Apps are defined in one of the loaded app libraries or in your custom app library. An app definition contains an ID, a download URL or the identifier of a managed package, and some additional information for Bench. If you want to use an app in the Bench environment, it must be activated and installed. You can activate and install an app via the Bench Dashboard, by editing a text file, or running a command at the shell.
Overview
A shortened version of this tutorial can be found in the Quickstart.
Activating Apps by Mouse
The easiest way to activate an app is to use the Bench Dashboard.
It is automatically shown at the end of the Bench setup.
To open it manually, you can use the shortcut in the Bench root folder
or in the launcher folder.
In the Bench Dashboard open the Setup Window by clicking on the wrench in the toolbar. To activate an app with all its dependencies, just check its box in the column Active of the App List.
Some apps are groups – meaning the app itself has no executables, instead it activates a number of other apps as dependencies. You can activate as many groups and apps as you want.
To kick-off the installation of all activated apps, just click
the Auto Setup Button 
.
When the download and installation has finished, you can close the
setup window.
Activating Apps by Keyboard
If you want to automate the app activation process, or just want to know how things work behind the scenes, you can use the Bench CLI or edit the configuration directly.
To activate an app on the command line type bench app activate <ID>.
Replace <ID> with the ID of the app.
If you do not know the IDs of the available apps, take a look at
the app list or run bench list -t apps -p ID,Label,Version.
Open the App Activation List config\apps-activated.txt
in you favorite text editor.
Every non empty line, not commented out by a leading #,
is treated as an app ID.
For more detailed information about the app activation list take a look
at the tech guide for App Activation.
Example:
ActiveAppID
# InactiveAppID
To kick-off the installation of the activated apps, run
bench manage setup.
Do not be alarmed, if this process takes a while, because the activated
apps must be downloaded and extracted.
Depending on the bandwidth of your internet connection, your CPU and harddisk
speed, this take more or less time.
If you want more information during the setup process, add the verbose flag:
bench -v manage setup.
Next
Now you can delete or upgrade apps, define your own apps, and start working on a project.
See Also
Tech Guides
Reference Docs