- The alpha banner is now a fixed, in-flow strip above the header on every public page
- It states CFIN is invite-only, plus a factual line about the current fleet's composition
- No longer a floating element that needed per-page placement logic to avoid covering content
A thin strip now sits above the header on every public page — the very first thing rendered, before the logo, before the navigation. It carries one consistent message: CFIN is in early access, and joining requires an invitation.
Where it sits, and why that changed
The banner used to be positioned differently depending on the page it was on, with a script that worked out a safe spot for it on each one — near the fold on some pages, above the footer on others — because, as an element that used to float over the page, it could otherwise cover content no matter where it landed. It is now a normal, in-flow element at the very top of the page instead, which means it can never cover anything below it and no longer needs that per-page placement logic at all.
What the wording says
The banner states that CFIN is in early access, by invitation, and — depending on what the current fleet of accounts actually consists of — adds one factual sentence about whether the figures shown elsewhere on the page come from demonstration accounts, real-money accounts, or a mix of both. That second sentence is drawn directly from the fleet's actual composition rather than typed once and left to go stale, so it changes by itself if the fleet's composition changes.
What “invite-only” means in practice
Joining requires a valid invitation code from an existing member. Each member's own code can invite a limited number of people, and a code that has reached its limit stops working. On joining, you receive your own code to pass on in turn.
A link to more detail
A “What this means” link in the banner leads to the relevant FAQ entry, which goes into the invitation mechanism in more detail. The banner itself stays short and factual by design; the longer explanation lives on a page built for it rather than crowding the strip.
Dismissing it
A close control lets you dismiss the banner for a limited period. If the underlying wording changes — for instance, because the fleet's composition changes — the banner reappears even if you had previously dismissed the earlier wording, rather than staying hidden behind a dismissal that no longer matches what it would currently say.
Why it moved to the very top
As a floating element, the banner previously needed to be placed carefully on each page so it did not cover anything important underneath it — at one point it was measured covering a meaningfully large area of the screen at a common desktop width, simply by sitting in a fixed position over whatever content happened to be there. Making it a normal, in-flow strip at the very top removes that risk by construction: an element that always comes first, in the page's own content flow, cannot cover anything that comes after it, on any page, at any scroll position.
The banner is announced to assistive technology once, politely, rather than interrupting whatever else is being read — it carries a status role rather than an urgent alert role, matching the fact that it is a standing disclosure rather than a time-critical warning. Its own height is measured and published to the rest of the page as it loads, resizes, or wraps onto a second line with a longer translated sentence, so a page element positioned relative to the viewport's top can account for exactly how much space the banner is currently taking up, rather than assuming a fixed height that a longer sentence or a narrower screen would quietly invalidate.