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Installing the app

Postulo can be installed from the browser as an app of its own. Installed, it opens in its own window, from an icon on the home screen, in the Dock or in the list of apps, without the browser's address bar and tabs. It is still the same site: you sign in the same way, and everything stays on the server.

How to install it

  • Chrome, Edge, Brave and other Chromium browsers (on a computer and on Android): the account menu has an Install entry wherever the browser allows it. The browser's own menu has the same entry, and on a computer so does the icon at the end of the address bar.
  • Safari on an iPhone or iPad: press the Share button, then Add to Home Screen. Other browsers on iOS and iPadOS do the same from their Share button.
  • Safari on a Mac: choose Add to Dock from the File menu, or from the Share button. On Safari the account menu's Install entry opens a help page that says this.
  • Firefox on Android: choose Add to Home screen from the browser's menu. Firefox on Windows (version 143 and later; 150 and later if Firefox came from the Microsoft Store) adds a site to the taskbar from the web apps button in the address bar. Firefox on other computers does not install sites as apps.

Nothing asks you to install it. The Install entry appears only where it would work, and not at all once the app is installed.

From the address bar

You do not need the account menu: each browser has its own way in, at the address bar or next to it. Both installing and opening in the app need the site to be served over HTTPS; on plain HTTP no browser offers either.

  • Chrome, Brave and other Chromium browsers on a computer. To install: the install icon (a screen with a downward arrow) at the right-hand end of the address bar. Once installed, the same place shows Open in app on any Postulo page, and it opens that page in the app window, not the board. Whether Postulo links followed from mail, chat or the browser extensions open in the app is the app's Opening supported links setting: in the app window, open the ⋮ menu → App info → Settings (or chrome://apps, right-click the app → App settings), and choose the app or the browser.
  • Edge on a computer. To install: App available in the address bar, then Install. Once installed, the address bar shows Open in app on Postulo pages. Link handling is in the app's settings: edge://apps → the app → Details, or … → App settings in the app window.
  • Firefox on Windows. The web apps button at the right of the address bar adds the site to the taskbar, with the instance's name and Postulo's icon; the same button removes it. Firefox does not send links to the web app by itself.
  • Safari on a Mac, iPhone or iPad. Safari has no address-bar button: use File → Add to Dock on a Mac, or Share → Add to Home Screen on an iPhone or iPad. Since Safari 26 it opens as a web app unless Open as Web App is switched off in that dialog. Safari does not send links to the web app.

When a Postulo link opens in the app and the app is already open, the open window comes to the front and goes to the link, rather than a second window opening. A form with unsaved changes still asks before it is left. Postulo has no setting of its own for any of this: switch link capturing off in the browser, as above, and links open in a tab again.

What it looks like installed

  • The name under the icon is the instance's name, as set under Server settings. The icon is Postulo's mark; launchers that crop icons to a shape get a padded version made for that.
  • It opens on the board. A long press on the icon (or a right click in the Dock or taskbar) offers the board, the listings and the calendar directly.
  • It uses your account's language, and its title bar follows the theme: the one you chose under Settings → Appearance, or the system's.
  • A link to another site, such as a posting, a company's website or a plugin's link, opens in your browser rather than inside the app window.

Without a connection

If the device is offline or the server is not answering, the app shows a page saying it cannot reach its server, with Try again, instead of the browser's own error page.

That page is the only thing the app keeps on the device. No page with your data in it is stored there: no applications, documents or contacts. Every page is loaded from the server every time, as in the browser. Signing out removes the service worker that shows the page.

For whoever runs the server

  • It needs HTTPS. Browsers install only from a secure context, so an instance served over plain HTTP, other than localhost, cannot be installed.
  • The reverse proxy must pass two root addresses through to Postulo: /manifest.webmanifest (what the browser installs from) and /sw.js (the service worker). The worker must be served from the root, because a worker only controls the addresses below the one it came from. A proxy that only passes / through already does this. One that serves some paths itself must not answer these two or /offline/.
  • There is nothing to switch on. The manifest is rendered for each request with the instance's name.