The desktop app

The desktop app is Jx Studio as a native application: the same Studio documented everywhere else in this section, wrapped in its own window with everything it needs bundled inside. You install it, open it, and build, with no terminal, no dev server and no browser tab. It edits the plain files in your project folders directly.

The Studio workspace, the same interface in the desktop app and the browser

Install and update

Download the installer for macOS, Windows, or Linux from the install page , which covers each platform's package and what to expect on first launch.

Once installed, updates take care of themselves. The app checks for a new release shortly after launch and every few hours after that, downloads it in the background, and then shows a small notice reading Version x.y.z is ready , with a Restart to update button. Update whenever suits you; nothing is applied until you restart.

To see where you stand, click About at the foot of the Navigator rail. The dialog shows the app version, its release channel, and the current update status.

Open a project

A fresh window greets you with the welcome screen : create a new project , open an existing one, or pick from your recent projects, a list shared across all windows.

To open an existing project:

Choose File > Open Project… or press ⌘O (macOS) / Ctrl+O (Windows/Linux), or click Open Project... on the welcome screen.
If a project is already open, Studio asks where the next one should go: This Window or New Window .
A native file dialog opens. Select the project's project.json file, the file that marks a folder as a Jx project.
The project opens with the folder around project.json as the project root.

You can also open a project straight from your file manager: if your system associates it with Jx Studio, double-clicking a project.json opens that project.

Note

project.json is the project's settings file, and Studio creates it for every new project. What's inside is described in Project settings .

One window per project

Each window holds one project, and the window's title tells you which. When you open another project from a window that already has one, Studio asks where it should go:

New Window leaves this window untouched, with its project, its tabs and its unsaved work, and the project you pick opens beside it.
This Window replaces the project here. Anything unsaved is confirmed first.

Opening a project that's already open never duplicates it: whichever you chose, the window that has it comes to the front instead.

What belongs to you rather than to a project is shared by every window: your recent projects, and everything in Preferences : the theme, your AI provider, the accounts you are signed in to. Each window writes only the settings it actually changed, so two windows open at once cannot overwrite each other's.

File > Open Project… from the app menu always opens into a window of its own, and New Window ( ⇧⌘N / Ctrl+Shift+N ) opens a fresh welcome window when you want to start something else, either from the File menu or by name from the command list .

How it differs from Studio in the browser

Studio itself is identical in both, and every page in this documentation applies to each. The differences are around the edges:

Nothing to run. In the browser, Studio is served by a local dev server you start from a terminal (see The dev server ). The desktop app carries its own backend, so you launch it like any other application.
Native dialogs. Opening projects and picking folders use your operating system's file dialogs instead of the browser's folder picker.
Windows, menus, and file associations. One window per project, a real File menu, and project.json opening from the file manager.
Built-in updates. The app updates itself in the background; a dev-server setup, and the NixOS build below, updates with your package manager.

The AI assistant, publishing, and everything on the canvas behave the same in both.

Platform notes

Installers are provided for macOS (Apple Silicon), Windows (x64), and Linux (x64 and ARM64). See the install page for downloads. Intel Macs are no longer among the builds. On NixOS the app is packaged differently: nix build produces it, and it runs Studio in a Chromium app window rather than a native one.

Everything on this page applies to it. Projects open the same way, through the same native dialogs; each project gets a window of its own, and opening one that is already open brings that window forward. Two things differ, and both follow from who packaged it:

Your package manager updates it , so there is no in-app updater and About shows no update status.
Your desktop draws the window frame , so the minimize/maximize/close buttons are your system's rather than Studio's.

Windows there come from the File menu's New Window , from the This Window / New Window question above, or from running jx-studio <project> again, and running it for a project that is already open raises that window instead of opening a second one.