Getting Started¶

A guide for your first CoCalc session.

Creating an Account
Signing in
Creating a Project
Creating a File
Running a Jupyter Notebook
The Project Toolbar
The Files Toolbar
Your CoCalc Session
Signing Out
Next steps
Getting help

Creating an Account ¶

On your first visit to CoCalc.com, you will see the welcome screen. Click Create Account!:

Agree to the Terms of Service:

Choose a sign-in method. In addition to signing up with your email address, you have the option of signing using your credentials for Facebook, Github, Google, or Twitter. In the image below, sign up via email is highlighted:

Signing in ¶

Once you have signed in for the first time, sign-in in will be automatic if you are using the same browser and computer. All you will generally need to do is point your browser to https://cocalc.com.

You will need to sign in again if you

connect from a different browser or computer
clear your browser cookies.
sign out

Creating a Project ¶

Now that you are signed in, create your first project. Click in the Project title area and enter a project name, for example “My Project”, and then click Create Project.

After the project is created, you will see it appear in your list of projects. Click on the project name to open the project:

Creating a File ¶

Once you have opened a project, you are ready to create a file.

If your project isn’t upgraded, you will get a red banner warning that your project is running on a trial server. Ignore the warning for now and keep going.

Click (+) New and enter example where it says, Name your file…. and click Jupyter notebook to select the file type. Clicking a button for the type of file causes the file extension is added automatically.

Running a Jupyter Notebook ¶

We’re going to run a simple Python program, so let’s change the kernel from SageMath (stable) to Python 3 (Anaconda 5). In the image, arrow 1 points to the place where the current kernel is displayed, while arrows 2 and 3 indicate how to select the new Jupyter kernel.

Now enter a line of python code in the first cell of the notebook:

And click Run or press Shift-Enter to run the code.

The Files Toolbar ¶

The Files Toolbar is next, appears below the Project Toolbar when you have a project open. Use it to work with files in the currently open project. When you open a file, its name appears in the Files Toolbar. When you select a file in the toolbar, its contents are displayed in the browser.

From left to right:

Files - If you don’t have a file open, clicking here will show you a list of files in the project’s home directory. If you are working on a file, clicking Files will show a list of files in the directory containing the currently selected file. You can enter search characters to filter the file list for filenames containing the search text.

New - click to create or upload new files. New also lets you browse the CoCalc Library, which contains code examples and entire books about various toolsets and science topics, ready to copy into your project.

Log - The Project Activity Log shows recent activity in your project: logins, files opened and uploaded, etc. If you click on a filename in the log, it will open that file. This is often the quickest way to resume work on a file that was recently closed.

Find - Search for files containing the specified text in the directory that contains the currently selected file, or the project home directory if no file is selected. There are options to for searching subdirectories, case sensitive search, including hidden files, and restricting search to files in a git repository.

Settings - This tab is where you can set a description for your project, add or remove upgrades, hide or delete the project, add a project-specific SSH Key, view and add collaborators, stop and restart the project and the Sage worksheet server, and launch the Plain Jupyter and JupyterLab servers. Hint: Adding hashtags to the description can make it easy to find a subject with the Project button if you have a large number of projects.

Open Files - a button will appear for each file you have open. There are several ways to open a file in CoCalc:

Select the name of the file in Project Files list.

Select the filename in an entry in the Project Activity Log.

Use the open command to open the file from a terminal.

Share - If a file is selected, this button allows you to share it. Files shared publicly can be viewed by people without a CoCalc login.

Chat - If a file is selected, you can click here to start text or video chat. Collaborators on the project will get a notification when chat is opened or updated.

Your CoCalc Session ¶

CoCalc will keep track of projects you have open and files that are open within those projects. When you return, you will see the same open projects and files. In addition, if you have a program running and disconnect, it will keep running, with a few exceptions: the program will stop if any of the following occurs:

your project is on a trial server (i.e. does not have Member Hosting upgrade applied) and the server is restarted

you do not edit a file for more than the idle time specified in Project Settings

the program crashes or runs out of memory

Signing Out ¶

You sign out by using Account → Preferences → Sign Out…

Next steps ¶

Continue your tour of CoCalc, with these topics:

Subscribe to CoCalc and upgrade your projects here:

Project Upgrades

Getting help ¶

In addition the Index in this User Manual, if you have specific questions you can check the following:

CoCalc Wiki search
CoCalc Wiki index page

Note: we are in the process of migrating CoCalc Wiki documents into this User Manual.