The desktop apps
Every platform has an application, so you never have to open a terminal if you do not want to. All three do the same three jobs: start the router, show you whether it is working, and open the dashboard.
macOS — the menu bar app
anz33 lives in the menu bar at the top-right of the screen, next to the clock and the Wi-Fi icon. It has no Dock icon on purpose: it is a background service, and a Dock icon would invite you to quit the thing your other apps are relying on.
Click the icon and you get:
| The top line | Whether the router is running, and on which port. If it stopped, this line says why — in the router's own words, not a generic error. |
| Open Dashboard | Opens the dashboard in a window belonging to the app. |
| Copy Endpoint URL | Puts http://127.0.0.1:3300/v1 on your clipboard, ready to paste into whatever app you are setting up. |
| Start / Stop Router | Turns it off and on. If the router was started by something else — a terminal, or the login service — the app says so and leaves it alone. |
| Open at Login | Starts anz33 with your Mac. |
| Install Command Line Tool | Links the anz33 command into ~/.local/bin so it works in Terminal too. No password needed. |
The app carries the command line tool inside it, so the disk image is a complete install — you do not need to download anything else to get both.
Windows — the tray app
Look near the clock, bottom-right. New icons often hide behind the ^ arrow; drag anz33 out so you can see it. The icon is full colour when the router is answering and dimmed when it is not, so you can tell at a glance.
Right-click for the same menu as the Mac app: status, open dashboard, copy the endpoint, start or stop, and Open at Login. Double-click opens the dashboard directly.
"Open at Login" writes the same Windows startup entry the installer offers, so the app and the installer never disagree about it. You can also see and remove it in Task Manager → Startup apps.
Linux — the AppImage
One file that needs no installation and no root:
chmod +x anz33-*.AppImage
./anz33-*.AppImageRun with no arguments, it starts the router if it is not already up, waits for it, and opens the dashboard in your browser. Run it with a command and it is the CLI:
./anz33-*.AppImage bench
./anz33-*.AppImage serveIf you installed the .deb or .rpm instead, you get
anz33 in your application launcher, which does the same thing.
Why no tray icon on Linux? GNOME removed the system tray years ago, and a tray icon would drag a whole desktop toolkit into what is otherwise a single self-contained file. Launching the dashboard does the same job on every desktop, including the ones without a tray.
What the app is not doing
Worth being clear, because it affects where to look when something breaks:
- The app does not contain a second copy of the dashboard. It
shows the page the router itself serves, so what you see is what any browser
pointed at
127.0.0.1:3300would see. - The app does not route anything. It starts the router and watches it. Turn the app off and the router keeps working if you installed it as a login service.
- Quitting the app stops only a router the app itself started.
One you started in a terminal, or with
anz33 install, is left running.
Where the app writes its log
A background app has no terminal to print to, so everything the router says goes here:
~/.anz33/logs/anz33-app.logOn Windows that is C:\Users\<you>\.anz33\logs\anz33-app.log.
If the app says the router failed to start, the reason is the last line of that
file — and the app shows that line in its menu too.