Settings and shortcuts

This page is the reference: every shortcut and menu item, every setting, where DialCatz keeps its files, what to do when something goes wrong, and how it works together with DevCatz, DBCatz and DoCatz.

Keyboard shortcuts

Every shortcut, on macOS and on Windows. On Windows there is no menu bar: the menus open from the ☰ button at the top left, and every menu shortcut works with Ctrl.

Right-clicking ‹ or › lists the recent screens to jump to.

The menus

Settings

Settings has four tabs: General, AI, Updates and About.

General → Appearance

Theme: Auto (follows macOS — System Settings → AppearanceWindows — Settings → Personalization → Colors), Light or Dark. The badge Shared with Catzoid apps means every Catzoid app on this computer follows the same choice — change it here and DevCatz and DBCatz change too.

General → Requests

General → Privacy

Send crash reports is off until you turn it on. Reports never carry your requests, responses, variables, tokens or hosts; the What is sent link explains the rest. After the first error, a toast asks once: Send crash and error reports to Catzoid from now on? — Send reports or Not now.

AI

The AI connection and the feature switches. Everything about it is on AI in DialCatz.

Updates

• DialCatz <version> and Last checked, with Check now — or Show the update when one is waiting.
• Check automatically — 30 seconds after DialCatz opens, then every 6 hours. Nothing downloads without you.
• Channel — Stable or Beta.
• Notify me — a notification once when a new version is out.

When there is an update, its dialog offers Skip this version, Later or Update now. Update now downloads it with a progress bar, then offers Install when I quit or Restart now — open tabs and unsaved edits come back after the restart. If the download fails: Download from the site or Retry.

Updates come from catzoid.com’s update feed for DialCatz. On Windows an update installs for your account, without an administrator prompt, like any other release.

About

• The logo, the slogan, the version and the architecture (Apple silicon or Intelx64).
• Links: the DialCatz website, Docs, DialCatz Den, What’s new, Report an issue, GitHub and Third-party licences.
• Check for Updates…, Report a bug and Send feedback, and a line to star DialCatz on GitHub.
• Part of the Catzoid family — the sibling apps.
• Details — the OS, Electron, Chromium and Node.js versions and the Data folder, with Copy to paste them into a bug report.
• Uninstall DialCatz → Uninstall… (below).

Report a bug or send feedback

Help → Report a Bug… or Send Feedback…☰ → Help → Report a Bug… or Send Feedback… (also in Settings → About) open a form; you can attach screenshots. Reports go to catzoid.com and never carry tokens, request or response bodies, variable values or hosts. The version and system details are added for you.

Uninstall DialCatz

Settings → About → Uninstall DialCatz → Uninstall… shows exactly what goes:

Also remove the shared Catzoid settings removes the theme, the AI connection and the AI key too — on Windows the whole %APPDATA%\Catzoid folder goes to the Recycle Bin. It warns you when other Catzoid apps still use them. Type DialCatz to confirm.

What stays: your exports and saved responses, folder workspaces (they are your files), and your team’s data on the Den. A Homebrew install gets a hint to run brew uninstall --cask dialcatz as well. The by-hand route is in Uninstall.

Where your data lives

The data folder is shown in Settings → About → Details → Data folder.

DialCatz also reads, never writes, a few files of its siblings: DevCatz’s bridge.json, config.json, its local certificate authority certs/ca.crt and its bin/php (for the Laravel route import; on Windows DevCatz’s bin\php.cmd, run through cmd.exe, or the php on your Path when DevCatz is not there), and DBCatz’s bridge.json (and config.json, to see whether DBCatz is installed). Every call DialCatz makes on its own is listed in What the apps send; what the Catzoid apps share is in Shared by the Catzoid apps.

Troubleshooting

• A request fails with a certificate error — for your own local server, turn on Skip certificate checks for its collection (collection → Settings…) rather than for the whole app. DevCatz sites and *.localhost are trusted already.
• “The call did not go through” — the server could not be reached: check the address, the port, and that the server runs. Sent request shows the URL after variables were filled in.
• A {{variable}} is sent as written — no environment or global defines it, or its row is switched off. Click it in the field to see where it should come from, and check the environment picker in the top right.
• A request times out — raise Timeout in Settings → General → Requests (up to 600 seconds).
• The body says “cut at 25 MB” — the response was bigger than DialCatz keeps; the first 25 MB are shown.
• A test fails with “ran longer than 10 s” — scripts are stopped after 10 seconds; look for a loop or a promise that never settles.
• A folder workspace stopped saving — a file could not be read (often a merge conflict). Fix the file or abort the merge; see When the folder or a file has a problem.
• Git says it is not installed — run xcode-select --install.install Git for Windows (git-scm.com).
• Team sync fails — see Teams with DialCatz Den → Troubleshooting.
• Something else — Troubleshooting, then Help → Report a Bug…☰ → Help → Report a Bug….

