The calendar is currently still off, but I’m almost done with a fix by utilizing timezones properly. The status of each class isn’t completely accurate right now, but it should come together soon!

I’m working on improving the calendar UI and adding .ics share features. It’s a long process, but I’m almost there for production release. The goal is to allow for .ics calendar link creation for simulated courses.

I’m beginning an extension that pairs with Nest!
I’ve started porting features over to the extension to modify my school’s Canvas page.

The Stardance extension project is here: https://stardance.hackclub.com/projects/46459

REFACTOR + BUG FIXES COMPLETE!

After ~40 hours, I completed a large application-wide refactor, added collaborative note review tools, and focused heavily on reliability :)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed calendar feed validation (you can no longer add random links) and syncing issues with read-only collaborative notes.
• Fixed duplicate cookie-consent dialogs and the privacy-details link (shout out to the ones who caught it in ship #3!).
• Fixed Nest Announcements rendering errors.
• Fixed chat messages failing after the first send, leaking between rooms, or appearing only after a refresh.
• Fixed file uploads, including CSRF handling, error responses, and cleanup after failed uploads.
• Fixed task priority, deadline, recurrence, and floating-menu interactions becoming unresponsive (it was pretty annoying).
• Fixed logout behavior (thank you to the one who caught this!)
• Added profile length validation (thank you to the one who caught this in Ship 3!)
• Improved GitHub authentication diagnostics and callback/session handling (again thanks to the one who caught it in ship 3!!).

Improvements

• Split large chat, notes, calendar, dashboard, file, onboarding, and admin systems into focused modules and services so they can be tested and changed independently.
• Reworked chat synchronization to be more stable.
• Reduced duplicate chat, presence, notification, and database work.
• Consolidated templates and shared frontend styling into a more consistent design (yay!).

Major Features

• Added inline comments to shared notes, including ‘anchored’ discussions, editing and deletion, review events, and suggestions.
• Added administrative calendar-feed health reporting so broken or unsafe subscriptions are easier to diagnose (for admins).
• **Major architectural refactor across 200+ files!!

https://nest.apstudy.org/
Thanks for reading!

Refactor continues….

Should be done in 4-5 days :)
This will fix the bugs a lot of Ship 3’s reviewers mentioned

Still working! I’ll drop a more detailed summary later.

Began a heavy code refactor today.
I’ll give a very detailed refactor summary after it is complete!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed dashboard loading-grid alignment.
• Improved calendar week rendering for events that span multiple days or time slots.
• Refined course availability tracking controls.
• Improved invite redirects and management flows.

Improvements

• Expanded Focus Mode with playlist composer improvements, routine selection, playlist gestures, resizable music panels, and better playback feedback.
• Deferred optional Focus Mode runtimes to improve loading performance.
• Added support for keeping completed Focus sessions visible.
• Improved invite-management cards and settings presentation.

Major Feature*

(only for myself)
Added a gated Echo Show dashboard at /derek/echo for my newly jailbroken Echo! See 1st image below :)

This past couple days, I added Focus Mode (still a work in progress), improved navigation, and polished the frontend foundation (still got many more hours to go).

Bug Fixes

• Fixed calendar event-editor and hidden-control behavior.
• Improved toast notifications and error states across the application.
• Improved calendar, dashboard, and notes interactions.

Improvements

• Refined settings themes and notification controls.
• Added a global workspace search to the command palette with links across courses, files, calendar, and user content.
• Added dashboard layout editing and improved agenda/calendar interactions.

Major Features

• Added Focus Mode with timed sessions, session history, completion sound, music playlist support (so fire since it uses less memory than Spotify), multiple playlists, Spotify playback controls, and customizable player preferences.

https://nest.apstudy.org/focus

This past week, I focused on improving the website’s core systems, UX, and reliability.

Bug Fixes

• Notes dragging was restored on tablets and laptops → It works again!
• Fixed notes page-setup popovers and improved keyboard shortcuts.
• Repaired browser notification subscriptions and delivery errors.
• Fixed settings tab visibility and improved cookie-consent controls.
• Hardened CSRF handling with silent token refresh for long-lived pages.
• Improved admin status polling and directory search.

Improvements

• Replaced generic loaders with page-specific loading skeletons.
• Polished the shell, dashboard spacing, and settings layout.
• Improved chat profiles, member panels, composer interactions, and media previews.
• Added secure chat media sharing, GIF support, and attachment storage.
• Improved tier badge placement and presentation across the app.

Major Features

Users can now receive unified browser notifications, configure delivery preferences, and get reminders for individual calendar events and task deadlines!

My Progress Summary

This past week (since my last devlog), I started with a visual and privacy redesign.

Bug Fixes

• Note image uploads didn’t work => They work now!
• Calendar Validation previously would accept broken links => Fixed now!
• File uploads didn’t work => I can upload now!
• Safari kept signing me out => No more!
  I also improved the admin controls and security and resilience of the backend, especially with CSFR refresh handling.

The loading UX was refined into page-specific skeletons (it was so cool seeing it work for the first time), but it took a few tries.

