Team projects and saving
How a designer opens a team project without a folder, what "Saving…" and "Saved" mean, and how Version history, undo, conflicts and unfinished AI edits work when a project saves through accepted revisions.
A team project lives on your team's server — Maude Cloud or a self-hosted hub. Everyone works on the same project, and every change reaches everyone else without refreshing, pulling or pushing.
Opening a project you were invited to
In the desktop app, invitations wait on Home under Shared with you — choose Join (or Leave to decline). On first launch, Home also offers to open a project you were invited to.
- Maude Cloud — sign in once (the app opens your browser, or shows a short code to confirm on your dashboard), then pick the project from the list. Projects where you are a viewer open in your browser instead.
- Your team's own server — enter the server address, your email and your password (from your invitation). The password is sent only to that server and never stored; the app keeps the sign-in it receives.
- An "Open in Maude" link from the dashboard opens that project the same way.
Maude keeps the project's copy in its own data folder — you never choose a folder, install Git or paste a token. Canvases appear as they arrive; big media (videos, large photos) follows in the background, smallest first. Menu › Diagnostics › Advanced › Download all brings the whole project onto the device now, for working offline.
What the save word means
One word sits next to the faces in the Share cluster. It is a word, not a control.
| You see | It means |
|---|---|
| Syncing… | Your changes are safe on this device and on their way to the project. If this lasts, check your connection — nothing is lost. |
| Saved | The project has every change you made, and you have everyone else's. |
| Offline — kept on this Mac | No connection. Your changes wait on this Mac and go up when it is back online. |
| Not saved | A write failed and is not queued. It shows only while it is true, with one action: Retry. |
When you need more, Menu › Diagnostics › Sync shows the details: what is waiting, what is blocked, and Resync now. A file the project's server refuses stays on this Mac, with the server's reason, and is tried again once you change it. A server older than Maude 2 is never sent the files only Maude 2 syncs (video transcripts, design-system tokens); they wait until the server is updated. If a sign-in expired or was revoked, Maude says so in a callout with one action, Sign in again; your unsent changes are kept and go out once you are allowed to edit. "Saved" is about the project, not about whether a teammate who is offline has seen your change yet.
Version history and undo
Open Version history from the project pill's menu (top level, one click) or with ⌥⌘H.
It lists the project's saved versions — each with who made it and when. You can preview how a canvas looked at an earlier version and Restore it; a restore is a new version, so nothing is ever rewound for everyone else.
Git's own "go back" actions — switching drafts, discarding, getting the latest — don't rewrite a team project's files: the project's history is the source of truth, so Maude declines them and points you to Version history instead.
Undo (⌘Z) takes back your own step. A teammate's later change — even to the same canvas — is kept. If a teammate changed the very same thing after you, the undo is skipped and the app tells you why. Menu › Edit › Undo history… lists your steps and AI's.
Editing a Maude Cloud project in the browser rather than the desktop app: everyone in a browser saves through the project's cloud workspace, so Version history lists those changes under the workspace instead of each person, and offers no personal Undo there. Restore works as usual. Use the desktop app when you want your own changes named and undoable.
When two people change the same thing
- Changes to different parts of a canvas merge on their own.
- Two people changing the same property (the same colour, the same text) from the Inspector end with the change that reached the project last — no dialog, and Version history shows both. While someone is editing an object, you see it in their colour ring with read-only fields and one action, Comment.
- A change the project cannot merge — for example, two people rewriting the same lines of a canvas's code — is kept on your device and shows a conflict card with both versions side by side: Keep yours, Keep Tereza's (their name), or Keep both. Whichever you keep, Version history shows the other, with Restore. Or just keep editing — your next save resolves it.
AI edits
An edit AI makes for you — in the AI chat panel or through /design:edit — is one step in Version history, however many files it touched. If it stops before finishing (you cancelled it, it hit an error, the app quit), nothing of it is shared: Menu › Diagnostics › Sync shows An unfinished AI edit is kept on this device with Publish and Discard.
Who can do what
| Owner | Designer (member) | Viewer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edit canvases, folders, annotations, layout | yes | yes | no |
| Comment | yes | yes | yes, in the browser |
| Undo own steps, restore versions | yes | yes | no |
| Invite and remove people, switch how the project saves | yes | no | no |
On Maude Cloud the project owner switches an existing project to accepted revisions from the dashboard: open the project, Saving → Preview the switch → Switch to accepted revisions. Operators of a self-hosted server follow the rollout runbook.