The App

The app at a glance

The main window

The sidebar has four sections:

Section	What it's for
My Library	Your games: play them, change their recipes, report how they ran. See [[Your library
Community	The community catalogue: find a game and install a recipe that works on Macs like yours. See [[The community catalogue
Bottles	Each game's bottle (its small Windows installation), with Show in Finder. See [[Bottles and storage
Components	Wine builds, graphics layers and winetricks: what's installed, updates, and adding more. A number next to it means updates are waiting. See [[Components and updates

At the bottom of the sidebar is a summary of your Mac (chip, GPU cores, memory). Hovering over it shows its report key, the short code reports use to group Macs like yours.

While Distiller is working on something long (installing, downloading, rolling back), a status bar at the bottom of the window says what it's doing. If something fails, an alert explains what happened and what you can do.

Windows that open on their own

Window	When
Install window	While a game installs (or its bottle is rebuilt): every step, checked off as it finishes, how long the current step has been running, and Cancel Install…. See [[Installing games
Download window	When a recipe needs you to download an installer from the publisher's page yourself. See Installing games.
Recipe workshop	When you choose Edit Recipe… or Finish Setup… on a game. See [[The recipe workshop
Community check panel	A small floating panel during a community check. See [[Sharing recipes

Questions Distiller asks after you play

• Did Game work on Wine X? After a game's first session on a newer Wine build: It Works removes the copy of its bottle Distiller saved before the move; Roll Back puts that copy back and keeps the game on its old Wine; Not Sure Yet decides later. See Restore points.
• Does Game work in its rebuilt bottle? After the first session in a rebuilt bottle: Keep New Bottle or Switch Back. See Rebuilding a bottle.
• Report Game After a session of more than two minutes: how did it run? See Reporting how a game ran.

Menus and shortcuts

Menu item	Shortcut	What it does
Distiller ▸ Check for Updates…		Checks for a newer Distiller and newer components now, and always says what it found.
Distiller ▸ Settings…	⌘,	Settings (below).
Distiller ▸ Setup Assistant…		Checks what Distiller needs and installs what's missing.
File ▸ Create Recipe…	⌘N	Adds a game that has no recipe yet. See [[Creating recipes
File ▸ Add Game from Recipe File…	⌘O	Installs a game from a .yaml recipe file.
During a community check	⌃⌥⌘S	Captures a screenshot of the game, from anywhere.

Settings

Distiller ▸ Settings… has four tabs:

Tab	Settings
Storage	Where Wine builds and bottles are kept (Change…, Show in Finder), and Logs: how much they take now, Keep logs for (3, 7, 14, 30 or 90 days, or until the size limit), Keep at most (from 250 MB to 5 GB, or no limit), Clean Up Now.
Updates	Distiller: your version, and a newer one with Install and Relaunch. Wine builds, graphics layers and winetricks: how Distiller keeps them up to date (check and ask before installing; install automatically; don't check), Keep restore points (until I confirm the game works; up to 1, 7 or 30 days; until I remove it), and Check Now. See [[Components and updates
GitHub	Signing in (with a one-time code) to share recipes and reports, and signing out. See [[Sharing recipes
AI Assistant	Let AI assistants troubleshoot games (off until you turn it on), the server command, and Connection Steps…. See Troubleshooting.

Links from the website

The website's Install in Distiller buttons open Distiller with a distiller://install?game=<slug>&recipe=<id> link. A link only names a game and recipe in the catalogue: Distiller looks them up itself and shows what it will do, and nothing is installed until you click Install. See Installing games.