PenstockJetBrains / Licence and help
Licence in the IDE
Where to see and change your licence in a JetBrains IDE: the status bar, the Tools menu and the licence dialog.
How the trial, buying, signing in and machines work is described once in Buying and signing in. This page is about the IDE.
The status bar
The right end of the IDE's status bar shows the licence: Penstock Pro trial: 27d while the trial runs, Penstock Free when it ends, and Penstock Pro or Penstock Team once you have a licence. Hover it for the detail. Click it to open the licence dialog.
The licence dialog
Open it by clicking the status bar, or with Tools | Penstock licence….
| Without a licence | One field, E-mail or licence key. Type the address you bought with, and a code is sent. A key works too. Sign in continues. Buy Pro opens the checkout. The link Buy Team, for pipelines and the review bot opens the Team checkout. |
| With a licence | The plan and the address it belongs to, and the buttons Buy Team (from Pro), Copy key for CI, Release this machine and Close. Copy key for CI puts the key on the clipboard, to set as PENSTOCK_LICENSE in a pipeline. Only a Team key works there. |
| When every machine is in use | A list of the machines and when each was activated. Pick one to free with Free it for this machine. A machine you free still counts against the limit for up to 30 days, so the licence may not activate on this one yet. |
The message that explains a paid feature
When you use a paid feature without the licence, a dialog says, for example, Auto layout is part of Penstock Pro. and what the feature does. Its buttons are Buy Pro (or Buy Team), I already bought it and Not now. If your trial has ended it says Your 30-day trial has ended. When the education offer for students, teachers and open-source maintainers is set up, a button Apply for Free Pro is there too, and the licence dialog has an apply link for it.
Buy and activate
- Open the licence dialog and press Buy Pro, or press the link Buy Team, for pipelines and the review bot. You can also go straight to the checkout: Buy Pro Buy Team
- Pay on Polar's page. The IDE notices the payment and asks for the code sent to the e-mail that paid.
- Type the code in. The status bar changes to Penstock Pro or Penstock Team.
On another machine, open the dialog, type the address you bought with in E-mail or licence key and press Sign in.
The licence is kept in ~/.penstock/license.json, shared with the command line and VS Code. One key covers three machines. Team seats are given out in Polar's customer portal. See Buying and signing in.
Move to another machine
Open the dialog on the machine you are leaving and press Release this machine. Then sign in on the new one. If you cannot reach the old machine, sign in on the new one, and when the dialog lists the machines, press Free it for this machine on the one to drop. See Move a machine for what a release costs.
Offline and cancelling
Without a network a licence keeps working until its token runs out, 30 days at most. If the licence service cannot be reached, a valid licence is not affected. Buying, signing in and starting a trial need it. To cancel, use the link in the receipt from Polar. See Cancel.
What you see
- After paying, the IDE notices the payment by itself and asks for the code that was sent to your e-mail.
- After signing in, the status bar changes at once. The command line on the same machine uses the licence too.
Common problems
- The status bar shows nothing about Penstock.
- The widget may be hidden. Right-click the status bar and turn on Penstock Licence.
- I signed in on the command line but the IDE still shows the trial.
- They share
~/.penstock/license.json. Open the licence dialog to see what the IDE found.