This is the official 0.4.0 release.

It’s been a bit since my last devlog, and a lot has happened behind the scenes to finally bridge the gap between project and final extension. unfortunately, this is not the final.

First, a quick reality check on the layout. In my last post, I said the text was perfectly centered. It was… on my blank HTML test page. But the second I actually started testing the extension on live websites like YouTube and Twitter, their styles completely leaked into my code and broke it. So ye, the centering is currently broken but ill fix it one day. maybe

Here is a quick list of everything I actually changed and built since the last log:

It actually unlocks the page now: Once you finish typing the very last letter, the overlay just fades away. pretty simple for now, i might make it like a melting effect? not sure yet

Bolder text & a clean new font: Like I said in the last post, the old text was way too small and thin. I cranked it up to 34px, made it a lot bolder, and switched it to Google’s ‘Roboto Mono’ font so it looks way niccer.
Multi-line poems: You can type through short stanzas now instead of just flat, one-line quotes. I completely broke the extension at first because the cursor kept getting stuck on the invisible line-break characters \n, but I fixed the logic so it jumps lines.
Escape to restart: Added a quick reset feature. Hitting the Escape key wipes your current progress and pulls up a fresh random quote.

The Plan

The code works well and everything feels incredibly smooth, but this 0.4.0 update is officially a halfway point and a place to rebuild.

After staring at the live WPM and accuracy counters ticking up while I was testing it, I asked my dad how it looked. He made me realize that I am literaly building the exact opposite of what I actually want.

The whole points of this Grounding project is to be a relaxing speed bump that encourages you to take a breath and get off your device. But by adding speed metrics and accuracy, I literally just cloned Monkeytype.
instead of calming your brain, i filled it with the dopamine hit like any game. you just want to get back to your social media even FASTER.

but what is next: For the next update, im making a big change. I am stripping away the stress metrics (byeWPM and accuracy) and shifting toward a more mindful experience. I am going to look into organic, calming color palettes and maybe even a mechanic that forces you to ‘slow down’ rather than type fast. Like, maybe if you type too fast, it generates more text for you to slow you down. Not really sure yet, but the speed type era is officially over.

i also learnedd more markdown so from now on my dev logs will look better.