astrolabe-nvc/docs/dev-plan.md

# Astrolabe

**A lightweight, browser-based snippet manager for Vega-Lite visualizations**

## Overview

Astrolabe is a focused tool for managing, editing, and previewing Vega-Lite visualization specifications. Unlike full-featured visualization editors, Astrolabe emphasizes efficient snippet management with a clean, resizable three-panel interface: snippet library, Monaco editor with schema-aware autocomplete, and live preview.

## End Goals

- **Local-first**: All data stored in browser (localStorage initially, IndexedDB for scale)
- **Minimal dependencies**: Vanilla JavaScript, no build tools, direct CDN imports
- **Developer-friendly**: Full JSON schema support, syntax validation, and intellisense
- **Version-aware**: Draft/published workflow for safe experimentation
- **Dataset management**: Separate storage for datasets with reference system
- **Extensible**: Clean architecture for future cloud sync and authentication

## Core Features

- Resizable three-panel layout with show/hide toggles
- Auto-saving draft system with explicit publishing
- Snippet duplication, renaming, deletion
- Storage monitoring and size tracking
- Export/import functionality
- Dataset library and management
- (Future) Authentication and cloud synchronization

---

## Development Roadmap

### **Phase 0: Storage Architecture Design** ✅ **COMPLETE**
**Goal**: Define data structures that accommodate full feature set

- [x] Design snippet schema: `{id, name, created, modified, spec, draftSpec, comment, tags[], datasetRefs[], meta}`
- [x] Design dataset schema: `{id, name, created, modified, data, format, rowCount, columnCount, size, columns, comment, tags, meta}`
- [x] Design settings schema: `{panelWidths[], panelVisibility[], autoSaveDelay, meta}`
- [x] Plan localStorage key structure and namespacing
- [x] Define upgrade/migration path for schema changes
- [x] Document storage architecture decisions (see storage-examples.md)

**Deliverable**: Documented data model that supports all planned features

**Key Decisions Made**:
- ID generation: `Date.now() + random numbers` for uniqueness
- Auto-naming: ISO datetime format for default snippet names
- Draft/published workflow: separate `spec` and `draftSpec` fields
- Computed metadata: automatic calculation of size, rowCount, columns for datasets
- Extensibility: `meta` field in all schemas for future enhancements
- Settings persistence: panel state and UI preferences stored locally

---

### **Phase 1: Static HTML Structure** ✅ **COMPLETE**
**Goal**: Basic three-panel layout with placeholder content

- [x] Create `index.html` with basic structure
- [x] Add minimal CSS for three-column flexbox layout
- [x] Add placeholder divs for: snippet list, editor, preview
- [x] Add vertical toggle button strip (moved to left side with emoji icons)
- [x] Test that layout renders at correct proportions

**Deliverable**: Static page with three visible sections + toggle buttons

**Additional Enhancements Made**:
- Added header with site branding (🔭 Astrolabe) and quick action links
- Applied retro Windows 2000 aesthetic with square edges and classic colors
- Implemented basic toggle functionality for show/hide panels
- Added snippet selection highlighting
- Used emoji icons for better UX (📄 ✏️ 👁️)
- Optimized font sizes for better readability

---

### **Phase 2: Resizable Panels** ✅ **COMPLETE**
**Goal**: Make panels draggable to resize

- [x] Add resize handles/dividers between panels
- [x] Implement vanilla JS drag handlers for horizontal resizing
- [x] Store panel widths in localStorage (restore on load)
- [x] Implement toggle button logic to show/hide each panel
- [x] Handle edge cases (minimum widths, hiding panels)

**Deliverable**: Fully interactive layout with resizable and toggleable panels

**Key Achievements**:
- Added 4px retro-styled resize handles between panels with hover/drag feedback
- Implemented smooth mouse-based dragging with real-time width updates
- Added 200px minimum width constraints to prevent unusable panels
- Created intelligent toggle system with proportional space redistribution
- Implemented panel memory system that preserves preferred sizes across hide/show cycles
- Added comprehensive localStorage persistence for panel sizes, visibility, and memory
- Fixed CSS flex properties to allow dynamic width changes (flex: 0 1 auto)
- Enhanced toggle buttons with proper state management and visual feedback

**Advanced Features**:
- **Smart Memory**: Panels remember their preferred sizes even when hidden
- **Proportional Expansion**: Remaining visible panels expand proportionally when others are hidden
- **Stable Proportions**: Toggle hide/show cycles maintain original size relationships
- **Manual Resize Memory**: Dragging resize handles updates the memory for future toggle operations