With DevCatz, DBCatz and DoCatz

DialCatz works on its own, and gets more useful next to its siblings. None of this needs setting up: when DevCatz, DBCatz or DoCatz is installed, DialCatz finds it.

Import a DevCatz site

DevCatz keeps a small bridge.json listing your sites, their apps (web, API, assets, with their URLs) and the OpenAPI documents it found. DialCatz reads it and watches it, so new sites show up on their own.

Import → From DevCatz:

1. Choose the Site (name — domain (framework) · running) and, when the site has several, the App — where requests go.
2. Choose what comes in:
   • Environment, DevCatz · <site>, with baseUrl set to the app’s URL (and siteUrl when it differs). Importing again refreshes these values and keeps any variables you added by hand.
   • Add its .env variables — the site’s .env names come in too. Names that look like secrets (containing KEY, SECRET, PASSWORD, TOKEN, PRIVATE, DSN, CREDENTIAL…) are marked secret. Values stay on this computer.
   • Routes as a collection — for Laravel, DialCatz runs php artisan route:list --json in the project with DevCatz’s PHP (so the project’s own code runs). For other frameworks it uses an OpenAPI document: a file DevCatz found, or a common served path such as /openapi.json, /swagger.json or /v3/api-docs. Routes are split into api and web folders when there are both, then grouped by tag or by the first part of the path. The collection is linked to the site’s environment.
   • Save in the site’s repository — writes the workspace as files in <site>/dialcatz, ready to commit with the site’s code (see DevCatz site workspaces). Without it, everything goes into the current workspace.

Imported before into this workspace, the routes are added to the collection already there, or go into a new one — see Import the same site or project again. If the site’s repository already holds a workspace, the import says so and offers Open its workspace. Without DevCatz, the card says DevCatz is not installed… with Get DevCatz, which downloads the right build for this computer.

Open in DialCatz from DevCatz

DevCatz’s Open in DialCatz action uses the link dialcatz://open?site=<site id>: DialCatz comes up with the import for that site ready — nothing is imported until you click Import. If DialCatz is not running, or its window was closed, the link starts it and the import shows once the window is ready.

Import a DoCatz project

DoCatz runs your compose projects, each service on its own name (https://<service>.<project>.docatz.<tld>), and keeps a bridge.json listing them: project, service, state, address, compose folder and the framework each service is built from. DialCatz reads it and lists only what has routes to import, the API services:

• a service built from an API framework (Laravel, NestJS, Go, FastAPI …);
• a service DoCatz cannot name (a plain image) when an OpenAPI file (openapi.json, openapi.yaml, swagger.json …) sits in its own folder of the compose folder: <service>, apps/<service> or services/<service>, or the docs/ inside one of them.

Databases and caches, front ends (Nuxt, Next.js, Astro, Vite, Leptos, Perseus …), other plain images (mail, storage, admin tools) and background workers (scheduler, queue, worker, cron, Horizon, Reverb, supervisor) stay in DoCatz. A project without an API service is not listed; when no project has one, the card says DoCatz has no compose projects with an API service yet….

Import → From DoCatz:

1. Choose the Project (name — its API services · running, or · stopped).

2. When the project has more than one API service, choose the Service — where requests go (baseUrl):

   • All, the default — every API service, a collection each. Each collection is named <project> · <service> and sends to its own {{<service>Url}}, and all of them are linked to the project’s environment. A service whose routes cannot be read (it is stopped, or has no OpenAPI document) is left out, and a warning names it: Not imported — <service>: ….
   • A single service (each button shows its name and framework) — its routes become one collection that sends to {{baseUrl}}.

   Opened from DoCatz’s Open in DialCatz on an API container, that container’s service is picked.

