The Blowhorn app, screen by screen
The menu-bar popover, the console screens, Setup, Settings, and what each one does.
The Blowhorn app, screen by screen
What each part of the Blowhorn desktop app shows and does. This page describes; the steps live in the how-to guides linked under Related.
The menu bar and the popover
Blowhorn lives in the menu bar. Opening it shows the popover, which has two boards. The running board shows the scheduler, what is due now, what is running, what needs you, and the content queue with a countdown to the next tick. The paused board shows PAUSED with each tick-level pause scope stated once, and the rows that would post now wait instead of posting. A store outage puts its line above the board.
The popover footer holds the pause controls and, when an update is ready, the update card. The update installs and relaunches the app when this machine can reach the release; otherwise it opens the release page in your browser.
The console
The console is the full window, reached from the popover. Its rail, in order: "jobs", "content", "runs", "profiles", "analytics", "service", "settings". Each screen reads live state on open. Nothing here edits on a timer.
| Screen | Shows | Acts |
|---|---|---|
| jobs | Every schedule row, whether it is due, paused, or held; a job drawer with the row behind it; a bootstrap preview for a starter set | Create, edit, pause or resume one row; run one row now; apply the bootstrap set |
| content | The queue: pending rows, rows still owed to some profile, clicked-but-unread rows | Edit a row; clearing a clicked row's "Date Promoted" re-queues it |
| runs | Past runs with their ledger lines; per-job logs under the log directory | Re-run a failure from its row |
| profiles | Every profile, its Chrome mapping, its per-platform sessions | Add a profile; map or unmap its Chrome profile |
| analytics | Followers, growth, and operations per profile; collection freshness in the header | Collect now; open the HTML report |
| service | Who registered the background service, whether it runs, the last tick heartbeat | Install, start, stop, restart, update, or uninstall the service |
| settings | Engine defaults rendered from the CLI's own option list, the extension card, the store card | Change defaults, check the extension, test the store connection |
The analytics screen states how fresh its numbers are in the header and
has no refresh control of its own. The runs screen reaches per-job logs
through the log directory listing, which includes each capture file and
its rollover. The service screen is the visible face of
blowhorn service; every button there runs the matching command.
Setup
Setup is the first-run checklist, five rows read from this machine: "blowhorn checkout", "python environment", "store", "chrome profiles", and "background service". Each row reports ok, warn, or off with the one fix that clears it. The "map chrome profiles" panel and the "background service" row act directly: mapping a profile and registering the service happen here, not in a terminal.
Settings
Settings edits the same .blowhorn.yaml defaults the CLI reads: pace,
excluded profiles, dry run, notifications, logs, and the Chrome launch
mode. The engine-defaults card renders from blowhorn config show,
so the app can never offer an option the engine does not know. The
extension card reports whether the extension is installed, which
version answers, and whether it says connected. Quitting the app leaves
posting to the background service and the keep-running setting; see
What runs when the app is closed.
Related
- Map Blowhorn profiles to Chrome profiles - the Setup panel behind the mapping.
- Change your defaults - pace, exclusions, logs.
- Settings and configuration - every option the app edits.
- How Blowhorn works - app, engine, extension, and store.