Install and first launch

Download dbdesk from the releases page: pick the file for your system from the latest release’s Assets. Until the first release is published, the page is empty; build from source instead (see the end of this page).

Windows builds are on the way: they’re built for every release but only offered once they’ve been tried on a real Windows machine.

macOS

1. Open the .dmg and drag dbdesk onto Applications.
2. Open dbdesk from Applications. These builds aren’t signed by Apple yet, so the first launch is blocked with “Apple could not verify dbdesk”.
3. Open System Settings › Privacy & Security, scroll down to the message about dbdesk, and click Open Anyway. macOS asks once more; confirm, and it opens normally from then on.

After each update, macOS asks again for access to each password dbdesk saved in the Keychain. Choose Always Allow. This happens because the app’s signature changes with every unsigned build; signed builds, planned for a later release, will remove both steps.

Linux

AppImage, on any distribution:

chmod +x dbdesk-*-x86_64.AppImage
./dbdesk-*-x86_64.AppImage

.deb, on Debian, Ubuntu and derivatives. This also adds dbdesk to the application menu:

sudo apt install ./dbdesk_*_amd64.deb

Saved passwords go to the Secret Service (GNOME Keyring, KWallet), which desktop environments already run. On a bare window manager without one, see Troubleshooting.

Check the download and the version

Each release has a SHA256SUMS file. In the folder with your download:

shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missing

Help › About dbdesk shows the version and the commit it was built from, and Copy version copies them for a bug report. From a terminal, dbdesk --version prints the same.

Updates

When dbdesk starts, it asks GitHub whether a newer release is out. If one is, the status bar says so, for example dbdesk 0.2.0 is available; click it, then Open release page to download the new version and install it as above. Help › Check for updates… asks at any time.

dbdesk doesn’t update itself yet, and the check sends nothing about you or your data: it reads the public list of releases. To stop the check at start-up, untick Check for a new release when dbdesk starts in View → Settings….

Build from source

For contributors, or to run the latest unreleased code. You need:

• Rust 1.95 or newer, installed with rustup. Check with rustc --version.

• Git, to fetch the source.

• On Linux, the development headers for the windowing system. On Debian or Ubuntu:

  sudo apt-get install libxcb-render0-dev libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev libxkbcommon-dev libssl-dev
  

Then:

git clone https://github.com/navasvarela/dbdesk.git
cd dbdesk
cargo run --release -p dbdesk-app

To install the dbdesk command so you can start it from anywhere:

cargo install --path crates/dbdesk-app

First launch

On first launch the explorer is empty (“No data sources yet”) and the Welcome tab offers three things to do:

• New data source — add a connection to a database. See Data sources.
• New query console — open a console on a data source. It is greyed out until you have one.
• Open the manual — opens this manual in your browser.

The log console under the Welcome tab shows engine started, and the status bar reads Engine running · 0 connected. If it says the engine is stopped, see Troubleshooting.

Light and dark

dbdesk follows your system’s light or dark setting. To choose one yourself, open View → Theme and pick Match system, Light or Dark. The choice is remembered.

The layout

dbdesk opens maximized the first time; after that it remembers the window’s size and position.

Every panel is a tab you can drag: onto another panel’s tab bar to join it, or onto the edge of a panel to split it. Drag the gaps between panels to resize them. dbdesk remembers the layout and the window size when you quit. View → Reset layout puts everything back where it started.