Get help with Sigla.

02 — FAQ

Common questions.

I just bought Sigla. How do I activate it?

Your license key arrives by email from Paddle within a minute or two. Open Sigla › Enter License… and paste it. The app verifies once against Paddle, then runs offline.

How does Sigla check for updates?

Sigla uses Sparkle, the framework most Mac indie apps use — it checks on launch and in the background. Disable automatic checks in Settings › General. If you installed via Homebrew, run brew upgrade --cask sigla.

Why does Sigla ask for PlantUML?

Mermaid and Vega-Lite render natively in the bundled WebView. PlantUML needs the plantuml CLI on your PATH — brew install plantuml. No PlantUML diagrams in your documents? You don't need it.

Where do my annotations get saved?

Comments live in a hidden sidecar next to the source — for spec.md, that's .spec.sigla.json. The source markdown is never modified. The sidecar travels with the source through git, Dropbox, Syncthing — commit it, gitignore it, or share it as you prefer.

I'm switching from Marked 2 / MacDown / Obsidian. What changes?

Sigla is a reader, not an editor — keep your editor for writing. Marked 2 users get a familiar render-on-save loop, plus inline annotations, frontmatter as a real panel, and export-to-LLM. Obsidian users get Mermaid, PlantUML, and Vega-Lite without plugins, and annotations stored next to the source rather than in a vault.

Does Sigla phone home? What about analytics?

No analytics, telemetry, or crash reporting. Sigla's only network calls are: Sparkle update checks (one GET per launch), license verification (one call to Paddle on activation), and whatever the documents you open reference (images, remote stylesheets). Disable updates in Settings.

Does Sigla work offline?

Yes — fully, after the initial license check. Sigla bundles KaTeX, Mermaid, Vega-Lite, and highlight.js, so rendering needs no network. PlantUML calls a local binary, never the plantuml.com server.

I have an idea for a feature. Where should it go?

Email or GitHub issues, both fine. We read everything but don't promise to build everything — Sigla's roadmap is product-led. The best pitches name a document you wanted to read and couldn't, and what was in the way.

My license stopped working / I changed Macs / I lost my key.

Email hello@sigla.so with the purchase address and we'll sort it. The license is per user, valid on every Mac you personally own.

03 — System requirements

What you need to run Sigla.

Sigla runs on macOS 14 Sonoma and later, on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs (universal binary). Roughly 16 MB on disk for the app itself. No background services, no menu-bar agent.

PlantUML is the one optional dependency — brew install plantuml if your documents use it. Mermaid, Vega-Lite, math, and syntax highlighting all render inside Sigla with nothing external.

04 — Contact

Talk to us.

For anything that doesn't fit a GitHub issue, email hello@sigla.so. We reply within a few business days — faster sometimes, slower around releases. Every message reaches a human.