Changelog

How this site got the way it is, newest first. The entry says what changed; beside a few, a note says why, in the maker’s hand. “Considered options” opens what else was on the table.

2026-10-01
On this day: a photo opens in Photos
On the Mac, each of the three picks, and every photo on the page of the whole day, opens in Photos at that photo. On a phone or iPad they still open the picture here.
2026-10-01
The reading has a name again
Two sources joined the pool on 9/14 without a name: psyche and forward-day-by-day, the replacements for the two roots that were retired. The route was never broken -- this morning's piece resolved correctly -- but the name is the whole reading line, so the composer drew its link with nothing inside it and the morning read as no reading at all. They are Psyche and Forward Day by Day now, in the pool and in the vault source the pool is built from, and a source that arrives without a name warns at build time instead of shipping empty.
No reading today!
JC, 10/1
2026-09-23
A name at the foot, not a row of other sites
The Elsewhere tiles come off the page. The foot is one faint line: JC Cangilla, which goes to jccangilla.com, and the changelog.
considered options
- AChangelog only
  The foot as it was before the tiles. The other sites point here; this one points nowhere.
- BAn author linepicked 9/23
  One faint name beside the changelog, linking to jccangilla.com, where the rest of the work is found.
- CA text row
  The five sites by name as faint links, in this site's type, no logos.
- DThe tiles back
  The shared logo row the other sites carry.
2026-09-22
Tiles open before they leave
Each tile in the Elsewhere row shows its logo first. A click turns it over to a sentence on what the thing is and the way there; one more click goes to the site.
2026-09-22
On this day: three factual lines, each one a link
The rotation closed on factual, up to three lines a year. Each line now opens its source: the Gmail message, or the daily page in Obsidian.
I want it factual in three lines, but I also need some ability to click into the three lines so I can see what it references.
JC, 9/22
2026-09-18
Typing goes into the field, wherever the caret went
The composer paints a waiting block cursor in the field the writing belongs in, and the live caret is a painted block too: the same mark, so there was no way to see which one you had. Every click that was not the field itself -- a walker arrow, the prompt above the line, the margin -- took the caret out, and the next sentence typed went nowhere while the block kept blinking. Now a printable key pressed with nothing else focused lands in the field the cursor waits in: the first empty one on the step, or the last if all are written. Modified keys, tab, and anything typed while the note panel is up are left alone.
There is still a funny thing happening specifically on this page. I start typing, but nothing happens in the text box. i have to click around repeatedly to get that I can see the blinking cursor but I'm not yet 'in the text box.' can we fix that to default that typing just immediately goes into the text box?
JC, 9/18
2026-09-16
The frame explains the practice
The paragraph under the offerings stated the machinery: a cycle of forty-five, a book of a hundred and sixteen, which lines are public. JC's note the same afternoon said it should explain the practice instead, and began the sentence. It now reads in his words, finished from his own earlier writing: we answer a series of questions daily to start the day and to protect it; the questions are there to trigger something; nothing written on any one day is significant in itself; the value is in the repetition; after a few years he can go back to this day two years ago and know how it played out. The invitation stays the only door; the counts no longer show.
This text needs a revision. The text shouldn't be about any one component, it should rather explain the practice. We answer a series of questions daily to...
JC, 9/16
2026-09-16
The deal keeps only quotes that are somebody's
The provenance sweep of the commonplace book (t1275) put a verdict on every curated entry: sixty-three verified against a stable source, the rest checked and not found. What ships from it: an entry whose attribution is not secure leaves the deal, eleven in all, among them the unattributed Babe Ruth trivia line a visitor was dealt on 9/12 and three lines that are paraphrases wearing a famous name. An attributed entry whose exact wording was not found in a primary text stays, marked unverified, because it is JC's book and thinning it by half is his call, not a build rule's. The strict pool is one switch away for when he rules on it.
2026-09-16
A guest's first mornings have a word on every step
A guest's first morning was seven bare screens. Now, for their first three mornings, one faint line sits under each prompt in JC's own words: why gratitude comes first and what specific means, that the question is there to trigger something, that there is nothing to write under the quote, to open the reading before writing, and why the read-back is where the value is. Each line carries its own "got it" and leaves on the word. About one guest in three gets the other shape instead, a small "what's this?" that stays and opens the longer form only when asked; the two will be compared. The walk now ends the way his daily pages end. JC's own morning shows none of it.
we should think about a new user experience that may need more information on all of the steps... I think we need a one-time explainer for each component.
JC, 9/16
2026-09-16
Affirmations begin from three of his
The affirmations step was a heading over an empty field, and the hint behind it was JC's private six, owner-only. A guest now gets an initializing in his words: the repetition is the whole of it, which is why these get written rather than read. Three of his six are offered underneath; a tap writes one into the field, where it can be kept, changed, or replaced. Whatever the field holds at the end of that first morning becomes the guest's own standing set, offered back by the hint on the mornings after. It is theirs from then on: his later edits do not follow it.
