# Elbow update log

Newest first. Each entry says what changed and why. Dan's feedback is quoted or summarized
under the entry it led to.

## 0.4: 2026-10-30, more demos from the research
- **New section, 8 Map:** a floor plan per floor in thin outline.
  - Tap a room and it fills orange; the plan shrinks to a thumbnail beside the room's detail.
  - Doors show locked or open.
  - Camera rings open the one allowed pop-up: a bracketed video window (a demo feed, with no
    real camera).
  - Rooms are the same objects as in Systems, so a rename shows up in both places.
- **Lights:** now rows that open in place. A row opens a small control box underneath, joined by
  a line, as in Boimler's itinerary on Lower Decks. Typing 1 then 2 opens the second light.
- **Data:**
  - A band of the actual hourly numbers sits under the title.
  - A status line in words sits at the bottom right.
  - New 4.4 Wind scan: a round, radar-style plot with rings, spokes, an hourly trail and an
    arrow.
  - The sensor log moves to 4.5.
- **Spec 0.4:**
  - Rule 14 gains the data layout and polar plots.
  - Rule 16 is new: maps.
  - Rule 17 is new: open in place, go inside, or pop up.
- **Post:** new sections:
  - "What the show actually does": the research, linking to the original captures on Memory
    Alpha.
  - Two new demos, the map and the open-in-place rows.
  - "Working theories": eight ideas underneath the rules.

*(Dan: "let's update the BTF4E page with a few more demo situations… let's add our research
and theories to the BTF4E page too")*

## 0.3: 2026-10-30, phones get the PADD layout
- **Research:** collected 35 reference images of real LCARS screens. Notes and 12 patterns are
  in `research/REFERENCES.md`. What we found:
  - Going deeper keeps the frame and swaps what's inside it.
  - True nesting is a smaller frame drawn inside the content area.
  - PADDs use a narrow left sidebar with the title flush right.
  - Bottom bars exist only as the bottom edge of a C-shaped frame, carrying status, never tabs.
- **Phone layout:**
  - The bottom tab bar is gone. The sidebar stays on the left at 64px.
  - The frame closes into a C: a bottom-left elbow runs into a status bar showing the condition.
  - The title sits flush right on a thinner top bar.
- **Nested menus on phones go inside.** One frame at a time:
  - The levels above become thin bars you tap to climb out.
  - Items are rounded rows showing a live value in words ("67°F", "Locked", "3 rooms").
  - Desktop keeps the side-by-side nested frames.
- The data scan fits a phone screen without scrolling sideways.
- Typing a link like `#systems/2/1` now works after the page has loaded, too.

**Dan, on his phone (2026-10-30):**
- "The big buttons feel good. The nested stuff does not feel good. I think it might need to
  kind of go inside."
- The show "never has this bottom thing. They usually do sidebars, and sidebars maybe top
  bars."
- Liked: the graphs, the highlighted bar following his finger, and the power and battery scans.
- "What do these numbers mean? They're moving while I'm clicking around on the scene thing and
  I can't tell why. These things need to be grounded in reality."

## 0.2.2: 2026-10-30
- Each Scene button now says what its chip number counts, for example "Turns on 2 lights" or
  "Locks 1 door". When there is nothing left to do, the chip shows a check, the button dims,
  and the line reads "Already set". The numbers still change as the house changes, but you can
  see why. *(Dan: "the numbers are moving and I can't tell why")*
- The log under the buttons says what actually happened.

## 0.2.1: 2026-10-30
- The frame font is now Saira Extra Condensed instead of Antonio. Antonio's C and G rose above
  and dipped below the other capitals. *(Dan: "the C and G in this font sticks out")*
- Frame lettering is sized by capital height (`font-size-adjust: cap-height 0.75`), so
  swapping fonts doesn't shrink it.
- Nested elbows now curve in proportion to their size (outer curves of 56, 46 and 36px, up
  from 40, 26 and 16), with taller elbow blocks. Before, they looked like boxes with a nicked
  corner. *(Dan: "the angle on the inside corner of the smaller elbows look weird")*

## 0.2: 2026-10-30
- **Nesting:** menus inside menus, each level drawn thinner, four levels at most. Ancestor
  frames stay visible as the breadcrumb.
- **Addresses:** segment numbers add up down the tree. Typing 5, 2, 1 opens Systems ›
  Climate › Upstairs, and Esc goes up a level.
- **Big buttons:** transporter-style buttons with a numbered chip. The ring color says what
  pressing costs: white for instant, gold for hold to confirm, red for hold because it reaches
  a person.
- **Palette:** five color families of three or four tints each, replacing five flat colors.
- **Science theme:** pink and blue, from Dan's photos of the TNG "Planetary scan = Theta
  Eight" screen.
- **Split frame:** the data section now has a summary (KEY = VALUE) above a double bar and a
  chart in a bracket below. The striped junction block on the bar works as the chart cursor.
- **Charts:**
  - One series per chart.
  - The KEY = VALUE readout follows your finger or the arrow keys.
  - Each section has its own subject and range buttons.
  - Also new: the sensor log, whose rows are addresses you can open.
- **Post:** the BTF4E post now explains each idea next to its own embedded panel.
- **Spec:** now 15 rules.

*(Dan: "demo how a nested menu would work… do a little data readout… gigantic buttons… the
palette needs to be a little bit more complicated")*

## 0.1: 2026-10-30
- First draft: 12 rules and a home wall panel (lights, climate, weather with a hail red
  alert, network, legend).
- Published as the first BTF4E notebook post: https://btf4e.com/notebook/elbow.html