People have been asking me for a long time if there will ever be a Windows version of my previously Mac-only app Compositor.

Today, I am releasing the first public prototype of a Windows version of Compositor! 🎉

Compositor for Windows 0.2

This is (obviously) an early prototype that doesn’t offer much useful functionality. All it does is typeset and render the bundled User Guide. Here’s what the app looks like for now:

There’s also a console window opening when you run the app:

This console window may be helpful during development, but will go away at some point.

So overall, this may not look like much. However, the significance of this milestone is that most of the important technical hurdles have already been solved! What’s left is basically mostly UI (which is easy).

I would once again like to thank the people at TheBrowserCompany for their incredible work with swift-winrt. Without their work, a Windows version of Compositor wouldn’t have been possible.

Try it Out!

Prerequisites

For the time being, I am using a self-signed certificate to sign the app installers. If you want to install a prototype build, you will need to install my self-signed certificate (once) by following these steps:

• Download and double-click the certificate file: Compositor.cer
• Click “Install Certificate”
• Choose “Local Machine”
• Select “Place all certificates in the following store” → “Trusted People”
• Complete the wizard

The forthcoming “real” releases will of course be signed with a proper code-signing certificate, and these steps will not be necessary.

The Installer

Compositor for Windows is distributed as an MSIX installer to provide a modern installation experience:

• intel/AMD installer: Compositor-0.2-amd64.msix
• ARM installer: Compositor-0.2-arm64.msix

The app is an AppContainer app (similar to “sandboxed” apps on the Mac), so it has limited accesss to the system unless explicitly granted by users.

Your Feedback is Much Appreciated!

If the installer doesn’t work for you, please let me know. If the app doesn’t launch or crashes, please let me know. If something doesn’t work, please let me know.

In general, any sort of feedback is much appreciated! You can reach me by email at support at compositorapp dot com.

Next Up

The next milestone 0.3 will already bring WYSIWYG editing!

Stay Informed

Follow @compositorapp on Mastodon or or Bluesky for news and updates about Compositor for Windows!