read it like any other site. You can go a step further and install the space as a PWA straight from the page — it lives on your home screen, keeps working with no signal, and can give you location-aware prompts and nearby notifications. All of that stays completely anonymous: the device is granted the capability, and nothing about you is stored on a server. No account, ever. How the app and notifications work is Reach.

Think of it like this: businesses or organizations own and provide a space with their content for you to use interactively - anonymously as a visitor - like a regular website with a PWA layer on top.

2. A space account — ways to enroll in a space

Membership: join a space community Isolated members in a space, so they can keep track of shared - or contribute - content in the space. Key difference with owner or editors is that they do not manage the space. Membership is the lightest shape of an account, backed by privacy-by-default - meaning everything uses only an email which also covers mail factor authentication (MFA) and adding more information is choice the user always controls.

Owners and editors: publish your own content and PWA Only when you want to own and publish — your own subdomain, collaborate on content and design, provide information for visitors to use — do you create a space. That’s the producer level. This is CTXR Spaces.

A space is a collaboration of managed content for visitors. It’s about co-creation, has a subscription plan, involving limits and features. A space is always owned by an account, collaborating does not mean others need to have a platform or space membership - they simply need to have a space editor registration added by the owner to manage content.

3. A platform account — simply for following various spaces

The moment you want to keep things across spaces — follow content, bookmark pages, get notified, gather them into folders of your own — you make an platform account. It’s a seperate environment, signed in with a code sent to your email; there is no password, and you still don’t need a space of your own. One account, every space you care about, in one place. This is CTXR Accounts.

An account is a platform concern, it allows you to follow various space content so you don’t have to install different spaces separately. It also shows you in what spaces you’re connected with as owner or editor by your email: it does not log you in, but just informs you - logging in a space is a separate step. If you’re not comfortable with having an account, you don’t need it to get access to space editing explained in Separate sign-ins.

The ladder

anonymous   install the PWA, browse, get nearby prompts    — nothing to sign up for
members     contribute and subscribe to a space            — an email, no password, isolated per space
editors     manage and publish a site of your own          — an email, no password, isolated per space
account     follow, bookmark, collect across spaces        — an email, no password, isolated on platform

Each rung includes the ones below it — a space owner is also an account holder who can also use any space anonymously. Most people never go past the first two; you create a space only when you’re the one doing the publishing.

Next

If that’s you — you want a site — the three steps start with Getting an account.