BioManagerGet started
Install and set up
Install the desktop app, open it the first time, and set up your lab.
Get it
| macOS | Download, unzip, drag BioManager into Applications. The first time, right-click it → Open, then Open. |
|---|---|
| Windows | Extract the zip, open the BioManager folder, run BioManager.exe. At the warning choose More info → Run anyway. Its window uses Microsoft Edge WebView2, which Windows 11 has; on a Windows 10 PC without it, BioManager offers to download it from Microsoft and opens in your web browser meanwhile. Install it, then open BioManager again for its own window. |
| Linux | Mark BioManager-Linux.AppImage executable (right-click → Properties, or chmod +x) and open it. |
| Updates | The desktop app checks for a new version once a day and offers it, with what's new; BioManager →
Check for Updates… (on Windows and Linux, Help) asks now. Install and Restart downloads it, checks it, and
swaps it in as the app quits; where it can't (the Linux .tar.gz, a folder it can't write to), it opens the download
to install as above. Your data stays where it is, and before a new version changes it a copy is kept
(Your data). Turn the daily check off with Check for Updates Automatically. |
| What's new | After an update, on a desktop or a lab server, the first page you open shows a short What's new: what is new, what works differently and what was fixed, with a link to the full notes. Got it closes it for good; Help → What's new opens it again. |
| A lab server | Nothing to install: open the address your admin gives you. A welcome page shows what BioManager does and leads to Sign in or Create an account. Setting one up is on Run it for your lab. |
| Phones | The Android app, or your lab server added to an iPhone's home screen: see Phones and cage cards. |
The set-up survey
The first account is the lab's admin (on a server, it needs the one-time setup code printed when the server started). The admin then answers a short survey, and BioManager builds exactly what you'll use — nothing more:
- Your lab — its name, time zone, how dates are written and the genotyping day (what these do).
- What does your lab keep? Tick animals and stocks (mice, zebrafish, flies, worms, other organisms) and molecular and supplies (plasmids, samples, orders, reagents, antibodies, viruses). For each, a little more: a name (e.g. Mouse room B); for the colony how many racks, their size and how positions are labelled; for flies and worms which incubator temperatures you run. Blank means the usual.
- Which lab functions? The calendar and the notebook.
- What may members do? Whether members may create databases of their own, whether they may add databases for the whole lab, whether they may keep a copy of the lab on their computers, and whether they may make API tokens.
Below the questions, Send BioManager's makers anonymous counts once a day is ticked; untick it if you'd rather not (what is sent).
BioManager then makes those databases, the racks and incubators too, and takes you Home. Everyone who joins later gets a one-page welcome tour of the lab's databases on first sign-in (Settings → See the welcome tour again brings it back).
English or 中文. BioManager shows in the language your computer or browser asks for first, English or Simplified Chinese. Choose for yourself under Settings → Language, or with the 中文 / English switch on the sign-in page. Everyone in the lab chooses their own; names, notes and everything people type stay as written.
Troubleshooting
The app won't open on my Mac
Right-click it and choose Open. If macOS says it's damaged, move it to Applications first, then try again.
Linux: the AppImage does nothing
Mark it executable. If it still won't start, install libfuse2, or use the
.tar.gz and run BioManager/BioManager.