3. Choose what comes in:

   • Environment, DoCatz · <project>, with baseUrl set to the chosen service’s address (with All, the first service that has one) and a <service>Url variable for every API service with an address (apiUrl, adminApiUrl …). Importing again refreshes these values and keeps any variables you added by hand.
   • Add its .env variables — the project’s .env in DoCatz (else the one in its compose folder). Names that look like secrets are marked secret; values stay on this computer.
   • Routes as a collection (Routes as collections with All) — for Laravel, DialCatz runs php artisan route:list --json inside the service’s container with DoCatz’s docker (PHP lives there, not on your computer), so the project’s code runs to list them. Otherwise it uses an OpenAPI document: a file in the compose folder — the service’s own folders first (<service>, apps/<service>, services/<service> and their docs/), then the top level, docs/, api/, openapi/, swagger/ and each app under apps/ of a monorepo — else one a service serves at the usual paths, NestJS’s /api-json and /docs-json included. When that document sits behind Basic auth, the user and password the project’s .env sets for it (SWAGGER_USER / SWAGGER_PASSWORD, DOCS_…) are tried after a 401.

The project has to be running: its services only have addresses while they run. A stopped one says so, with Open in DoCatz to start it and a refresh button (Read DoCatz again). Without DoCatz, the card says DoCatz is not installed… with Get DoCatz.

Open in DialCatz from DoCatz

An API service’s container in DoCatz has Open in DialCatz. It uses the link dialcatz://open?docatz=<project>&service=<service>: DialCatz comes up with the import for that project ready and that service picked — as baseUrl and, for Laravel, as the container php artisan runs in. Without service, or with a service the project does not have, the import picks as it always does (All when the project has more than one API service). Nothing is imported until you click Import.

If DialCatz is not running, or its window was closed, the link starts it and the import shows once the window is ready. When DialCatz is not installed, DoCatz offers to get it.

Import the same site or project again

Import a DevCatz site or a DoCatz project into a workspace that already has its routes — from Import… or with Open in DialCatz again — and nothing is lost. Every collection DialCatz imports remembers where it came from: the DevCatz site and app, or the DoCatz project and service. Folder workspaces keep that in their files, and team workspaces sync it. Collections imported before DialCatz 1.0.5 are found by their name and their environment.

While Routes as a collection is on, the import then shows Imported before, with a choice:

Imported more than once (you chose New collection before), the list offers Add new routes to “<collection>” for each of them — with the number of requests when two have the same name — and Add new routes to all <n>. With All in a DoCatz project, every service imported before has its own row, Imported before · <service>.

How new routes are added:

• A route is its method and its path. The host part ({{baseUrl}}, {{apiUrl}} …) and the query do not count, and path parameters such as :id and {id} are the same parameter.
• A new route joins the folder of the same name (made when it is missing) and sends to the variable the collection’s requests already use.
• The requests already there stay exactly as they are: your params, bodies, headers, scripts and names.
• Requests whose route is gone upstream stay too.
• The environment’s addresses are refreshed; variables you added by hand stay.

When it is done, a toast says what changed — Environment “DoCatz · <project>” updated · 3 new route(s) added, or No new routes — every route was already there.

Trusted DevCatz certificates

DevCatz’s local certificate authority is trusted automatically for DevCatz hosts and every *.localhost address, so its HTTPS sites work without skipping certificate checks.

The same Git

A DevCatz site’s workspace lives in its own repository, and DevCatz and DialCatz use the same Git accounts — see Git and DevCatz.

Check in DBCatz

After a successful call, the response bar shows Check in DBCatz. One click opens, in DBCatz, the table the call most likely touched. The table is guessed from the URL: /api/order-items/42 points at order_items, row 42; after a create call, the id or data.id in the JSON answer picks the new row.

The chevron next to it opens the Check in DBCatz dialog to choose for yourself:

• Connection — from DBCatz’s saved connections (Saved in DBCatz) and the databases DevCatz runs (DevCatz services);
• Database and Table (Guessed from the URL: …);
• Only this row — a column and value;
• then Open in DBCatz.

Remembered on this computer only: teammates choose their own DBCatz connection. DBCatz just opens the table — nothing is changed. The link it opens (dbcatz://open?conn=…&db=…&table=…&col=…&val=…) is read-only, and DBCatz checks it. DialCatz reads DBCatz’s bridge.json, which holds no passwords.

Messages you may see:

Ask DialCatz can also propose Open in DBCatz — for example, check in the database whether the last call saved the row.

Deep links

Shared with every Catzoid app

The theme, the AI connection and key, and the Git accounts are shared; the AI on/off and feature switches are per app. See Shared by the Catzoid apps.

Last updated 2026-11-03