The Web App

Storylet Studio also runs in a web browser. It's the same authoring tool as the desktop app - the same editor, storymap, storylet whiteboard, Simulate, Coverage Testing, Connections, Game Data, and Publish - so everything in the Storylet Studio (Desktop) chapter applies here too. This page covers only what's different.

What's different from the desktop app

You sign in. The web app is an online service, so it asks you to sign in with Google. The desktop app has no account and no sign-in. See Signing In.

Your work lives in a cloud workspace. Instead of a .storyletstudio file on your disk, your storyworlds live in your organisation's workspace, reachable from any machine you sign in on. There's nothing to install and nothing to back up yourself.

Several people can work in the same workspace. A workspace belongs to an organisation, and an organisation can have many members. What each member sees and can change comes down to their role - a reviewer can read and comment, an editor can change content, and so on. See Members and Roles. On the desktop app there's only ever one author and one file. The web app also lets several people edit the same storyworld at the same time - see Working together below.

Moving work in and out is explicit. Because the web app doesn't hand you a file by default, it has dedicated Import and Export actions for the .storyletstudio format. That's how you move a storyworld between the web app and the desktop app, either direction. See Storyworld Import / Export.

Working together (several authors at once)

In the web app, more than one person can edit the same storyworld at the same time. You don't take turns or lock the project: everyone works live, and the app keeps your edits from quietly stepping on each other. (The desktop app is single-author - one person, one file - so none of this applies there.)

Here's what you'll see when a colleague is in the same storyworld:

"Someone else is editing this." When another author has the same card, deck, act, zone, site, or property open, a banner appears at the top of that editor naming who it is (with a coloured initials badge). It's a heads-up, not a lock - you can both keep working.
Edits sync field by field, live. When a co-author saves a change to something you also have open, the affected fields update in front of you. Your own unsaved typing is left alone - only fields you haven't touched refresh. Because each field saves on its own, two people editing different fields of the same card both keep their work. If you both edit the same field, the last save wins.
Deletions go to the Trash. Deleting a storylet, deck, act, property, zone, or site doesn't destroy it - it moves to the storyworld's Trash, where you can restore it (with its references intact) from Management > Trash. So a delete during shared work can be undone, not lost for good.
Deletes are protected against surprises. If someone else changed an item after you loaded it, deleting it is refused with a short explanation, so you don't wipe out a change you never saw. The same protection covers cascading deletes (for example, deleting a deck and its storylets). When you delete a property, the dialog also shows which of the affected storylets are being edited by someone else right now.
Undo won't clobber a colleague's work. If you undo (or redo) and the thing you'd change has been edited by someone else since your action, the app holds off and shows a small "Undo blocked" message with an Undo anyway button - so you decide whether to override their change rather than doing it by accident.

The short version: edit freely, watch the banner to see who else is around, and trust that the app will warn you before one person's change quietly overwrites another's.

What's the same

Authoring is identical in both. The storyworld model, the editor surfaces, the expression syntax, Game Data, and the whole testing trinity (Simulate, Coverage Testing, Connections) all behave the same way. A storyworld authored in one opens in the other - the file format and the published .storyworld bundle are shared.

Which should I use?

Both are valid; pick by how you work.

Desktop suits a single author who wants to work offline, keep the project as a file on their own machine, and not sign in to anything.
Web suits a team that wants a shared workspace, the same project reachable from any machine, and several people contributing under roles that control who can do what.

You're not locked in either way - a storyworld moves between the two as a .storyletstudio file whenever you need.