affirmations may need its own 'initializing'.
JC, 9/16
2026-09-15
The page says what it is
The whole orientation was one line, "I use these prompts every morning to start my day," which said what happens here and nothing about what it is, so a forwarded link arrived with no context. It now opens the way JC opens it out loud: a public version of a private practice he has had for years. The page also states its own depth, the cycle of forty-five and the book of a hundred and sixteen, rather than growing a second door.
MMQ needs one more week of work, esp around what will ppl see when they hit the pages.
JC, 9/15
2026-09-15
The door stops being a dead end
The passcode page said one passcode per person, given by JC, ask him for yours, which answers nothing for someone who was forwarded the link and does not know him. It now says the two true things: reading asks nothing, and writing needs a phrase so that what a person writes stays their own. If you want one, there is a way to ask. No form, no field: the ask is a letter.
2026-09-15
The share word only where sharing lands
The word sat beside every field in the composer, so a line of gratitude or a reaction to the reading could be shared, stored, and shown as shared on the read-back page, and then appear on no public page anywhere, because only answers are ever rendered. The gesture was promising a room that does not exist. It now appears only beside the answer, which is the one kind that travels.
2026-09-14
The edges a first visitor can hit
Pasted into a text or a Slack the address came up bare, with no card: there is one now, the italic q and the masthead on dark. A mistyped address gets this site's own page instead of Next's stock 404 in system type. The owner-only rooms stop being crawled, and the lab, which was a guessed address away from anyone, is behind the door it should always have been behind.
2026-09-14
The reading skips a source it cannot open
When the day's source had nothing to give, the link fell back to that publication's front page, which is a brochure, not a reading. Now the deal passes over it and takes the next day's source instead. The one it passed over is still tried first, so it wins the morning back the moment it publishes.
2026-09-12
The School of Life opens on an essay
The link went to the shop front: a homepage of memberships and card sets, with nothing on it to read. The source had been written off as closed to the resolver, but only its feeds and sitemaps answer 403; the page itself is open. It now follows that page through to an essay. The source keeps no piece of the day, so the link holds one essay until they change what they feature.
this SChool of Life link doesn't have a destination for me to read, only has a website brochure/homepage.
JC, 9/12
2026-09-12
Notes get answered
A note left on the page no longer waits in a queue for JC. Within minutes the system reads it, looks at the code, and answers: a clear bug gets fixed and shipped with a changelog line; a matter of taste comes back as options for JC’s pick; a visitor’s note becomes a finding, never an instruction. The answer sits under the note on the notes page, and the read-back foot says how many were answered since he last looked.
I'm starting to leave feedback in the leave a note function, and I need that... instead of queued up for me to address at some future point, I need the system to sort of addressing that. bug fixes ship without my look.
JC, 9/12
2026-09-12
The week’s intentions, second pass: an outline under its heading
Yesterday’s one-line margin note read wrong on the page. The intentions now sit as a small bulleted outline beneath the “this week” heading, a step smaller and dimmer, and the write room’s masthead grows so the top of the page reads as a ladder rather than a row of near-equal sizes.
they definitely need to be smaller size than the this week heading. and they need to be bulleted and in an outline underneath it. I think we still need my morning questions and the date to be larger.
JC, 9/12
2026-09-11
Yesterday’s words stay on yesterday’s page
One morning opened with the day before’s first gratitude already sitting in the first box, and a click away saved it as today’s. The browser had kept the typed words through a tab restore and put them back after the page loaded, into a box the site believed was blank. The boxes now refuse a remembered value; what they open with comes from the day’s record alone.
today, my first gratitude was already filled in [yesterday's copy, verbatim]
JC, 9/11
2026-09-11
The week’s intentions become a margin note
Under the masthead, the week’s three intentions stood stacked beneath a serif label, on a page where every box to write in is borderless. It read as one more field, and it would not take a keystroke. Now they run as one dim line, label and intentions together, in the typewriter voice at writing size. The words are still the vault’s; the site still only renders them.
I can't type in this "this week" field. Tabbed to it, but no input avialable.
JC, 9/11
2026-09-10
A passcode of your own
Writing here was one person's door. Now JC can invite someone: the site mints a phrase for them and drafts the letter, he sends it, and what they write is theirs alone. The public page still asks nobody for anything.
considered options
- P1Reword the wall
  Tell visitors the composer is one person's practice for now. A copy change; nobody else writes.
- P2A guest passcode
  One shared second passcode with its own tag on entries. Enough for two or three friends, no names.
- P3One passcode per personpicked 9/10
  A people page, phrase passcodes minted per person, the explainer email drafted by the site and sent by JC.
build 3 pls. let's test this thing
JC, 9/10
2026-09-10
The reading finds the day’s own page
Every source now has a way to its own piece: a feed, a date-shaped address, an of-the-day door that redirects, a first link, a sitemap. A morning that catches yesterday’s piece keeps looking until today’s appears.
today’s link was not great, to a homepage, but then i clicked around and found this
