More than one community

Belong to several communities with one account, switch between them, follow your community to a new address, and see what the global community shows you.

One account, several communities

Your phone holds one account: one name, one key, one set of 12 words. You can use it to join more than one community. Each community keeps its own beans, trades and posts.

Joining another community

A community lets you in with an invite from one of its members. No invite? From the global community you can ask a community near you to let you in: see "Finding a community near you".
Tap the invite icon (a person with a plus) at the top right of the screen to open Invites.
Under Join Another Community, paste the invite link or code. If you only have a code, also fill in the community's address.
Tap Join Community.

Your key, your 12 words and your name come with you. Your posts, chats and trades stay in each community. Tap Next, then check your name and photo for the new community. A sign-in account you linked to get back into your account works there too: BeanPool keeps one copy for all your communities.

Visiting a community's address

A community's own address (such as castlemaine.beanpool.org) shows its card to anyone who isn't a member: its name, how many members it has and its town or area if the community shares them, and whether it Takes requests to join or Takes new members by invite. Nothing else: no members' names, no listings, no balances, never an exact place. The website's map links each community's card with See and its name.

Ask to join: on an Android phone with the BeanPool app, this opens the community's card in the app. Elsewhere it opens the global community with that community first: you look around global first, join there to get an account, and the Find a community card then shows the community you came to ask. Today you send the request from the app: open Find a community there and choose the community. A community that doesn't link to the global community says Ask to join from the BeanPool app.
I have an invite: the form for your invite code.
Already a member: the ways back into your account.
Look around the global community: where the community links to one.

In the app, a community's address opens its card too. On your own community's card, tap Open and its name. On another community's card, tap Ask to join and send a few words about yourself: the request goes to that community, as from Find a community. With an invite, tap I have an invite, then paste it under Join Another Community.

Joining the global community from your account

The global community needs no invite, and you join it with the account you already have: the same key and the same 12 words. The app offers it when the global community is open and hasn't told the app that this account is already a member there.

Under Your communities there is always a row for the Global community. Its second line says where you stand: its address when you are a member (tap it to switch to it), Look around first, then join with this account when you can join it (while you are visiting it as a guest: Join with this account: 12 words or a sign-in, or Join with this account: a sign-in where the community doesn't take the 12 words), or why you can't right now: Checking…, Can't reach it right now (with Tap to try again. while this phone hasn't saved the global community), Not taking new members right now., This community is in a private preview. Ask its owner for an invite., or Your account there was closed. When the global community can't be reached and you are connected to a community you are a member of, a line under it says Your own community isn't affected. Nothing else on the phone depends on it.

Tap the bean at the top left. In the BeanPool sheet, under Your communities, tap Global community (its second line says Look around first, then join with this account). The app opens the global community as a guest, as the website does: you look around first, and the dot on the bean shows you are a guest. It is also in Settings, under Saved communities: Look around the global community. Nothing is joined and no account is made by looking.
When you are ready, tap Join at the top, beside the ?, then Join with 12 words or a sign-in (Join with a sign-in where a community takes sign-ins only). If the app shows You're not a member here yet for the global community, tap Join with this account.
Choose how to join: Join with this account, which uses the key and 12 words already on this phone (no sign-in, so no phone lock), or, under Also add a sign-in, sign in once with Google, Apple (on an iPhone) or Facebook. For a sign-in, the app asks for your phone's lock first, because this sign-in also becomes a way back into your account.
Check the name people there will see, and tap Join. If someone already has that name, the app suggests others.
Then choose your photo for the global community, as for any new community, and then roughly where you are (Roughly where are you?; you can tap Skip for now): the global community shows you the listings near it. See "Joining BeanPool".

Nothing changes in your other communities, and your 12 words stay the same. A sign-in also becomes a way back into the same account: a locked copy of it is kept for that sign-in, so if you lose your phone, it brings back this account, not a new one. See "Getting your account back". A sign-in you linked to your account before keeps working. If you join with 12 words and no sign-in keeps a copy of your account, the app shows the Your account has one way back card, as for anyone who joins with 12 words (see "Joining BeanPool").

