Updated Essay Club HQ

Rebuilt the side panel, added a library to organize all our readings, and created a page to gather Margin Muse updates. These, along with all Club activity, are now organized into a home feed.

Slash Command Menu

Now when you're on an empty line, you see a prompt that says 'Press / for commands.' It opens a menu which lets you use your keyboard to search and navigate through all the functionality in the app. You can now use Esc to exit any panel too, which aids in the vision of operating everything without a mouse. Still need to work towards that, but this lays the foundation.

Quick Scan

Added a new tool that scores your essay on all 27 patterns in less than 1 second. The accuracy isn't yet callibrated—so don't anchor to the overall score too much—but it's helpful to see your draft's strengths and weaknesses. It also only costs 1 musing (a full report costs 200-300). You can use this as you draft to figure out which individual patterns you want specific feedback on. Also, the left tool bar was improved to cluster tools by function.

Upgraded the Brainstorm Tool

It was renamed from 'Inquiry' to 'Brainstorm' and the new header says 'Expand your draft with specific questions.' I needed to make it more clear that these are distinct mini-tools to prompt you and add material to your draft. (This is best early in your idea, as you're drafting, and need ideas for directions to take.) The brainstorm tools are grouped into ETHOS, LOGOS, and PATHOS (the same triad throughout the whole Essay Architecture system). Overall, the UX feels much cleaner: distinct cards, click to run, wait in a dedicated panel, results come in.

Better chat UX

When you open a new Chat conversation, there's a simpler screen where the input field is vertically centered, larger, white, with a header, and generally more prominent. New users won't have trouble knowing where to write text. And now the model picker explains what each model is for: Haiku for speed, Sonnet for range, Opus for depth, and Fable for synthesis.

Smoother Commenting

It’s easier to select text. Glitches are fixed, and you can use Cmd+A to grab your whole essay. After selecting “Add comment,” it autofocuses your cursor in the right field and let’s you use styling (bold, italics, underline, lists, paragraph spaces). Press Cmd+Enter to leave the comment.