Updates

You’ll get updated versions of Layout Department as we add features, make improvements, and fix bugs and errors. Here’s how updates work, and some of the Settings you might want to know about.

Automatic Updates

This is the recommended (and default) option. Each time you start the app, the app checks if there’s a new version available. If there is one, it downloads it in the background. When the new version is downloaded and ready to install, the app asks you if you’d like to install and restart. Press the button, and the app will close, install the updated version, and open again with the new version.

You’ll also have an option to wait (if you’re in the middle of something) and the new version will wait in the background until you quit the app, and then install itself when you open it again.

Checking for updates manually

The app checks each time you start it, but you’ve had the app open for a long time maybe you want to check for updates manually. There’s a button on the Settings page (at the bottom), or you can go to the top file menu, under Layout Department.

Beta Updates

Want to get the newest features even earlier? Turn on the “Beta updates” toggle in Settings to get on the “beta channel” and you will get new features before we’ve released them to everyone. Sometimes these have more bugs or might not be in their final form in terms of user experience, so be aware that beta features could change or not work quite perfectly – bug reports are welcome. This is off by default, and you can always go back to a the non-beta version.

Returning to a previous version

There’s a button in Settings to return to the previous app version – this is intended an emergency escape hatch that you could use in case we release a new version of the app that accidentally breaks something important to you. See: Returning to a previous app version.

Updates for the paid license

If you purchase a paid license, it comes with 1 year of updates to new features and bug fixes.

After your year is over, you may keep using the last version of Layout Department that you downloaded — without updates going forward — as long as your computer’s operating system is able to run the archival version of the app and you maintain your copy of it. (To get future updates, you can purchase another year of the paid license if you’d like to, but it is not required, nor it is a subscription product.)