Files in and out

You can bring files onto a canvas and take items off it in three places: folders on the computer that runs Canvus, drives in the Disks menu, and web sites open in a browser on the canvas. This page shows how to use each one, and how an administrator sets them up.

To take content out as an image, by email or as a whole canvas, see Snapshots and export. To find out what happens to ink when an item leaves Canvus, see What happens to your ink.

Files in the finger menu

Files in the finger menu opens the Canvus folder. It is the quickest way in and out:

In. Drag a file from the folder window onto the canvas.
Out. Drag an item from the canvas onto the folder window. See Copy an item to a disk or USB drive.

Default location

Mode	Windows	Ubuntu
Single-user mode	Your user folder, for example `C:\Users\<name>`	Your home folder, `/home/<name>`
Multi-user mode	`Canvus-folder` inside the data folder	`Canvus-folder` inside the data folder

In single-user mode the default is your user folder, not the Documents folder inside it. See Single user or multi-user mode.

Change the folder

Open the main menu, tap the settings icon, then under Client select Configuration.
In the System section, set Canvus folder to the full path of the folder you want.
Save, then restart Canvus.

Or set canvus-folder in the [system] section of mt-canvus.ini. Use forward slashes in the path, also on Windows. Use a full path; ~ is not expanded.

[system]
; Windows: the Documents folder of the user who runs Canvus
canvus-folder=C:/Users/wall/Documents

; Windows: a network share mapped to drive Z: (see below)
; canvus-folder=Z:/Canvus

; Ubuntu: a network share mounted at /mnt/team (see below)
; canvus-folder=/mnt/team/Canvus

If the folder does not exist, Canvus creates it. If Canvus cannot create or use the folder, it logs an error and uses the default instead. The folder can be read-only; you can then drag files in, but not save items to it. See Canvus folder in the configuration reference.

Disks in the main menu

Disks in the main menu lists drives. Tap a drive to open it in a folder window, then drag files onto the canvas, or drag items from the canvas onto the window.

USB drives

Canvus adds a USB drive to Disks as soon as you plug it in, and removes it when you unplug it. On Ubuntu, Canvus also mounts the drive for you. You do not need to set anything up.

Add a drive or network share on Windows

On Windows, show-volumes in the [system] section of mt-canvus.ini lists the drive letters that Disks shows in addition to USB drives. You can also set it in the System section of the Settings page, as Show volumes.

Value	Drives shown
`*`	All drives, including mapped network drives. This is the default in single-user mode.
Empty	USB drives only. This is the default in multi-user mode.
A list of letters, such as `D,Z`	USB drives and the drives you list

To add a network share:

Sign in to Windows as the account that runs Canvus.
Map the share to a drive letter, and have it reconnect when that account signs in. In File Explorer, use Map network drive and tick Reconnect at sign-in. Or run this in a command prompt:
```
net use Z: \\fileserver\team /persistent:yes
```
Add the letter to show-volumes:
```
[system]
show-volumes=Z
```
Restart Canvus. The share appears in Disks.

A mapped drive is visible only to the Windows account that mapped it. Map it for the account that runs Canvus.

Add a network share on Ubuntu

On Ubuntu, Disks shows USB drives only. show-volumes has no effect, and you cannot add another drive or network share to Disks. To reach a network share, mount it, then use one of these:

Point Files in the finger menu at it. See Change the folder.
Add a finger menu item that opens it. See A custom menu item for any folder.

To mount a share at start-up, add a line to /etc/fstab. Replace the server, share, mount point and user name with your own, and create the mount point first (sudo mkdir -p /mnt/team). For an SMB (Windows) share, install the cifs-utils package and use:

//fileserver/team  /mnt/team  cifs  credentials=/etc/smb-team.cred,uid=wall,gid=wall,_netdev  0  0

The credentials file holds username= and password= lines; make it readable by root only (sudo chmod 600 /etc/smb-team.cred). For an NFS share, install the nfs-common package and use:

fileserver:/export/team  /mnt/team  nfs  defaults,_netdev  0  0

Run sudo mount -a, check that the user who runs Canvus can read and write the mount point, then restart Canvus.

