Organizing on the web

Everything an organizer needs is at /exchanges. Click "Create exchange" to open the form.

The form

Name. Required, up to 120 characters. This is what shows on your card and the public join page.

Type. Portfolio swap, mail art, themed, class, or other. Sets the label participants see; it doesn't change how the exchange behaves.

Theme. Optional. Printed on the colophon.

Description. What participants read before they join. Say what they make and what they get back.

Participants. The roster capacity, from 2 to 500.

Edition size per participant. How many impressions each printmaker pulls and mails in. Most organizers set this equal to the roster size, so every printmaker's edition covers everyone else.

Dimensions, paper, ink. Free-text specification fields. Leave any blank and it reads as "Artist's choice" to participants.

Submission deadline. The date prints must be in the post. Leave it blank for a rolling deadline.

Completion deadline. When the portfolios and colophon go out.

Participation fee and currency. Leave the fee at 0 for a free exchange. A fee usually covers return postage.

List publicly so printmakers can find it. Makes the exchange visible to anyone browsing open exchanges on brayer.app, rather than by code alone.

Where prints are mailed. Your mailing address. Only members of the exchange can see it; it's what participants copy when they wrap their edition.

Open for joining right away. Only on the create form. Checked, the exchange starts in the Open stage instead of Draft, so the join link works immediately.

Save, and you land on the exchange page with a join code already assigned. Click "Edit" on that page any time to change any of these fields; everything on the form can change later except the code itself.

The join link and QR

The right-hand panel on your exchange page shows the share link, a copy button, a QR code, and the six-character code in large type. Participants join at that link, or by entering the code at /join, or by scanning the QR code with the app.

The roster

The Roster tab lists every printmaker: name, email, mailing address, payment status, submission status, how many prints they've received against the edition size, and a notes field. Payment status (No fee, Unpaid, Paid, Refunded) is a dropdown per row and saves as soon as you change it.

Add people to the roster two ways:

1. Add participant. Fill in name, email, and mailing address by hand, one at a time.
2. Import CSV. Paste one printmaker per line as name,email,address. Quote any address that contains a comma. A header row is detected and skipped automatically.

Either way, an imported row sits on the roster unclaimed until that person joins with the same email address, at which point their account takes over the row and fills in anything they didn't already have on file. Both forms stop you from adding more people than the capacity allows.

Submissions

The Submissions tab tracks what has gone out and what has landed, with a progress bar across the top. For each participant you can mark received (records the date and, once everyone's copy has arrived, fills in the received count), mark complete, or step a row back to sent or pending if you made a mistake.

Messages

The Messages tab is the exchange's message board. Write to everyone, or pick one printmaker from the "Send to" list to message them alone. Direct messages are only visible to you, the sender, and whoever they're addressed to; broadcasts are visible to every member.

Money

If the fee is above zero, the detail panel shows what's been marked Paid against the fee, and the 5% platform fee that would apply once in-app payment ships. For now, payment happens directly between you and each participant, outside the app. You record who's paid by changing their status on the roster.

Status and editing

The stage selector in the top bar moves the exchange forward: Draft, Open, In progress, Complete. Cancelling is available at any stage and asks you to confirm, since it locks the join code. The specification, roster, and messages all stay editable regardless of stage.