Experiments

Features that are still being built are off until you turn them on, one switch each, with the cua experiments command or in the app's Settings.

An experiment is a feature that works but is still being built. It is off until you turn it on, and turning it off puts everything back the way it was before: nothing the experiment made is deleted, and the commands and settings it added disappear from help and from the app.

Turn one on or off#

cua experiments list                  # every experiment and whether it is on
cua experiments enable secure-spaces
cua experiments disable secure-spaces

The switches live in the Cua home (experiments/<name>), so the command, the daemon and the Spaces apps agree. In the app, a switch for these two appears under Settings, Advanced, Labs once the experiment is on (turn it on with the command first); a change made with the command shows there the next time the app starts. To turn one on for a single process, set CUA_EXPERIMENTS=secure-spaces (or -secure-spaces to force it off).

A command that belongs to an experiment that is off is left out of --help. If you run it anyway it says which experiment to turn on.

The experiments#

Name	What it does
`child-spaces`	A Space makes Spaces of its own, inside a budget for its tree, and keeps a command running. See Child Spaces and Keep a command running.
`secure-spaces`	A Space reaches the internet and its own tree and nothing else on your network unless you open it, with a network setting for each Space. See A Space's network.

Turning one off#

Turning an experiment off takes effect for the Spaces you start or create afterwards. A running Space keeps the network it started with until it restarts, and a Space made while Secure Spaces was on keeps the protection it was made with. A Space made before you turned Secure Spaces on stays on the open network it had; to move it to the secure one it has to be recreated, which loses its files, so Cua refuses to restart it while the experiment is on and tells you the two ways forward (turn the experiment off to keep using it, or copy what you need out and delete it). Turning an experiment back on later brings back the settings you chose.