Account & settings

AltEd as an app — install it, and use it offline

Put AltEd on your phone, tablet or computer like any other app, and keep reading — and ticking, logging and writing — when the connection drops: on a train, at a museum, at a field-trip site with no signal.

What it does

• Install AltEd. It gets its own icon, opens in its own window without the browser's address bar, and opens at your dashboard. A long press on the icon (or a right-click on a computer) offers shortcuts to Calendar, Messages, Progress and Notes.
• Your main pages are saved from the first day. Once you've signed in, the pages in your menu — Home, the calendar, the timetables, progress, notes and the rest — are saved on that device, so they're there offline even before you've opened them.
• Pages you open are saved on the device as you go. With no connection, they still open — as they were when they were saved — with a line across the top saying so. A page you've never opened on that device needs a connection.
• Keep working without a connection. Tick off tasks, log progress, mark a topic done, add a calendar event, write in your notes or send a message — it's saved on the device and sent by itself, in the order you did it, as soon as AltEd can be reached. A line across the top says how many changes are waiting.
• Back online, pages catch up by themselves. A saved copy on screen is drawn again from AltEd as soon as the connection returns, and anything you were waiting on (a page you clicked, a refresh after a save) carries on. Every window you have open catches up, and the copies saved on the device are brought up to date in the background — an installed app even does it now and then while it's closed.
• Notifications on your phone. Turn on Notifications on this device and whatever rings your bell in AltEd — a message, work handed in, a session booked — shows on that device too, on the lock screen, with AltEd closed. The lock screen says only that there's something new unless you choose details for that device. The installed app's icon shows how many are unread.
• New versions arrive quietly. When AltEd has been updated, a note offers Reload; nothing reloads until you choose to.

This works for parents and guardians, tutors and providers, and learners with their own sign-in. It doesn't save anything for a learner's shared link, for AltEd's administrators, or while an administrator is viewing AltEd as someone.

Where to find it

• Install: the avatar menu in the header → Install the app (shown only where your browser can install it).
• Settings: Settings → This device (/dashboard/settings?tab=device).
• Learners: the bell → Notifications, then This device at the bottom (/learn/notifications).
• While offline: the line across the top of every page, and its Saved pages button.

Step by step

Install AltEd on an Android phone or tablet

1. Open AltEd in Chrome (or Edge, or Samsung Internet) and sign in.
2. Open the avatar menu in the header and select Install the app — or go to Settings → This device and select Install AltEd.
3. Confirm in the browser's own box. AltEd appears on your home screen and in your apps.

If you don't see Install the app, use the browser's own menu (⋮) → Add to Home screen or Install app.

Install AltEd on an iPhone or iPad

Safari has no install button for a website to show, so it's three taps:

1. Open AltEd in Safari.
2. Tap Share — at the bottom of the screen on an iPhone, at the top on an iPad.
3. Scroll down, tap Add to Home Screen, then Add.
4. Open AltEd from its new icon and sign in there: the app on the Home Screen keeps its own sign-in, apart from Safari's. Choose Email me a magic link, then type the code from the email — the email's link would open in Safari, not in the app. A password or a passkey works too.

The same steps are in Settings → This device, and Install the app in the avatar menu takes you there.

Install AltEd on a computer

In Chrome or Edge, select Install the app from the avatar menu, or the install icon at the right of the address bar. AltEd opens in its own window and can be pinned to the taskbar or dock like any other app.

Read a page without a connection

1. Open the pages you'll want while you're still connected — the timetable for this week, the learner's plan, your notes. Each page you stay on for a few seconds is saved.
2. With no connection, open AltEd (from its icon, or the browser) and go to the page as usual.
3. The page opens with You're offline. This is the copy of this page saved at 14:02 today. across the top.

To see everything you can open, select Saved pages on that line. A page that isn't saved shows You're offline with Try again and the list of Saved on this device.

Make changes without a connection

1. Carry on as usual: tick a task off, log what you did, mark a topic in a plan, add an event, write in a note, send a message.
2. The change shows straight away. The line across the top says You're offline. 1 change waiting to send — it goes when you're back online. A note says Saved on this device; a message shows as sending.
3. When the connection is back, the changes go by themselves. The line says Back online. and a note says Your change made offline is saved (or how many were). The page is drawn again with what AltEd now has.

To see what's waiting, select Changes on the line across the top.

