User Manual
What is Lyra?
Lyra is a useful, trustworthy tool for conversation.
Lyra puts you in control. It does not choose what you read or control your news feed. It does not rank or suggest conversations or evaluate their worth or interestingness. What you do next when you have finished reading a particular conversation is not Lyra's business.
Lyra aims to operate efficiently and usefully, without trying to capture your attention with an addictive user experience.
Lyra is a nonprofit, like Wikipedia. There are no advertisements or marketing messages. Your personal data will not be shared and your privacy will not be infringed. We ask users to kindly subscribe for £2.99 per year. Full use of our service is permitted without subscription.
Conversations are trees
A Lyra conversation is a branching tree of messages. This is very useful and convenient, since it is possible to reply directly to any message. In a tree structure:
Reading a message's replies
Each conversation is a tree, so any message can have its own replies. To see a message's replies, click/tap on it (not in the left quarter of the screen) or swipe left on it.
Going back up
Once you are finished reading a message's replies, you can go back up to the original message (their parent) by clicking/tapping anywhere on the left quarter of the screen, or swiping right anywhere on the screen.
Writing a message
Click on Reply to reply to any message. You can press shift-enter or command-enter to send your reply immediately.
Pressing enter once will display a carriage return in the finished message. Pressing enter twice will display a new indented paragraph. Pressing enter three times will display a blank line.
Images
There are two ways to add images to a message:
JPEG, PNG, SVG and GIF images are supported. Animated GIFs will not work if pasted; they must be uploaded using the Image link (this is because most external programs only send the first frame to the clipboard, not the whole animation).
Clicking on an image will display it at full size.
LaTeX
To write inline mathematical equations using LaTeX, surround your equation with double dollars: $$f(x)$$ bescomes $$f(x)$$. To make a centered equation, use triple dollars: $$$f(x)$$$ will become:
$$$f(x)$$$
Public, private and locked conversations
A conversation has one of three privacy levels:
If more privacy is needed, a public conversation can be switched to private or locked by its owner. A private conversation can be switched to locked by its owner.
However, to prevent private messages being revealed, a private conversation can never be switched to public, and a locked conversation can never be switched to either private or public.
Invitations
A conversation can be accessed by its address, which looks like www.lyra.vc/conversation/xhsu-ruwj-sgeh-kehg.
You can also create an invitation to a conversation, which looks like www.lyra.vc.invitation/hgje-ejrk-sjgh-shthj. You can share this invitation link however you like.
Invitations can be revoked at any time, and any number can be created. There are several options:
Lyra can send an invitation to an email address or a list of email addresses.
Please note that invitations cannot be created to locked conversations.
How much does Lyra cost?
Lyra Communications Ltd is a non-profit company. Lyra is operated on the Wikipedia model, asking a subscription fee of £2.99 per year. Full use of the platform is permitted without subcription.
We derive no revenue from advertising or from tracking or selling user data. You retain all copyright over the messages and images you post.
Security
Lyra uses secure keys (such as abcd-efgh-ijkl-mnop) to protect access to conversations. There are 26^16 = 4.36e22 (43 sextillion) possible keys. This means that even with a billion active conversations, an attacker would have to make on average 22 trillion guesses in order to access a conversation by guessing its key.
Tracking and cookies
Lyra stores two cookies: remember_user_token, which remembers that you are signed in, and _lyra_session, which is not used and is empty. These cookies are used only to remember that you are signed in.
Lyra does not read any cookies from other websites, leave any cookies for other websites, track your external browsing activity, or share any information about your browsing activity.
In general, Lyra does not share any of your personal information and does not purchase or obtain any information concerning you from external sources.
The Lyra team
Frequently asked questions
Why can't I paste a GIF image?
Most software does not actually send the full animation when you copy a GIF. If only one frame is copied, the entire animation cannot be pasted. To upload a GIF, use the image upload button.
How are my messages secured?
Messages are encrypted using HTTPS, the industry standard, as they pass between the web browser and Lyra's servers.
Conversation and invitation keys are highly secure: there are 43 sextillion (about $$10^{22}$$) possible keys, making guessing intractable.
Contact details
Lyra Communications Ltd
71-75 Shelton Street
Covent Garden
London WC2H 9JQ
Get in touch: contact@lyra.vc
Privacy policy
Lyra does not buy, sell, or share any of your personal information. You retain any copyright over your messages. Lyra's full privacy policy is available here.