Getting around

WASD or arrow keys to walk, Space to jump. Everyone in The Exchange walks at the same pace — there is no sprint. Mouse-look is on by default — the trackpad or mouse steers your view with nothing held down. Opening any menu frees the cursor automatically (so does Esc); clicking the world takes it back. Prefer a permanently free cursor? I switches modes and remembers your choice: drag the world — or two-finger scroll on a trackpad — to look. L calls the lift from anywhere to change floors — no need to walk to it.

Getting around

Look — drag anywhere on the right side of the screen.

Walk — the round pad, bottom left. Push it the way you want to go.

E (bottom right) — uses whatever is in front of you: the lift, a bench, a standing table, a seat in the auditorium. Walk up to a thing and press it.

Chat (beside E) — opens the text box. Tapping anywhere else closes it again; a phone keyboard has no Escape.

Mic (right edge) — tap to speak, tap to mute. The button IS the state: Mic muted, LIVE heard, Away muted by the idle guard.

Lift (right edge) — the floor menu, from anywhere. No walking to a lift bank.

⋯ (right edge) — everything else: transcription, the calendar, your appearance, this page, the concierge, the feedback box, and messages. Tap outside it to put it away.

Talking

Your microphone starts off. Nobody hears you until you turn it on: press M (or click the MIC badge, top-right) to speak, and again to mute. The badge always shows the truth — MIC OFF, MIC LIVE, or MIC AWAY.tap Mic on the right edge to speak, and again to mute. That button always shows the truth — Mic, LIVE, or Away. Voice works by distance: walk up to people to hear them, walk away to leave. An orange ring shows over whoever is speaking. The first time you unmute, the browser asks for microphone access.

Once live, the mic looks after itself: a hidden tab for a minute, or no input for five, and it mutes (MIC AWAY) — it comes back the moment you return. Leave the venue idle for thirty minutes and you're signed out entirely, for privacy. Sign out (top right) returns you to the door: your sign-in is remembered and re-entry is one click.

Your avatar

U opens⋯ → Robe opens the wardrobe (also on the sign-in card): body and clothing, outfit colour, skin tone, hair colour and cut, age, and height from 5'6" to 6'4". Everyone in the room sees the change at once.

Enter opensThe Chat button opens text chat. Arrive mid-conversation and the last few minutes are replayed for you.

Events

The board by the lifts shows what is coming up. C opens⋯ → Cal opens the full calendar from anywhere. Every time is shown in your own timezone, and each event has an add-to-calendar button.

The concierge

The concierge hovers by the lift on every floor. Walk up and click it, or click Ask the concierge (bottom-right)tap ⋯ → Ask, to open a private chat. It answers questions about the building and about the session, greets returning members by name, and will pass on a note or a reminder if you ask (“tell Daniel I am running late”). It is not a lawyer and does not give advice.

Rather be shown around? The concierge will walk you through the public floors — one room at a time, a line on each, about twenty seconds apiece. Click the concierge to move on sooner.It moves on by itself when the time is up. Take the lift yourself at any point and the tour steps aside; nothing is remembered, and there is nothing to finish.

The Auditorium

Set-piece lectures and teaching, seventy-two seats. Tonight's speakers stand on the dais and press P to put their screen or slides on the cinema screen, or V to broadcast their webcam — their face — to the hall; the cinema screen is theirs alone, and the venue enforces that rather than asking. Everyone sees the same feed. E anywhere among the benches asks the house for a seat and it gives you the nearest free one; sitting down during a live talk puts you in the front row — full screen, with a slim strip for the floor's questions, a raise hand button and the way back out. V still opens and closes that view by hand. Raise a hand and the MC can give you the floor: your microphone goes live until they take it back. Enter joins the floor's questions-and-comments thread — the analyst keeps the open questions on the side board.

Running the evening? O opens the host console (directors only): name tonight's speakers and MC, work the queue of raised hands, and call the room from floor to floor.

Set-piece lectures and teaching, seventy-two seats. E among the benches asks the house for a seat, and the Chat button joins the floor's questions-and-comments thread — the analyst keeps the open questions on the side board. Speaking from the dais — putting your screen, your slides or your webcam on the cinema screen — is desktop only

The Sky Garden

The lift's top stop is the open roof: a tropical terrace with no ceiling but the real London sky — the register is Kew's glasshouses and the Fenchurch Street garden, grown procedurally. The sun, cloud and rain up there are live: if it is raining over the Shard right now, it is raining on the deck, and the palms lean harder as the weather turns. Koi cruise the ponds under the lilies, ibis wheel overhead, and a planted outcrop pours its cascade into the central pond beside the plaza's picnic tables. After dark the bollard lamps come up along the paths. EE on a chair takes a seat at a table. Sit alone and nothing happens; the moment a second person sits at the same table it opens a voice line of its own and switches on your camera, so each of you gets a face above your avatar and the rest of the terrace hears none of it. Ten tables, ten separate conversations. Standing up ends both, for you. No agenda up here — it is the floor with nothing to do.

Graphics

The venue watches its own frame rate and eases quality when a machine starts to struggle — that is Auto, and it is the default. High holds the full quality this device supports; Low keeps it light and cool on a laptop or a warm room. Your choice is remembered. Some of what quality means — real-time shadows, the denser garden planting — is decided while the page loads, so where a reload is needed to finish the job the row says so.

Reload

View

On foot you see yourself from behind — Third, the default. First puts you back behind your own eyes, which some people need: a trailing camera is genuinely uncomfortable to some, and a venue you cannot walk around in is no venue. Your choice is remembered, and it takes effect the moment you pick it — no reload. Sitting down is always first person whichever you choose, because at a table the camera would be inside it.

Worth knowing

The door is your Podclub membership: sign in to enter under your member name.

If two of you share a physical room, one should mute or you will hear echo. Presenting shows the screen or tab you pick to everyone present. This is an early build: the Feedback button (bottom-right)⋯ → Note drops a note straight to the venue team from any floor — anything broken, anything you'd want next.