---

### **Phase 3: Monaco Editor Integration** ✅ **COMPLETE**
**Goal**: Working code editor with Vega-Lite schema

- [x] Load Monaco Editor from CDN
- [x] Initialize Monaco in the middle panel
- [x] Configure JSON mode with Vega-Lite schema for autocomplete
- [x] Add a test Vega-Lite spec as default content
- [x] Verify schema validation and autocomplete works

**Deliverable**: Working editor with intellisense for Vega-Lite

**Enhancements Made**:
- Used specific Monaco version (0.47.0) for consistency
- Fetch actual Vega-Lite schema JSON for better validation
- Added formatOnPaste and formatOnType for better UX
- Implemented proper error handling for schema loading
- Sample bar chart spec loads by default

---

### **Phase 4: Vega-Lite Rendering** ✅ **COMPLETE**
**Goal**: Live preview of visualizations

- [x] Load Vega-Embed from CDN
- [x] Create render function that takes spec from editor
- [x] Add debounced auto-render on editor change
- [x] Display rendered chart in right panel
- [x] Handle rendering errors gracefully (show in preview panel)

**Deliverable**: Editor → live chart pipeline working with auto-refresh

**Key Achievements**:
- Successfully resolved AMD loader conflicts with Monaco Editor
- Implemented UMD build loading with temporary AMD disable/restore
- Added 1.5s debounced rendering for smooth editing experience
- Created comprehensive error handling with user-friendly messages
- Established working editor → JSON parsing → Vega-Lite rendering pipeline
- Sample bar chart loads and renders immediately on page load
- Live preview updates automatically as user edits JSON specification

---

### **Phase 5: Data Model + LocalStorage** ✅ **COMPLETE**
**Goal**: Persist snippets and load them on page refresh

- [x] Implement storage wrapper using Phase 0 schema
- [x] Create localStorage functions (save, load, list, delete)
- [x] Initialize with a default example snippet if storage is empty
- [x] Populate snippet list panel from localStorage
- [x] Handle localStorage errors/quota exceeded

**Deliverable**: Snippets persist across page reloads

**Key Achievements**:
- Created comprehensive `snippet-manager.js` with full Phase 0 schema implementation
- Implemented robust `SnippetStorage` wrapper with error handling and quota management
- Added ID generation using `Date.now() + random numbers` for uniqueness
- Implemented auto-naming with ISO datetime format (YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS)
- Built dynamic snippet list rendering with smart date formatting (relative dates)
- Added snippet selection functionality that loads specs into Monaco Editor
- Integrated default snippet initialization with sample Vega-Lite chart
- Removed hardcoded HTML snippets in favor of dynamic localStorage-based system
- Added proper script loading order and initialization sequence

---

### **Phase 6: Snippet Selection & Basic CRUD** ✅ **COMPLETE**
**Goal**: Core snippet management

- [x] Click snippet in list → load into editor + render
- [x] Highlight selected snippet in list
- [x] **Create**: "New Snippet" button → generates datetime name
- [x] **Duplicate**: Duplicate button creates copy with timestamp suffix
- [x] **Delete**: Delete button per snippet (with confirmation)
- [x] **Rename**: Inline or modal rename functionality
- [x] Auto-save draft on editor change (debounced)
- [x] Add comment/meta text field (below snippet list or in sidebar)

**Deliverable**: Complete basic CRUD with auto-saving drafts

**Key Achievements**:
- Implemented comprehensive snippet selection with visual highlighting
- Connected "New" header button to `createNewSnippet()` function for easy snippet creation
- Added right-click context menu for snippet operations (Rename, Duplicate, Delete)
- Implemented auto-save functionality for both spec changes and comment field edits
- Added comment field that appears when a snippet is selected and auto-saves changes
- Created intuitive UX with proper state management (hiding/showing comment field)
- Added confirmation dialogs for destructive operations like delete
- Maintained consistent retro styling for all new UI elements

---

### **Phase 7: Draft/Published Workflow**
**Goal**: Safe experimentation without losing working versions

- [ ] Add "Published" badge/indicator to snippet list items
- [ ] Add "Publish" button in editor UI
- [ ] Toggle between viewing draft vs published version
- [ ] On publish: copy `draftSpec` → `spec`, update `published` timestamp
- [ ] Visual indicator in editor showing draft vs published state
- [ ] Option to revert draft to last published version
- [ ] Prevent accidental data loss with clear state indication

**Deliverable**: Git-like draft/staged workflow for specs

---

### **Phase 8: Storage Monitoring**
**Goal**: Show storage usage and limits

- [ ] Calculate total localStorage usage
- [ ] Display as progress bar or text (e.g., "2.3 MB / ~5 MB")
- [ ] Show individual snippet sizes in list
- [ ] Add warning indicator when approaching 80% capacity
- [ ] Display draft vs published size differences

