Activity, approvals and Stop

While Crossbox works on a reply it shows what it is doing, asks before anything that has an effect, and lets you stop. This page explains each.

Activity under a reply

A line above the reply says how long it took. While it runs it reads “Working for 4m 52s (since queued)”. When it finishes it reads “Worked for 2m 10s (includes queue time)”, or “Failed after…”, “Stopped after…” or “Timed out after…”. The time counts from when your message was queued, not only from when work began, and the line says so.

When the reply is not working at that moment, the line says why instead of counting: Queued, Waiting for approval, Waiting for an event, Waiting for a resource, Paused, Suspended, Stopping or Retrying.

Open the line to see the steps the reply took, in order. Each step has a name, such as reading a file, and a state: queued, running, succeeded, refused, failed or cancelled. A step with no recorded result says so rather than guessing. Open a step to see its input and output. Files a step wrote are listed with it; when there are many, the list offers to show more or fewer.

Approvals

Some actions ask for your approval before they happen. When one does, the chat shows an approval with Approve and Deny, and the line above the reply reads “Waiting for approval”. That action does not happen until you decide. While your decision is being recorded it reads “Approving…” or “Denying…”.

Stop a reply

1. While a reply is being written, the send button becomes a Stop button named “Stop generating”.
2. Click it, or press Esc in the message box.
3. The button changes to show the stop is pending, and the line above the reply reads “Stopping”. Pressing it again does nothing more.
4. When the reply has stopped, the line reads “Stopped after…”.

You can keep typing your next message while a reply is running or stopping; your draft stays editable. A new message can be sent once the reply has finished or stopped.

Other controls in a chat

• Jump to latest appears when you have scrolled up in a long chat. It takes you to the newest message and says when there is new content.
• Read aloud on an answer reads it with a voice installed on your device. It never uses an online voice. If your browser has no on-device voice, it says so and suggests installing one in your system settings.
• Edit is on your own messages. Pressing ArrowUp in an empty message box reopens your last message for editing. If you have an unsent draft, Crossbox keeps it and asks you to send or clear it first.