What's new

What changed in the app, in plain words.

Where your sign-in's copy is kept

On the phone you get these with an up-to-date app; in a web browser, when your community's server is updated.

Said where it is made. When you link Google, Apple or Facebook in the phone app, or join with one, Safety Backup and Account Protection now say, under A sign-in you link, that BeanPool's key vault, a small server in Iceland, keeps a locked copy of your key and 12 words for it, and who can open that copy, with the whole answer under Who can open it. See "Getting your account back".
Your 12 words first. Account Protection lists Your 12 words first, then A sign-in you link.
In a web browser. Safety Backup and Settings say whether the community's server keeps a copy of your account: on the global community it does, for a sign-in you joined with. The web app never uses BeanPool's key vault.
Where your account can be brought back from. In Account Protection, a new screen lists every copy of your account your phone can find, at the key vault (with the day each was made) and at your communities' servers, with Remove next to each and Remove everything. Before the last one goes, it asks Show my 12 words first?. The web app's Settings lists the copy that community's server keeps. See "Getting your account back".
Your community chooses where copies go. Its owners can keep members' copies at BeanPool's key vault, on the community's own server, or nowhere. The app follows the choice when you link a sign-in, and a card on Home tells you when it changes. A copy you already have stays yours. See "Getting your account back".

The global community, near you

You get these when the global community's server is updated. On the phone they need an up-to-date app.

Free, with limits. On the global community, a listing is archived 90 days after it last changed, with its photos. Saving it again keeps it up. The limits are all on one page. See "The global community's limits".
The listings near you. The global community has listings from everywhere. Your phone now keeps the nearest 500 within 250 km of your area, and your own and any listing you have a deal in progress or a conversation about, wherever they are. The Market's search still finds listings from everywhere. See "More than one community".
Your area. In the web app, joining the global community has one more step after your photo: Roughly where are you? On the phone it is asked when you join with an account you already have; a new phone account sets it later in Settings, under Your area. In that step, tap Use my location, Type a town or suburb, or Skip for now. It is kept to about 10 km, never your exact spot. Change or clear it in Settings, under Your area. See "Your area".
No area, no problem. Without one you see the newest listings from everywhere, and a line above the Market says so. On the phone, tap it to set your area.
New listings near you. They come in as they are posted. Ones far away no longer reach your phone.
In the web app, the Market and the Map start from your area, or from a place you pick with Distance: nearest first, each listing with how far away it is. See "Finding things near you".
Polls have no place of their own, so each is shown at the area of the member who made it.
Type your town. On the global community, Find your community on Home no longer needs your location: tap or type your town and pick your town. Only a rough point is kept. See "Finding a community near you".
Posting without a price. On the global community the post form asks for no price, because Beans live in local communities. In the web app, Post Offer and Post Need now work without one. A local community still asks for a price.

Home

A new Home tab. The app now opens on Home: a dashboard answering what needs you, what is new around you, and what you could do next. The Market is now its own tab, and the Pulse is a card on Home. You choose your cards: Add a card puts one on Home, each card's … moves or removes it, and Edit home lists them all to reorder or remove, on the phone and in the web app.
Getting started. A new member's Home starts with one card, Getting started. Tap Look around for a one-minute tour, or Skip, and your usual cards appear. Every screen has a ? at the top with its help.
A saved search on Home. Choose words such as "eggs", and whether you want offers, needs or both, a category and a distance. The card shows the first four listings that match, the same ones the Market's search finds, and See more opens the Market with your words in its search. It needs an up-to-date app and your community's server to be updated.
Save a search from the Market. While there are words in the Market's search, Save this search to Home appears, on the phone and in the web app. It opens Home with your words, Offers or Needs, the category and the distance filled in. Tap Add to Home. A saved search shows its newest matches first; on the global community, the nearest first. It is for Offers and Needs, so it does not show under Events or Polls.
Sun and moon on Home. Tonight's moon and today's sunrise and sunset, worked out on your phone or in your browser for your community's place or your area, on your own clock. It asks nothing of your community's server. It needs an up-to-date app; until your community's server is updated, it uses your area.
Columns on a wide screen. In the web app on a wide screen, the cards stand in two or three columns. In Edit home, choose Fill the width (up to three), Two wide, or One. Your choice is saved on your account.
The cards' real content on web. Cards in the web app show their real content rather than summary lines: up to 3 open deals with who and status, enterprise books with balances and month figures, open Decisions with your voting status and the first poll, recent chat lines in groups, four Pulse posts, your monthly Beans totals, and wide cards show listings and posts as tiles.

Privacy by default

These changes live on your community's server. You get them when your community's server is updated. The Poll choice needs an up-to-date app.

Your balance and trades are yours. Nobody else in your community can read your balance or your history. A trade shows only its two people, on the community activity too. A vote on removing a member shows that member's balance to the people who can vote in it, and nowhere else.
Listings are for members. Someone who has not joined can't see your community's listings or their photos. They are shown the way to the global community instead, where anyone can look around.
Anonymous polls. Polls show only the totals, unless the person who starts one makes it an Open vote.
Enterprises' books. Everyone still sees an enterprise's amounts. Who paid it, and the note, only its keepers and that member see.
Who wrote a review. Everyone in your community can read a review's stars and words. Only the two people in the trade can see who wrote it and which deal it was about.
Child safety. Every report screen, on the phone and in the web app, now offers Child safety as a reason. Choose it if a child may be at risk: the people who run your community's server are told at once and look at it first. See "Reporting a problem".

