Set up Blowhorn at first muster

What each step of the desktop app's first-muster setup does, and what it never does.

The guided setup opens by itself the first time you open Blowhorn, and every time after that until you finish it. If you quit partway and you are still signed in, it picks up at the step you left. If you are not signed in, it starts at Sign in. Uninstalling removes that progress with the sign-in, so the next open is a first muster. If you set Blowhorn up before this setup existed and you are still signed in, it doesn't open by itself. Updating alone never opens it again; it reopens by itself, from the first step, only when a new version of Blowhorn needs something your earlier setup did not do.

• Sign in: one screen does the welcoming and the signing in: Major Blowhorn says hello and asks for your papers. Sign in to your Blowhorn account, or choose Create account. Both open your browser and bring you straight back to the app. Create account opens the sign-up page, and once you confirm your email the app moves on by itself. Once you are signed in, setup goes straight on to setting up your account, with no Next to press; if your account belongs to more than one organization, it stops there for you to pick one. Back from the next step still shows who you are signed in as, with Not you? Sign out. There is no extra page asking you to allow it. If the browser attempt fails, or you close it before finishing, Cancel on the waiting screen stops the wait right away - you never have to wait it out - and Open it again ends the old attempt and starts a fresh one. See Create a Blowhorn account.
• Google Chrome first: right after your account is set up, Blowhorn checks Google Chrome. With no Google Chrome on this computer, the next screen is Blowhorn needs Google Chrome: Get Google Chrome opens Google's download page, and once it is installed the app notices by itself when you come back to its window (or choose Check again). If Safari or another browser is your default, the screen says you can keep it. A Google Chrome older than Blowhorn needs, or one that has never been opened, gets its own screen the same way. Google Chrome is found in your computer's Applications folder or in your own ~/Applications. Check again on these screens, and on Getting ready, reads Checking… and then says what it found: Google Chrome found (the app moves on, or says what is still needed), Nothing new found with what is still true (Google Chrome is still missing, still out of date, or still hasn't been opened), or why it couldn't read Google Chrome. Coming back to the window checks quietly and only speaks when something changed.
• Blowhorn's own window: one screen says Blowhorn deploys in its own Google Chrome window, so you keep working in yours while it posts, likes and connects for you. What's a Google Chrome profile? explains the rest if you want it. If another browser, such as Safari, is your default, the screen says it stays your default: there is nothing to change. Continue moves on. The row of five steps across the top (Mission, Sign in, Browser, Profiles, First post) shows where you are on every screen, and Back at the bottom left returns to the screen before.
• Assign troops: Blowhorn shows what it found in each Chrome profile: the Google account, and the platform accounts signed in or saved there. Mark each Chrome profile and each account in use or not in use. For a profile that isn't in Blowhorn yet, confirm the name it will be created under. The profiles you mark in use are the ones the next step installs into, and a profile you mark not in use is left alone. Chrome's main profile is not listed here, since Blowhorn never works in it; a main profile an earlier setup already mapped is listed and keeps its switch. If the main profile is the only one you have, the screen reads Blowhorn will set up its own profile: choose Set up Blowhorn's profile, and Google Chrome is asked to open a new window in a profile of Blowhorn's own (Chrome should make the profile the first time, and open the same one after). Your main profile is left untouched. Sign in there once to LinkedIn, X and the rest, then come back: the app looks again by itself, or choose Continue. You can add the rest later, any time. Open the window again reopens it. Rather add a profile yourself? The steps are under What's a Google Chrome profile? on that screen. On Confirm, Blowhorn creates the profiles you marked in use, saves the handles (and a GitHub token or Bluesky app password you type on the activity), and maps each of those Chrome profiles. A profile you mark not in use is recorded that way: its mapping on this computer is removed, and a run of every profile skips it. A profile you had already excluded stays excluded. Marking it in use again removes that skip only when this screen added it. The Blowhorn profile and its saved sign-in stay. An account you mark not in use is skipped on this computer, and its saved sign-in stays too. Nothing is created or installed until you confirm. See Map Chrome profiles.
• Getting ready: Blowhorn finds your Chrome profiles and adds its extension only to the ones you marked in use on Confirm troops. If that is all of them, it uses Chrome's policy route: macOS asks for your administrator password once, and Chrome turns the extension on in every profile and shows it as Managed by your organization. If you left some profiles out, there is no administrator prompt; each profile you chose gets an Enable in button instead: one click there, then Enable now (or Add to Chrome) in Chrome. Each step shows as it runs, with the time left, and Start again appears if it takes longer than usual. A computer that already has the extension from an earlier setup keeps that setup's route; there, each profile you chose gets an Enable in button the same way. One ready profile you chose is enough to go on. If Google Chrome is on this computer but has never been opened, setup stops on its own screen (before Blowhorn's window screen, and again here if that changed) and asks you to open Google Chrome once, then check again: Chrome creates its profile list on that first open, and there is no list for Blowhorn to read before it. The same screen appears when you reopen Blowhorn already signed in, or come back to a setup you left. If a step does stop with something wrong, its screen says what stopped in one sentence, and Copy details keeps the full details for support. See Install the Chrome extension.
• First post: write a post and pick where it goes. It lands in your queue as a draft, and nothing is posted until you approve it in Content. You can also skip this: Skip for now finishes guided setup, and Home won't ask for a first post again. Write one any time with New activity. See Post content.
• Home: you're done. Connect your platform accounts any time. See Platform accounts.

