About the beta

This topic explains what the Grindstone 5 beta is, what it includes, what’s still coming, and how you’ll move your work to the launch release when it arrives.

What the beta includes

The beta is Grindstone for Windows and Mac, installed as Grindstone Beta, with folios: workspaces just for you, kept on your device.

Folios are free. There’s no sign-in, no account and no license key. See Installing Grindstone to get it.

The beta notice

Each time it starts, Grindstone shows a notice that begins “This is Grindstone Beta”, names the version you have, and calls it “a beta release which should not be relied upon for production work.”

Try the beta on real days, but don’t rely on it for production work yet. Export your folios from time to time so you have a copy. See Workspaces and folios.

What’s coming

Grindstone Cloud and Grindstone Server are coming. In the workspace list they appear as Cloud Connection and Server Connection, marked Coming Soon.

Updates during the beta

The beta keeps itself up to date: through Windows on a PC, and by itself on a Mac. See Installing Grindstone.

Moving to the launch release

The beta and the launch release of Grindstone 5 are separate apps. Installing the launch release doesn’t carry your folios over by itself. To move a folio:

1. In the beta, close the folio so you’re back at Your Workspaces.
2. Select the folio, open Manage and choose Export. Save the file somewhere you can find it.
3. In the launch release, import the file you saved. See Workspaces and folios.

Repeat for each folio you want to keep. Workspaces and folios has the details of exporting and importing.

After the launch, the beta keeps working, but it stops getting regular updates.

Telling us what you find

From Help in Grindstone, you can send Epiforge a bug report, a feature request or a question. When something unexpected goes wrong, Grindstone also offers to send a report. You can also speak with a specialist on this site. Troubleshooting explains what to include when something goes wrong.