Using Outpost

Desktop App

There is a desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux. It runs the same client the browser does, in its own window, and it remembers every server you belong to.

Installing

Pick the installer for your system on the download page.

Windows and Linux update themselves after that. You get a menu item and a prompt when a new version is ready.

macOS does not. Updating there means downloading the new version yourself. The reason is in the warning below.

BE WARNED: your OS will almost certainly complain on first launch. The installers are not signed. Signing costs money every year, from Apple and from Microsoft, and this is a personal project with no company behind it. Nothing is wrong with the build. The source is public and CI builds it in the open. The download page has the click-through for each OS. The support page is there if you want to help change it.

Or skip the install

Open app.outpost-chat.com instead. Same client, nothing to install, and it works on a machine you do not own.

Install the app if you want it in your dock, if you want it to update itself, or if you would rather the client come from your own machine than from a website.

Several servers at once

Every Outpost server is its own community with its own account. See Getting Started for what that means.

The app keeps a list of the ones you belong to. Switch between them from the name at the top of the channel list. You stay signed in to each.

What the app does that a browser tab does not

Updates itself on Windows and Linux.
Signs in through your real browser when your server uses single sign-on, so your password manager works normally.
Stays out of the way of a browser you are already using for something else.

Screen sharing works in the app on all three systems. It was broken until v0.4.0, so update if you are on something older and the button does nothing.

Themes

Five of them, including a light one. Signal Fire is the default, warm ember on deep slate, the same palette this site uses.

Pick yours in user settings, Appearance. See Themes & Appearance.