Download, install and first launch

Download

Always get the installer from the download page. It offers the build for your system:

The two platforms are not always on the same version number; the changelog says which build is current on each.

Installing on macOS

1. Double-click the .dmg you downloaded.
2. Drag the Tabledi icon into the Applications folder beside it.
3. Open it from Launchpad or Applications. The first time, macOS asks whether you are sure you want to open an app downloaded from the internet — choose Open.

If you hit the stricter block ("cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified"), Control-click the icon in Applications, choose Open, and confirm once. It will not ask again.

Installing on Windows

1. Double-click the installer.
2. Click through the wizard. You can change the install location; leave everything else as it is.
3. Launch it from the desktop icon or the Start menu.

If Windows SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC", click More info → Run anyway. If security software blocks it, add Tabledi to the trusted list — it starts a local data engine process, and that action is sometimes misread as suspicious.

The first launch takes a moment

TableDI carries its own data engine, and the first launch starts it for the first time. A splash screen walks through three steps — Starting local services…, then Starting the data engine — the first launch can be slow…, then Loading the interface… — usually five to ten seconds. On a spinning disk, or with an antivirus scanning every file, give it a minute before concluding anything. Every launch after that is much quicker.

There is no login screen once the engine is up: the desktop app has no accounts. You get a welcome page listing what the free version includes on the left and what the paid version unlocks on the right. Click Start with Free to go in; paying is a decision you can make any time later.

Behind it is an empty workspace. The next page, Ten minutes in, picks up from here.

Interface language

Chosen from your operating system: a Chinese system gets Chinese, everything else gets English. To change it by hand, click the workspace avatar in the top-left (the round icon at the top of the sidebar) and use Language at the bottom of the drawer that opens; the current language is shown on the right. The choice is remembered, and the menu bar and native dialogs follow it.

Where your data lives

Every table, dashboard and setting sits in one folder on this machine:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/tabledi-desktop/TableDI/
• Windows: %APPDATA%\tabledi-desktop\TableDI\

Three things worth knowing now:

• Uninstalling does not delete your data. Remove the app and the folder stays; reinstall and your tables come back. To wipe it properly, delete that folder yourself after uninstalling.
• Moving machines is on you. Use Desktop settings → Data backup to export a .tdbk, and import it on the new computer. Free version included.
• Do not copy that folder as a backup while the app is running. A database being written to can copy out broken. Quit first, or use the backup feature above.

Updates

Desktop settings → About shows the current version and a Check for updates button. When a new build exists the main window says so; once it has downloaded, it installs when you quit the app, and the next launch is the new version. Your data folder is untouched by updates.

If it will not open

Almost every startup failure is something on this machine blocking the data engine. Work through three causes in order:

1. Security software (most common on Windows). Add Tabledi to the trusted list and reopen; the software's own block log usually shows the evidence in ten seconds.
2. A local port is blocked. The engine listens on a port on this machine, and a few firewall policies forbid loopback traffic. Allow the app to communicate on the local network — it is only talking to itself, never out to the internet.
3. Two copies running. Two Tabledi processes fighting over one data folder will jam. Quit them all from Activity Monitor / Task Manager and open one.

If none of those is it, read the log: the error dialog has an Open log folder button. The log holds the engine's own output, never the contents of your tables. Send it with your system and version number and we can usually pinpoint it.