If the app says This sign-in already joined the global community with a different BeanPool account, that sign-in has its own account there. Use a different sign-in: one sign-in account makes one account in the global community.

On a new phone with no account yet, use Explore BeanPool worldwide on the first screen instead. See "Joining BeanPool".

What the global community shows you

The global community has listings from everywhere, far more than a phone needs to hold. So your phone keeps the ones near you:

the nearest 500 listings within 250 km of your area, the rough place you gave when you joined. See "Your area";
your own listings, and any listing you have a deal in progress or a conversation about, wherever they are.

The Market's list and the Map on your phone show what your phone keeps. New listings near your area come in as they are posted. If you change your area, your phone swaps in the listings near the new one.

Nothing far away is out of reach:

Search in the Market asks the community, so it finds listings from everywhere, not only near you. Without a connection, it searches what is already on your phone.
A listing you open from a message, a link or Home is fetched from the community, wherever it is. If the community no longer has it, it says Post not found.
The Map shows only what your phone keeps, so far from your area it has few pins or none. Search the Market to find things there.

Without an area, your phone keeps the newest 100 listings from everywhere instead, and a line above the Market says You're seeing the newest listings worldwide. Set your area to see what's near you. Tap it to set one. You can still post, message and search as before.

A poll has no place of its own, so it is shown at the area of the member who made it: the polls you see are mostly ones made near you.

In the web app, the Market and the Map ask the community each time: for the listings near your area or near a place you pick, or else the newest from everywhere. See "Finding things near you".

Your other communities work as before.

Switching

Tap the bean at the top left. The BeanPool sheet opens, with Your communities near the top.
Tap the one you want.

A small number beside a community shows how many alerts it has sent you since you last had it open. Tapping an alert from one of your other communities switches to that community and opens the alert there. See "Notifications".

You can also switch in Settings, under System, then Saved communities. Your communities are listed there. The one you are using is marked as active. Tap Switch to this community on another one to move to it.

When your community moves to a new address

A community can move to a new address: for example, from its server's number (such as 203.0.113.5) to a name. On the phone, Home then shows a card at the top: This community is also at beans.example.org. Use that address from now on? It shows only after your phone has checked with the community's server that the new address is the same community.

Tap Use the new address. Your phone moves there with what it keeps for that community, your messages included, and opens the community again, as when you switch.
Tap Not now, and the card asks again in 7 days. Your phone never moves by itself.
If the new address answers as a different community, the app says This phone stays where it is, and keeps the address it has. If the check can't be made, it says Nothing has changed. Try again in a little while.
If the old address stopped answering before your phone heard of the new one, nothing can tell your phone where the community went. Ask its owners for the new address, then tap the bean, then Add a community, and type it there.

Forgetting a community on this phone

In Saved communities, tap Forget on a community you are not using right now. This removes it and its saved data from this phone.
In the BeanPool sheet, under Your communities, pressing and holding a community and tapping Remove only takes it off the list. Its data stays on the phone.

Neither deletes your account there, and your other communities are not affected.

To delete your account in one community, open it and use Permanently Delete Account in Settings. The phone keeps your key for your other communities. See "Leaving or deleting your account".

Visiting as a guest

If you add a community without an invite, you are a guest there. A Join button shows at the top, beside the ?. A guest sees very little until they register with an invite. In the global community, which has no invites, a guest joins with their 12 words or a sign-in instead: see "Joining the global community from your account" above.

On a new phone with no account yet, Explore BeanPool worldwide on the first screen opens the global community as a guest too, before there is any account: you see its listings and its map, and nothing about you is made or sent until you tap Join. See "Joining BeanPool".

The same guide is in the BeanPool app, and works there without a connection: open Settings, then "Help & how it works" under BeanPool. Every other rule, guide and manual is in the Help Centre. Guide version 162.