Some things need a connection at the moment you do them, and say You're offline. This needs a connection — nothing was sent. instead: paying, buying credits, anything AI does, uploading a photo or file, sharing a note, connecting with someone, and anything to do with signing in or your account. So does a learner's shared link — only a learner's own sign-in can keep changes for later.

When a change couldn't be sent

Now and then AltEd can't take a change made offline — the task was deleted meanwhile, say, or someone else changed the same note. The line across the top says 1 change couldn't be sent.

1. Select Review.
2. Each change is listed with what AltEd said. Choose:

• Try again — send it again (useful when it was only a passing problem).
• the copy button (Copy the words) — a note's or a message's text, to paste somewhere before you let it go.
• the bin (Discard) — forget the change.

Get notifications on this device

1. On an iPhone or iPad, add AltEd to your Home Screen first and open it from its icon — Apple only lets an installed app show notifications.
2. Go to Settings → This device (a learner: the bell → Notifications, then This device).
3. Under Notifications on this device, turn on Show notifications on this device, and say Allow when the device asks.

Each device has its own switch: turning it on on your phone doesn't turn it on on your laptop. What arrives follows the choices in Settings → Notifications — a kind switched off there never arrives on a device either. Tap a notification to open the page it's about.

On the lock screen a notification says only Something new in AltEd. Open it to see. To have it say who and what instead — a learner's name, a message's first words — turn on Show details on the lock screen under the same switch. It's one device at a time, and off until you turn it on: anyone who can see the device can read what it shows.

Notifications on a device last as long as the sign-in that turned them on: signing out on that device, being signed out from another one (Settings → Account & security), a new password, or a learner's sign-in being changed by their guardian all stop them.

Bring saved pages up to date before you go

They catch up by themselves when there's a connection, but before a day out you can make sure:

1. Go to Settings → This device.
2. Under Offline, select Refresh saved pages. A note says how many were brought up to date.

A copy of a page you can no longer open — something deleted, or a learner's records no longer shared with you — is deleted from the device, and the note says so.

Delete what's saved on a device

1. Go to Settings → This device.
2. Under Offline, select Delete saved pages.

Signing out does the same, automatically — and so does deleting your account, or coming back to the sign-in page after your sign-in has ended.

What each screen shows

The line across the top

Notifications on this device

Show notifications on this device, on or off for the device in hand. Once it's on, Show details on the lock screen decides whether notifications say who and what, or only that there's something new — off until you turn it on. It says Blocked for AltEd in this browser if notifications were refused at the device's own question (allow them in the browser's settings, then turn this on again), and on an iPhone or iPad in Safari it explains that AltEd must be on the Home Screen first. Not shown for an administrator's account.

Changes on this device

Opened from Changes or Review on the line across the top. Each change made offline that hasn't reached AltEd yet, with when you made it: waiting to send, or couldn't be sent with AltEd's reason in red. Send now tries straight away when there's a connection (Waiting for a connection when there isn't).

Settings › This device

Click to enlargeTap to enlarge

• Install AltEd — Install AltEd where the browser can; the three iPhone and iPad steps in Safari; AltEd is installed on this device. when you're using the app; or which browsers can install it, where yours can't.
• Offline — Pages saved and Space used by AltEd on this device; when they were last Brought up to date; the most recent saved pages (each opens its copy); Keep them when the device runs low on space — without it, the browser may clear saved pages to make room; Refresh saved pages, to bring every copy up to date now; and Delete saved pages.

Tips and good to know

• Saved means as it was. A saved page shows what it showed when it was saved — it doesn't change until you're back online. The line across the top always says when it was saved.
• Open it before you go. Your menu's pages are saved for you; anything else — one learner's plan, a particular week — is saved when you open it with a connection. Before a day out, open the pages you'll want, or use Refresh saved pages.
• On a slow or metered connection (2G, or Data Saver on) AltEd saves only what you open, and fetches nothing else for you until the connection is better.
• A shared family tablet. Signing out deletes everything saved for you on that device — changes not yet sent included, so AltEd asks first and says how many — and a different person signing in never sees your pages.
• Order is kept. Changes made offline are sent in the order you made them, and anything you do afterwards waits its turn behind them.
• A message written offline is checked by AltEd's safe messaging when it arrives, like any other.
• Space. Saved pages usually take a few megabytes. AltEd keeps the most recent ones and lets the oldest go.
• The learner's shared link works online only: its address is what lets your child in, so nothing under it is ever written down on the device.

Troubleshooting

Related guides

• Getting started
• Settings
• Signing in & account security
• The learner's own page