**Deliverable**: User can see storage consumption

---

### **Phase 9: Export/Import**
**Goal**: Portability and backup

- [ ] Export single snippet as JSON file (include metadata)
- [ ] Export all snippets as JSON bundle
- [ ] Import snippets from JSON (with conflict resolution)
- [ ] Drag-and-drop import
- [ ] Export published vs draft options

**Deliverable**: Full backup/restore capability

---

### **Phase 10: Dataset Management - Part 1**
**Goal**: Separate dataset storage infrastructure

- [ ] Implement dataset storage schema from Phase 0
- [ ] Create dataset CRUD operations
- [ ] Add dataset library panel/modal
- [ ] List all stored datasets with metadata
- [ ] Add/delete/rename datasets
- [ ] Display dataset size and row counts

**Deliverable**: Basic dataset storage separate from snippets

---

### **Phase 11: Dataset Management - Part 2**
**Goal**: Reference datasets from specs

- [ ] Detect inline data in Vega-Lite specs
- [ ] "Extract to dataset" feature for inline data
- [ ] Replace inline data with dataset references
- [ ] Auto-resolve dataset references when rendering
- [ ] Update snippet UI to show linked datasets
- [ ] Handle missing dataset references gracefully

**Deliverable**: Specs can reference shared datasets

---

### **Phase 12: Polish & UX Refinements**
**Goal**: Professional feel and usability

- [ ] Improved visual design (minimal but polished CSS)
- [ ] Keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+S to publish, Ctrl+N for new, etc.)
- [ ] Better error messages and validation feedback
- [ ] Loading states for rendering
- [ ] Empty states (no snippets, no datasets)
- [ ] Tooltips for buttons and features
- [ ] Cross-browser testing (Chrome, Firefox, Safari)

**Deliverable**: Polished, production-ready MVP

---

### **Phase 13: Advanced Snippet Features**
**Goal**: Power user functionality

- [ ] Search/filter snippets by name, comment, tags
- [ ] Sort options (name, date created, modified, size)
- [ ] Basic tagging system
- [ ] Snippet templates/starter library
- [ ] Bulk operations (delete multiple, export selected)

**Deliverable**: Enhanced snippet discovery and organization

---

### **Phase 14: Authentication & Backend** _(Future)_
**Goal**: Multi-device sync and sharing

- [ ] Design minimal backend API
- [ ] User authentication (email/password or OAuth)
- [ ] Sync localStorage ↔ cloud storage
- [ ] Conflict resolution strategy
- [ ] Share snippets via URL
- [ ] Public snippet gallery (optional)

**Deliverable**: Cloud-backed, multi-device Astrolabe

---

## Technical Stack

- **Frontend**: Vanilla JavaScript (ES6+), HTML5, CSS3
- **Editor**: Monaco Editor v0.47.0 (via CDN)
- **Visualization**: Vega-Embed v6 (includes Vega v5 & Vega-Lite v5)
- **Storage**: LocalStorage → IndexedDB (when needed)
- **Architecture**: Modular script organization with simple file separation
- **Backend** _(future)_: TBD (minimal REST API)

## Current Project Structure

```
/
├── index.html                 # Main application entry point & initialization
├── src/
│   ├── styles.css            # Retro Windows 2000 aesthetic styling
│   └── js/                   # Modular JavaScript organization
│       ├── config.js         # Global variables & sample data
│       ├── snippet-manager.js # Snippet storage, CRUD & localStorage wrapper
│       ├── panel-manager.js  # Panel resize, toggle & memory system
│       ├── editor.js         # Monaco Editor & Vega-Lite rendering
│       └── app.js           # Event handlers & coordination
└── docs/
    ├── dev-plan.md          # This development roadmap
    └── storage-examples.md  # Data model specifications
```

## Development Principles

- **Iterative**: Each phase produces working, testable functionality
- **Lean**: No frameworks, no build step, minimal dependencies
- **Data-first**: Storage schema designed upfront for extensibility
- **User-focused**: Auto-save, clear state, forgiving UX
- **Maintainable**: Clean code organization with logical separation of concerns

## Code Organization Strategy

- **index.html**: Main application flow, initialization, and event coordination
- **Modular JS files**: Function declarations organized by domain (panels, editor, config)
- **Simple separation**: No over-engineering - just logical file organization
- **Clear dependencies**: Load order matters (config → modules → app initialization)

---

**Current Phase**: Phase 7 - Draft/Published Workflow
**Status**: Ready to begin implementation

**Completion Status**:
- ✅ Phases 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 complete
- ✅ Code organization and cleanup complete
- ✅ Snippet storage infrastructure complete
- ✅ Complete CRUD operations with auto-save functionality
- 🎯 Ready for draft/published workflow implementation