On Windows and Ubuntu, a custom menu item can open any folder, such as a network share, in a folder window. Add an open-folder action to your custom menu file:

tooltip: 'Shared folders'
icon: 'icons/folder.png'
items:
  - tooltip: 'Team share'
    icon: 'icons/team.png'
    actions:
      - name: 'open-folder'
        parameters:
          source: '/mnt/team'
          title: 'Team share'

On Windows, write the path with forward slashes, for example source: 'Z:/'. See Custom menu for how to turn on the custom menu.

Web sites

A browser on the canvas can upload items to a web site and download files from it. This works the same way for Google Drive, OneDrive, SharePoint, Proton Drive, Dropbox, Box, WeTransfer and other file-sharing sites. No site needs its own setting in Canvus.

Upload an item to a web site

Open the site in a browser on the canvas and sign in. See Web browser.
Open the page or folder where the file should go.
Make the item you want to upload smaller than the browser.
Drag the item onto the part of the page that accepts dropped files, and let go.

The site's own Upload or Browse button does not work in Canvus. Canvus does not open a file chooser for a web page, so the button does nothing. Always drag the item onto the page.

What the site receives:

Item	File the site receives
Image	The original image file. Ink is not included.
PDF	The original PDF file. Ink is not included.
Video	The original movie file. Live video, such as a screen share, cannot be uploaded.
Note	A text file with the note's text. A note without text cannot be uploaded.
Other file	The original file

To upload an image with your ink, take a snapshot of it first and drag the snapshot onto the page. An item from a shared canvas can be uploaded only after Canvus has finished downloading it to this computer.

Choose which sites accept uploads

By default, every site accepts dropped items. An administrator can limit uploads to a list of sites with upload-sites in the [browser] section of mt-canvus.ini, or with Upload sites in the Web Browser section of the Settings page. Restart Canvus after you change it.

Canvus allows a drop when the address of the page shown in the browser contains one of the entries. Use these entries for common sites:

Site	Entry
Google Drive	`drive.google.com`
Google Docs, Sheets and Slides	`docs.google.com`
Gmail	`mail.google.com`
OneDrive (personal)	`onedrive.live.com`
OneDrive for work or school, and SharePoint	`sharepoint.com`
Outlook on the web	`outlook.office.com`, `outlook.live.com`
Proton Drive	`drive.proton.me`
Dropbox	`dropbox.com`
Box	`app.box.com`
WeTransfer	`wetransfer.com`

For example, to allow uploads to Google Drive, OneDrive, SharePoint, Proton Drive, Dropbox, Box and WeTransfer only:

[browser]
upload-sites=drive.google.com,onedrive.live.com,sharepoint.com,drive.proton.me,dropbox.com,app.box.com,wetransfer.com

upload-sites=*, or no upload-sites line, allows every site.
upload-sites= with an empty value blocks uploads to every site.
An entry matches anywhere in the address, so keep entries specific. For example, box.com would also match dropbox.com; use app.box.com for Box.

Third-party cookies. Many sites sign you in through another domain. Canvus allows third-party cookies by default. See Widget behavior notes.
Sign-in windows. When you tap a sign-in button that opens a new window, Canvus opens it as a new browser next to the original. See Popups.
Staying signed in. See Sign-in and sessions.

Download a file from a web site

Download the file in the browser as you would on a computer. Canvus shows "Download started" and then "Download finished" on the browser.
Tap more in the browser's sidebar, then Downloads. The Downloads folder opens.
Drag the file from the Downloads folder onto the canvas.

Canvus saves downloads in the Downloads folder and never asks where to save them. If a file with the same name is already there, the new file gets a different name. The location cannot be changed.