Files
lanework/DESIGN
rzen a99e1a52f0 Comments card-window UI designed — three componentized panes and the .draft composer
Designed with the user 2026-07-29, closing Redesign card 82e2de6c (both halves). The card window recomposes as three componentized panes — body, comments, attributes — with a layout option (side-by-side default, body-over-comments for narrow displays; app-wide) and the thread visible through body Edit in both mounts. The column auto-shows when the thread is non-empty; sort direction flips at the header; the composer sits at the newest end. The composer edits comments/.draft/ — the user's idea, replacing any app-side draft store: one draft per card, ordinary comment schema with attachments, excluded from the thread, riding git/copies/trash, joining the claimed names; slow save cadence composing "Draft comment on 'X'"; posting renames to a fresh UUID and restamps created/modified in one bracket. Inline edits are body-edit sessions in miniature; no prompts anywhere. All editions ship comments — only tracker sync is Teams (matrix updated). A11y shapes in 10; menu, grammar, context-menu, and configuration rows in 11.

Board: Redesign card 82e2de6c → Resolved; Implementation card "Build comments" filed on Backlog (post-2.0).

Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01CqjXB7ASoWtbyoGod68k97
2026-07-29 18:48:08 -04:00
..
2026-07-26 14:58:16 -04:00

Lanework — Design Documents

A ground-up rewrite of the Kanban app, to ship as Lanework on the Mac App Store. The old repo (../../Kanban, one level above this repository — not the rewrite's own Kanban/ source folder, which shares the codename) was a pathfinder — it never shipped, but it is the reference implementation and the source of hard-won decisions. This design starts from a clean slate and keeps only what earned its place. The rewrite keeps the internal codename Kanban (bundle id dev.rzen.indie.Kanban).

Each document covers one aspect of the design. Within each:

  • Decisions — settled, either carried over from the old app or newly made.
  • Changes from Kanban — where this rewrite deliberately diverges.
  • Open questions — flagged for iteration; nothing here is implicitly settled.

Index

Doc Aspect
00-vision.md What Lanework is, who it's for, goals and non-goals
01-storage-format.md On-disk contract: folders, frontmatter, ordering, the materialized trash
02-architecture.md App structure: source of truth, stores, watchers, concurrency
03-board-ui.md Board window: layout, lanes, cards, styling, templates
04-interactions.md Selection, drag & drop, keyboard, clipboard, search
05-card-window.md The card window: Markdown preview/edit, attachments
06-history-undo.md Git-backed undo/redo and history — Pro edition
07-sync-collab.md Board modes: local-only, git; iCloud Drive warned against — Pro edition
08-agent-integration.md AI agents as first-class users of the board
09-templates.md Board templates: inventory and definition format
10-accessibility.md VoiceOver, text scaling, visual accommodations
11-command-nexus.md The command Nexus — every command and action: bindings, contexts, customizability
12-editions.md The three editions (Lanework / Pro / Teams): distribution, provider seam, feature matrix
13-native-undo.md macOS-native undo/redo — the base edition's history substrate

Deferred design iterations

The card window (05-card-window.md), toolbar (03-board-ui.md ▸ Toolbar), and styling controls (03-board-ui.md ▸ Styling ▸ Controls) each had their focused pass and are settled. The 2026-07-27 edition split (12-editions.md) added two deferred passes: the attachment-undo staging design and the EchoLedger foreign-undo bridge (both flagged in 13-native-undo.md), plus Teams' tracker integration (no design yet).

Wishlist

Ideas worth keeping but outside the committed design live in ../WISHLIST.md.

Terminology

The rewrite adopts lane as the canonical term for what the old app called a column (it's in the name: Lane-work). "Column" survives only when referring to the old app or to interior card-grid columns inside a wide lane.