Daily limits

These live on your community's server. You get them when your community's server is updated.

Nobody can flood a community. One account can make up to 5,000 changes a day: posts, messages, edits and the like. Within that, up to 100 new posts, 5 new groups, 3 new enterprises, 20 invites and 50 links on the Pulse a day. Nobody using BeanPool normally comes near these. If you do reach one, the app says which, and when you can carry on.
Messages. Up to 30 a minute in any chat, direct messages too. A very long message is refused: send it in parts. Photos don't count.
New people. You can start conversations with 20 people from outside your community a day. Messaging members, and replying, is not limited.
Invites. You can have 50 that nobody has used yet. One nobody uses is deleted after its 30 days.
Payments. Up to 100 payments a day, and up to 30 people you have never paid before. Up to 100 deals asked for, accepted or approved, and 20 pledges made or changed. Receiving is never limited.
Projects and enterprises have their own limits, ten times a member's. What a keeper does for one counts against it, not against the keeper's own, except running it: keepers, pausing, winding up, and completing or turning down its deals. Once an enterprise has used up a limit for the day, what a keeper does of that for it counts against the keeper's own, so no keeper can use up its day and stop the others. A keeper can do one enterprise's worth a day for all the enterprises they keep together.
Friends. You can add up to 100 people as friends a day. Adding someone tells them.

Version 1.2.38

Some of these changes live on your community's server. You get them when your community's server is updated.

New

This BeanPool sheet. Guides to how BeanPool works, the rules, common questions and what's new. They work without a connection. Open it from Settings, under BeanPool: Help & how it works. The ? at the top of any screen opens the help for that screen.
Light or dark. The app starts light. To make it dark, or to have it follow your phone, go to Settings → Appearance: Same as phone, Light or Dark.
Badges. Every screen now uses the same trust levels as your community's server: Resident from 200 trust, Steward from 600, Elder from 1,400. Some screens used to show the wrong badge. The Newcomer badge is easier to read.

Voting

Secret ballots. The app no longer shows anyone how you voted on a Decision, admins included. You can see your own vote.
Who may vote. Only members who joined before a Decision opened can vote on it.
Turnout. Turnout now counts members who did something in the app in the last 30 days.
Emergency suspension. When an admin suspends someone, a 7-day vote opens at once: "Keep this suspension?". If it does not pass, the suspension lifts by itself. On the global community there is no vote: the suspension lasts 7 days and then lifts by itself, or sooner if an admin lifts it.
Voice credits. The voice credits shown for votes on Commons beans are the ones that count. You get them in full on every such vote.
Fewer kinds of Decision. Decisions can no longer change trust badges. The old "voting rounds" are gone.

Enterprises

When the lead keeper adds or removes a keeper, the other keepers have 3 days to object.
A keeper can step down, unless they are the only keeper, or while their pledge is still needed to cover the enterprise's debt.
Choosing a new lead now has a 14-day limit, and keepers can vote No.
If the lead leaves, the longest-serving keeper takes over at once.

Groups

Every group has a chat. Talk now has three buttons: Messages, Groups and People. Groups lists your groups, the enterprises you keep and the events you are going to, each with its latest message and unread count.
One way to start a group. New group in Talk and + in Commons open the same form, with Social Circle chosen for you. After you create it you land in its chat, which asks who you want to invite.
Invitations. Convenors can invite people from the chat's menu. An invitation shows who sent it, and Join the group takes you straight into the chat.
Mute a chat: For 8 hours, For a week or Always. In a group, @mentions still get through.
One header for every chat: the group's, enterprise's or event's name at the top. Tap it to see the group, enterprise or event.
The old group chats in Talk have been removed, with their messages.
Every group now has a lead convenor — whoever created it, to begin with. Any convenor still looks after members and posts, but only the lead can remove or demote a convenor, and nobody can remove the lead. The lead can hand the lead on to someone else. If the lead goes quiet for 30 days, the group can choose a new one, on the group's screen above the roster. See "Rules and how decisions work".
Votes in a group. A group's members can vote on the group's own things, such as a new convenor or a new lead: open the group and look under Decisions.
Choosing a new lead for a quiet group. Only people who were in the group before its lead went quiet can vote. People who joined, or were made convenors, after that have no say, so new accounts can't take over a group whose lead has gone quiet.

Safety

Only an owner can give back or take away an owner's or admin's role.
An admin cannot settle a stuck trade they are part of.
Group and event chats limit how fast one person can post.
Chats between two people are always locked. The app used to send a message without the lock if it could not find the other person's key. Now it does not send it: your words stay in the message box, and you can send again in a moment. Your community's server refuses a message between two people that is not locked.

Fixes

The map has one locate button again.
The Market feed is easier to read in dark mode.

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.