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Sky pane: bring it back as its own widget #763
Description
What we need from you: yes or no on bringing the sky pane back, on the terms below. Nothing gets built until you say yes, and Calendar V5's first build doesn't wait on it.
What it was: the calendar's sky. A band at the top showed the world's sky right now: the time-of-day colour, the sun, the moons in their phases, and live weather. Between June and August it went through four homes and seven redesigns. On 21 August you parked it as "a future standalone project" when the old calendar was deleted.
What went wrong, from the record:
- Your verdict on 29 July: "badly implemented mostly with the animations and colors and such... really big and bulky, took a lot of room, and was weirdly laid out on mobile", and the controls were "just god awful, even after trying to redo them."
- Its motion was signed from words and still pictures, so the moving version was never seen working before it shipped. When you finally looked on 9 August, four things were broken behind passing tests.
- It moved house repeatedly: a fixed band, a collapsible strip, a widget, then a header "chest lid". Each move meant rebuilding it.
- The look read as cheap: the gradient showed visible steps, and the mountains were zig-zags.
- On 21 August: "The skypane was in okay shape, then seemed thrown away and rebuilt worse."
Recommendation: yes, as its own small project once V5's month grid, events and day card have shipped.
- One job: show what the sky looks like right now in this world: the time of day, the moons in their colours and phases, the weather, and the rare event (a blood moon, an eclipse). No controls inside it. The Director sets weather and events where those already live.
- Its own widget. It docks at the top of the calendar or any page. When closed, only a small "Sky" chip remains, and it opens in place.
- Starts from skies you pick. Calendaria's was identified as your reference before. Nothing is drawn from a description.
- You see it moving before anything is signed: a playable prototype and clips, never stills.
- Built for quality:
- one smooth painted layer, with grain over the gradients so they never show steps;
- checks that test what is actually painted on screen, not just the box it sits in;
- a performance budget: it pauses when hidden, and reduced motion gets a still frame.
- Shares the moon graph's look (Calendar V5: a moon-phase graph with living light and shadow, and effects for moon events #762): the same moon colours and the same blood-moon and magic effects. The graph carries the detail; the sky carries the mood.
If no: the calendar keeps only the faint night-and-dawn tint you approved as an off-by-default setting, and the moon details live in the moon graph.
How to answer: "sky pane: yes" or "sky pane: no".
Where this comes from
- Cordinator
decisions/2026-07-29-operator-directive-sky-header.md(the verdict),reports/chronicle/2026-08-09-OPERATOR-FEEDBACK-R1.md(the four defects),plans/2026-08-21-calendar-v5-design-brief.md(parked; "okay shape, then... rebuilt worse"). - What exists to learn from:
mockups/stills/sky-header/mockups/sky-motion-candidates/(clips)references/chronicle-design/world-state-effects-catalog.md
- The old engine can still be read in Chronicle's history at
da2ccbee^:static/js/cal-almanac.js. Deleted in22ac88a9andda2ccbee. - Design and build a new timeline page to replace the old one #677 notes that Timeline V2 and the sky widget were parked together.
Activity
keyxmakerx commentedon Sep 26, 2026
Decided: yes. The operator said: "Sky panel I'm just so eager about. So let's also go with it."
Next steps, on the terms above:
Generated by Claude Code
[-]Decide: bring the sky pane back, as its own widget, after Calendar V5's core ships[/-][+]Sky pane: bring it back as its own widget[/+]keyxmakerx commentedon Sep 26, 2026
Step 1 done; direction chosen: 1 · Painted. The operator handed over the pick ("I want whatever would be 'best'") and can still overrule it.
Why Painted: owners will add their own magical weather and sky events. A painted world takes invented magic naturally, while against the realistic "True sky" the same magic looks pasted on. "Clear arc" reads more as a diagram than a sky.
Kept from Clear arc: the moons' path lines. They appear only when a day's sky is opened full size, so the hour slider shows where each moon is heading.
Settled with it, for the full widget mockup (step 2):
The dock shows the sky now. The Sky chip folds it away and opens it in place.
A day card's band is that day's sky. Clicking its weather or the band grows it into the full day sky, with an hour slider.
A day that isn't today opens at its sky event's peak. With no event, it opens at the evening hour when the most moons are up.
Players never receive hidden moons or events. The Director sees them marked "hidden from players".
Owners customize with hand-tuned building blocks only:
That way an owner-made sky can't look cheap.
Motion follows the Write down the operator's motion and hover-card rules for every UI build #760 rules. Nothing flashes more than three times a second.
Generated by Claude Code
keyxmakerx commentedon Sep 27, 2026
Operator feedback on the sky pane mockup, version 1 (27 September): "All of it looks good, the sky events were a bit gimmicky looking though."
The combined calendar mockup applies it:
The owner's shapes (doorway, ring, wandering stars, ribbon, glow, veil) are at about half their previous strength.
The build follows whichever version the operator signs.
Generated by Claude Code
keyxmakerx commentedon Sep 27, 2026
Signed on 27 September: the sky pane mockup, version 1. The operator's answers:
The "a bit gimmicky" feedback on sky events (recorded above) still applies. The build follows the "Subtle" treatment if the operator signs it on the combined calendar mockup.
Generated by Claude Code
calendar: wire the sky pane into the skybox dashboard block (#763)