JC, 9/10
2026-09-07
A door at the end of the walk
The read-back closes with one serif line, “the daily surface,” opening the writer’s other place. Yesterday’s summary stays withdrawn; only the way out returns.
2026-09-06
A note left on the page
A faint word at the top right that travels with you, and a bubble beside any line you select: a note reaches JC. Nothing on it asks who you are.
considered options
- N1A page of its own
  A /feedback form linked from the foot. Clean, but the reader has to leave the line they meant.
- N2On the page, in the marginpicked 9/6
  The note opens where the reader is; a selected line travels with it as the anchor.
think of this beta test as a way to pull in feedback and bugs, can we do that on the page, with some subtle overlays.
JC, 9/6
2026-09-06
The day at the close of the walk: tried, withdrawn
For a morning, the workbench followed “what you wrote” as a final step. By afternoon it was two products again; the idea is kept, not built.
I don't need a summary (yet, we can keep this idea) but for now I want these to be two different products. MMQ is contemplative and preparatory. Workbench is work.
JC, 9/6
2026-09-05
A quiet door to the changelog
A faint “changelog” at the foot of the spread. The record now renders from the module every site in the network shares.
2026-09-03
Prompts speak in italics; people write in typewriter
What the site asks is serif italic; what a human wrote is typeset. A received quote keeps its display.
considered options
- V1The strict rule, quote included
  The quote on the read-back returns to typewriter; only attribution and context stay serif.
- V2The rule, with a received quote kept in serif displaypicked 9/3
  A quote is something set before you, not written beside you.
Can I look at an option for all italics for "mmq asks" and typeset for "all I write," even if "I write" comes from the vault, or from others.
JC, 9/3
2026-09-03
The sizing ladder, with the intention in the written voice
Masthead 23, title 19, prompts 15.5, writing 15. The week’s intention sits in typewriter at writing size.
considered options
- S1The masthead recedes, the page title leads
  Site name as a running head (15); the day’s title the biggest thing (22).
- S2One ladder: masthead 23, title 19, prompts 15.5picked 9/3, amended
  Keeps the masthead as anchor; fixes the bottom of the ladder.
- S3Calm and close: two peers at 18
  Hierarchy carried by voice and position more than size.
2026-09-03
The fat block cursor, everywhere
The waiting mark and the live caret are both the solid block from the jccangilla.com logo, same blink.
2026-09-03
The reading opens the exact page
The dealt source resolves to its newest piece each morning. Unresolved days fall back to the source, never a dead link.
One click, one page, read it, react. We don’t want the user landing on a homepage where she scans, finds a thing, maybe logs in or pays, and then reads.
JC, 9/3
2026-09-01
Sharing from the read-back
Every written piece on the summary page carries the marginal share, before and after the vault push.
2026-08-31
The Save button goes
Moving to the next screen is the save; leaving a field saves; autosave ticks between.
2026-08-30
On this day, made legible
Lines end at sentence boundaries, two items per year, template noise stripped.
2026-08-29
A finished morning opens on what you wrote
A majority written and pushed reads as done: returning lands on the read-back. The walker still goes anywhere.
If I’ve written against all the questions and pushed to vault, navigated away, and come back, my expectation is that I get to the summary screen first, because that’s what I want to see: what I’ve written.
JC, 8/29
2026-08-29
What you wrote closes the walk
A last page re-composes the day in the writer’s words: prompts dim, the writing at full weight.
2026-08-29
Two voices on the read-back
Template in one gray, flush left; the writing alone in full ink, in its own deeper column.
considered options
- R1Two voices: the serif speaks, the mono writespicked for this-week and the quote
  Typeface and ink both change between template and writing.
- R2One face, strict ladder
  All mono; the split rests on size and ink alone.
- R3The margin writespicked for the body
  Template flush left; writing in its own column.
I was pissed off. Everything looked messy and somehow also too structured. Thrown together and stiff.
JC, 8/29
2026-08-29
The date opens the spread
The homepage date is set in the label voice at full size; the invitation breaks onto two lines.
considered options
- H1The date joins the title row
  Kills the floating date line.
- H2The date opens the spread, in the label voicepicked 8/29, year kept
  Two typefaces make two zones.
- H3The whole day indents under the site
  Today’s spread as one indented object.
2026-08-28
Share is a small word in the margin
The circled + leaves the writing flow; a tiny underlined “share” sits beside each piece, out in the margin.
It’s a behavior that will happen 5% of the time, so it needs to be treated accordingly. It should be on the right side margin, and much smaller.
JC, 8/28
2026-08-28
Vault objects become the personalized composer
Intentions and on-this-day flow in from the vault as typed elements. The vault composes; the site renders.
How MMQ grows over time is that vault objects become part of the personalized MMQ experience. Build it robust and modular enough that different types of elements can exist for different users.
JC, 8/28
2026-08-28
Three gratitudes to start; one honest cursor
The composer opens with slots one, two, three. One cursor blinks, and arriving on a page focuses its first empty field.
This is how my personal setup worked since 2020. It felt right to mimic here.
JC, 8/28
2026-08-28
Serif labels, one door, underline means clickable
Lowercase serif italic labels with content stepped in; one door on the homepage; only clickable things underlined.
2026-08-26
The quiet box, the stamp, the waiting cursor
Offerings take the quiet box. The push stamp keeps uneven edges. Empty fields show a waiting cursor. Accent to slate blue.

