Dawnline

Small update before the ship.

This was mostly cleanup and release prep. Most panes finally render in a way that makes sense.

Focus mode is real too. Well, mode is an overstatement. There’s a hotkey for it now (t), :focus 25 works from Execute, and the timer actually shows what’s left instead of just logging minutes somewhere and moving on x3

Review got some love as well. Finishing execution closes the active block/session properly, Review has a carry-forward area, and you can start a new session without ending the whole day. If you do finish the day, there’s a small end screen now.

I also rewrote the README and prepared things for release

Still early, still very much a concept-proof, but it’s starting to feel usable! :3

Small update, mostly because the concept-proof version immediately started annoying me -_-

Dawnline is still very early and I’m still figuring out what the exact shape should be, but the README idea is holding: clean terminal focus center, Plan -> Execute -> Review, day/session/block/task stuff, no giant todo-app monster.

This pass was mostly UI + flow cleanup. I stripped back some of the chunky TUI boxes, made the header/footer calmer, moved the command/help overlays away from the big popup thing and started pushing the vibe closer to the premium/minimal thing I want.

Config and themes exist now too!! ~/.config/dawnline/config.toml gets created with defaults and there are early dawn, opal, and mist themes with configurable accents. These “themes” are still very, very subtle, but I really wanted to have some kind of customization already… Probably too early, but also… the app has to feel right, so whatever x3

Also fixed a bunch of behavior: tab switches timeline/tasks, pane selection actually matters, starting a block closes the previous one, finishing execution closes the active block/session and day finishing only happens from review. Event replay is scoped to today now too

And there are tests now!! Replay, task states, priority sorting, block/session finishing, config/theme stuff, some flow behavior. Not glamorous, but necessary. These were kindly provided by GPT-5.5. I know, I know… but it had to be done QwQ

So yeah, not a huge shiny feature update. Still messy, still influenced by CHARON/AETHER in places, but it’s starting to feel like its own thing :3

Project kickoff time!! Dawnline is now a reality! At least the little part that’s already built… x3

This first run was mostly concept-proofing. I’m still not 100% sure what the exact final shape of this project is going to be and I don’t want to pretend otherwise too early. The idea is clear enough though: a minimal, clean terminal focus center. Something for shaping the day, seeing what matters now, and ending with a useful little review to keep things organized.

So for now I focused on making the concept exist in the terminal at all. There’s a Rust TUI skeleton with the main modes from the concept: Plan, Execute, and Review. It’s not polished yet, obviously, but the basic loop is there: plan blocks/tasks, execute from a more focused view, and review what happened.

A lot of the early interaction ideas (and UI components x3) are borrowed from CHARON (part of AETHER, my other flavortown project :3), because it already gave me a bunch of useful TUI patterns to steal from myself x3 Things like keyboard-first flow, command-palette-style input, modes, panes, and the general no-mouse feeling all come from lessons learned there. Dawnline is definitely its own thing, but CHARON gave it a nice little head start.

Under the hood I started with an event-sourced foundation, because Dawnline is supposed to care about the day as something that happened, not just a pile of current todo items. Tasks, blocks, notes, sessions, focus logs, completion/drop/remove actions, all of that is represented as events and replayed into the current state. For now it writes to ~/.local/share/dawnline/events.jsonl, which is very MVP and untidy, but it works!!

There’s also a tiny CLI surface already, plus a simple command palette inside the TUI. Nothing clever yet, but you can add tasks, priority tasks, blocks, notes, log focus time, start blocks, finish sessions and get a basic review. It’s definitely still concept-proof territory and not what I see in my head yet… but the bones are there!!!

So yeah, Dawnline begins here. I don’t fully know where it’s going yet, but I know the core feeling I’m chasing: calm, minimal, focused, a little premium and actually useful when the day starts getting messy. For now it’s mostly a skeleton with ambition, but at least the skeleton can run in a terminal now :3