The big change:

Major release for tiers and quotas so that users can’t spam uploads and tier system skeleton for later. This includes admin tier controls (yay for me) and pixel assets generated by ChatGPT’s latest model 5.6

Try it here: https://nest.apstudy.org/join

Major Changes w/ Notes Page/Editor

1. Notes & Folder Sharing

• Users can now share their notes and even folders with multiple notes files with other Nest users.
• Public links can be generated to give everyone (even non-users) view-only access.

2. Simplified the Editor

• Less empty space! Now your whole screen on your laptop is the editor

3. Printing & Formatting Fixes/Updates

• Clicking Cmd/Ctrl + P now prints the notes page properly with appropriate colors and sizing! This actually took so many hours. Who knew modifying how a page looks for printing took this much time :(
• Grammarly is now more compatible and less RAM-hungry. I also optimized the notes page to reduce RAM consumption when moving between documents & website pages.
• Pasting now formats AI and messy text. Copy and pasting from Nest to another website looks cleaner now too (no more extra new lines for no reason like those AI websites).

4. Speed & Accessibility Changes

• Went with a WCAG 2.2 accessibility friendliness: people navigating can now easily run stuff through their keyboard (which is easy to open/close)
• Faster loading with lazy-loaded images.

5. Soon to Come: Real-Time Editing + Editor Sharing Access

• Who knows, it may just be more optimized than Google Docs (with fewer features, of course).
  It will have logic to view other people’s cursor positions & email invitations with roles (viewing, suggesting, editing). And a 30-day version history timeline.

Try it yourself! https://nest.apstudy.org/notes

Admin Analytics Page

I’m getting users! But who knew making an analytics page was so complex? I’m literally using Google Analytics API, which means I’m not hardcoding JavaScript tracking. Rather, I’m outputting the data into an interactive UI.

Fun fact: 72% of users are high schoolers!

https://nest.apstudy.org

Notes Page Design + UI

You always see Google Docs and be like, “That’s a simple UI.” 😭 Or at least that’s what I thought until I tried creating a notes UI similar to both Notion & Google Docs.

• The goal was to make a lighter, simpler docs page that I can share easily. While, unfortunately, there are no share features yet, the toolbar and hover features are slowly coming together! 😄

Give it a try and let me know what you think: https://nest.apstudy.org/notes

Improved Course Search UI

Changes:

• More results show now
• More filters and more details in the saved json
• Faster pings
• Seats display on the course preview

Features:

• Simulate Courses
• Track courses that aren’t in your simulated schedule
• Recieve Emails when a class opens up
• Add as many courses to tracking as you wish

Unfortunately, this is still limited to only Emory University students because the course pulling takes a lot of time and effort.
https://nest.apstudy.org/courses

Backend + Sidebar Fixes

There were a good few small UI bugs that hurt the user experience.
I went through and fixed a bunch, especially the sidebar issue that has been there for weeks.
(The admin button is completely backend and won’t show for any of the other users)
https://nest.apstudy.org/dashboard

Admin Backend & Basic Frontend Updates!

I have offically gotten to a stage where I can finally start promoting and having people become early users.

Nest.APStudy is a web platform for student course planning and productivity, combining local Emory course data with user accounts, dashboards, calendars, tasks, notes, chat, file sharing, and related admin tools. User data is stored in VPS-hosted SQLite databases, with Appwrite handling authentication and file storage.
I spent a few more hours working on the backend changes and setting myself up to be in a position to quickly find and repair bugs by connecting the hosting VPS to my admin portal securely.

Take a look and let me know what you think! :)

Backend Updates

Updated the /admin page and transferred my database away from Appwrite towards a locally hosted SQLite on my VPS.

Please take a look at https://nest.apstudy.org
All the features are looking really solid now!

Created landing page for my Productivity Web Platform

• Added hero image, animations, showcases of all the website features, etc.

I added some avengers easter eggs if you can find them ;)

As for the actual platform, it is currently not fully functioning because I hit the database limits on my GitHub education plan. I may be locally hosting the database soon.

Check out the website at https://nest.apstudy.org and feel free to leave me any comments/suggestions/hate! I appreciate all feedback :)

Calendar Page Creation & Polish!

https://nest.apstudy.org/calendar
Weekly view:

• 7-column time grid starting with Sunday
• 24 hour scrollable view that auto-scrolls to 7:30 AM
• Stickied all-day row (if all-day events are present) for multi-day/all-day events!
  Monthly View:
• 6-week grids with leading and trailing days from the adjacent months (less visible)
• Multi-day events are shown as spanning bars with row packing
  Options to share calendar (lots of configuration), calendar visibility, previous/next, and easy toggle between weekly and monthly views.

Nest.APStudy is my summer coding project that I started right before AP testing. Yeah, I know… great timing. But I couldn’t wait to start working!

7 APs got nothing on me! Let me enjoy coding and discover the wonderful digital world of cyber, hardware, software, and AI :)
Soon to be up at https://nest.apstudy.org