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Docs · Install the hub

Install the hub

Most of it is waiting for a download. You need one machine that stays on while the shop counts — a Mac or a Windows PC, not a phone.

About fifteen minutes.

  1. 01

    Download and open

    Take the build for your machine from the downloads page. macOS will ask you to confirm an app from an identified developer; Windows will ask the same kind of question about a new program.

    The hub is an app, and it has to stay open. On the machine behind the counter, leave the window running — close it and the phones have nothing to talk to, and a count in progress stops. Running in the background so the window can be closed is in preparation, and it is written down in IMPLEMENTATION_PLAN_HUB_SERVICE.md. Until it ships this page will keep saying the app has to stay open, because a shop that learns otherwise learns it mid-count.

    The hub is an app, and it has to stay open. Close the window and a count stops. Running in the background is in preparation.

    [SCREENSHOT] The macOS confirmation for an identified developer, and the Windows equivalent. Side by side, 16:10. Not drawn: these are the operating system’s own dialogs, and a drawing of somebody else’s dialog is worth less than nothing.

  2. 02

    Find where the record lives

    SoftBo puts its database in one place and does not ask. That single file is your stock record — copying it is a complete backup, and there is nothing else to remember. Point your existing backup at the folder below, or at the user folder that contains it.

    drawing
    Where the database isone file

    macOS~/Library/Application Support/Inventory/

    Windows%LocalAppData%\Inventory\

    The fileinventory.db

    Choosing that folder during setup is in preparation. Today the only way to move it is the SOFTBO_DATA_ROOT environment variable, which is not a thing to ask a shop owner to set. A first-run chooser and a settings row are written down in IMPLEMENTATION_PLAN_HUB_SERVICE.md.

    Choosing that folder during setup is in preparation.

  3. 03

    Connect your catalogue

    Point SoftBo at Odoo, Shopify or ERPNext, or import a CSV. This pulls in the products you will count against. Nothing is written back to your system at this stage — the connection is read-only until you approve a count.

  4. 04

    Take the first backup

    Close the app and copy that file once, by hand, so you have seen it work. Every backup after this is the same copy. If you can do it now, you can do it the night something goes wrong.

Next

Pair a phone

[LAST VERIFIED] Screenshots here are of installer dialogs, which change with every OS release. Date-stamp this page and re-check it on every release — a doc that describes a dialog which no longer exists costs more trust than having no doc at all.