Leaving a Chrome profile out

A Chrome profile you leave unchecked on Confirm troops is not in use, and guided setup leaves it alone: it gets no extension from this setup, no Blowhorn profile and no mapping.

If you run guided setup again and leave out a profile that an earlier setup already put the extension in, this setup cannot take the extension out of that one profile. Both routes Chrome gives Blowhorn for adding an extension - the policy file and the external-extensions file - are one file for all your Chrome profiles, never one per Chrome profile, so neither can be removed for a single profile. The extension stays in that profile until you remove it there yourself (in that profile, open chrome://extensions and remove Blowhorn). This setup never adds it again, never maps that profile, and its being ready there counts for nothing here.

The rest of the app stays limited until Getting ready

• Limited until then: the rail's places (the logo, which is Home, stays open), and the + New activity button, stay locked until you're signed in and the extension is ready. Home, and any place you already opened, stay on screen, and anything that would take you somewhere else - a rail item, the menu bar's buttons, a capture link - brings you back to Home instead. There is no separate training page. While the guided setup is open it fills the window, with no rail beside it; sign in from the sign-in step. The rail does not add another Sign in, and it hides this computer's status until you are signed in. After setup, if you are signed out, Home's Finish setting up opens the guided setup again. The menu bar shows Welcome to Blowhorn and one Open Blowhorn button, which opens the console, instead of a pause or an error; signed in with the extension not ready yet, it shows Finish setting up and the same one button. When you are signed in, the account button stays usable, so you can still sign out or open the docs.
• It checks for real: the lock reads your actual sign-in and extension state each time you come back to the window, so signing out later locks it again until you sign back in. The extension counts as ready once it's turned on in at least one Chrome profile, set to install by your organization's policy, or answering. Getting ready never adds the extension twice: once Chrome is set to add it, it writes nothing again.
• Open it again any time: choose guided setup at the bottom of Settings.
• Missing tools come first: if Blowhorn's own tools aren't set up on this computer yet, the Setup screen shows first. See Install the app.

Going back and forward is safe

• Next checks first: each step checks that its work is really done (you're signed in, the extension is ready in at least one Chrome profile you marked in use, your choices are saved) before it lets you go on. If it isn't, the step says why, right under the button.
• Back never redoes harmful work: going back and forward again skips what's already done. The extension is never added twice, sign-in is not repeated while you're signed in, and your first post is never added to the queue twice.
• Re-checking is fine: finding profiles again and changing a choice are safe to repeat.
• No pop-ups: every status and every reason shows on the step itself, including when your progress couldn't be saved.