On this day: a photo opens in Photos

The reading has a name again

A name at the foot, not a row of other sites

Tiles open before they leave

On this day: three factual lines, each one a link

Typing goes into the field, wherever the caret went

The frame explains the practice

The deal keeps only quotes that are somebody's

A guest's first mornings have a word on every step

Affirmations begin from three of his

The page says what it is

The door stops being a dead end

The share word only where sharing lands

The edges a first visitor can hit

The reading skips a source it cannot open

The School of Life opens on an essay

Notes get answered

The week’s intentions, second pass: an outline under its heading

Yesterday’s words stay on yesterday’s page

The week’s intentions become a margin note

A passcode of your own

The reading finds the day’s own page

A door at the end of the walk

A note left on the page

The day at the close of the walk: tried, withdrawn

A quiet door to the changelog

Prompts speak in italics; people write in typewriter

The sizing ladder, with the intention in the written voice

The fat block cursor, everywhere

The reading opens the exact page

Sharing from the read-back

The Save button goes

On this day, made legible

A finished morning opens on what you wrote

What you wrote closes the walk

Two voices on the read-back

The date opens the spread

Share is a small word in the margin

Vault objects become the personalized composer

Three gratitudes to start; one honest cursor

Serif labels, one door, underline means clickable

The quiet box, the stamp, the waiting cursor