Installation guide

Catenary ships as a normal desktop installer for Windows, macOS and Linux. This page covers the download, the operating-system warnings you will see, and why they exist.

Download

Builds are published on GitHub Releases. The in-app updater checks the same source, so once installed you do not download anything by hand again.

Windows: the SmartScreen warning

On the first run, Windows may show a blue "Windows protected your PC" panel.

This is the standard notice for a new executable with no accumulated reputation — not a detection of anything. Click More info, then Run anyway.

As the first installs accumulate, SmartScreen learns the binary is safe and the warning stops appearing on its own.

macOS: Gatekeeper

macOS may say the app "cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified".

Right-click (or Control-click) Catenary in Finder, choose Open, and confirm in the dialog. You do this once — macOS remembers the decision for that copy.

Why the installers are unsigned

Honestly: a Windows code-signing certificate costs around US$ 200 a year, and buying one before the product has sold anything would be spending money the product has not made. The plan is to fund it from Pro licences. Until then the installer is unsigned — which is exactly why the two warnings above exist, and why this page exists.

First launch

Catenary opens on an empty canvas and asks for a folder. Pick a project directory; it becomes a workspace, and the canvas state for it is written to .cate/ inside that project.

No account, no key and no internet connection are required to reach this point.

Updates

Updates arrive through electron-updater from GitHub Releases. Everything in the 1.x line is included in a Pro licence.