# palt Journal

> palt Journal is a minimalist reading journal and tracker designed to capture what books leave behind. It provides a calm, distraction-free space to track reading progress, save highlights, write reflections, and preserve a reader's journey.

- **Project**: palt Journal
- **Description**: Minimalist reading journal and tracker for books, highlights, and reflections.
- **Website**: https://journal.palt.tech
- **Target Audience**: Avid readers, note-takers, students, and lifelong learners.

## Product Purpose & Target Audience
- **Purpose**: To provide a dedicated, distraction-free environment for tracking reading habits, organizing book collections, and maintaining daily reflections or commonplace notes tied to specific literature.
- **Audience**: Avid readers, note-takers, students, and lifelong learners seeking to consolidate their reading workflows outside of busy, social-media-driven platforms.

## Core Features & Capabilities

### 1. Library Management
- **Dashboard Grid**: A clean overview of the user's book collection.
- **Reading Statuses**: Books can be organized into three states: "To Read", "Reading", and "Finished".
- **Custom Tagging**: Users can add up to three custom tags to books (e.g., genre, author, read-year) to filter the dashboard.
- **Book Discovery**: Users can search for books by title or author (powered by Open Library integration) and immediately add them to their list.
- **Custom Additions**: If a book is not found in the search, users can manually create custom books and provide external image URLs for custom covers.

### 2. Journaling & Text Editor
- **Daily Journal Pages**: Each book acts as an active workspace. Users write daily insights tied explicitly to calendar dates.
- **Rich Text Editor**: A minimalist writing environment supporting Markdown syntax.
- **Slash Commands**: By typing `/`, users open a menu to quickly insert formatting block types, such as headings, lists, quotes, and specialized "Callouts".
- **Focus Mode**: A toggleable full-screen mode that hides the sidebar and navigation UI for deep, distraction-free writing.

### 3. Commonplace & Callouts
- **Commonplace Board**: A sub-tab within a book's workspace that acts as a visual pinboard. Users can store structured snippets: Quotes, Thoughts, Web Links, and Actions.
- **Global Callouts View**: A dedicated chronological timeline page that automatically pulls out and aggregates all "Callout" blocks the user has ever created across all journal entries in all books.

### 4. Reading Session Tracker
- **Integrated Timer**: A built-in stopwatch within the journal header. Users click "Start" when they begin reading and "Save" when finished to automatically record the session duration.
- **Session History log**: Past reading sessions and total reading times are logged and viewable in the book's sidebar.

### 5. Export, Backup, and Data Portability
- **PDF Generation**: Users can download a beautiful, formatted PDF of a single journal entry or bulk-export their entire library as a ZIP of PDFs.
- **Local JSON Backup**: Export the raw, complete database offline as a JSON file and restore it later.
- **Goodreads Import**: Users can migrate historical libraries by uploading a Goodreads CSV export file.
- **Cloud Sync Configuration**: Connect a Google account to securely back up and synchronize library data across devices using Firebase Cloud Storage and Google Drive AppData folders.

## Supported User Workflows

- **Starting a New Book**: The user clicks "Add Book", queries a title, clicks "Start" on a result, and is immediately dropped into a new journal workspace for that book.
- **Reflecting on a Session**: The user opens the app, presses "Start" on the timer, reads their physical book, presses "Save", and writes their daily reflection in the active date's editor.
- **Capturing an Insight**: While reflecting, the user types `/`, selects "Callout", and types a profound quote. The quote is now persistently available on the global `Callouts` timeline.
- **Migrating Devices**: The user opens the application on a new device, navigates to Settings, logs in with Google, clicks "Restore from Cloud", and securely pulls their entire synchronized library.

## Key Terminology & Concepts
- **Library**: The main dashboard showing all tracked books.
- **Journal**: A rich-text, date-associated writing log bound to a specific book.
- **Commonplace**: A visual board for specific actionable/reference snippets (Quotes, Links, Thoughts) tied to a book.
- **Callouts**: Important takeaways extracted from daily Journal entries.
- **Reading Session**: A logged block of time spent reading, recorded via the built-in timer.
- **Focus Mode**: Full-screen immersive writing layout.
- **Verified Access**: An optional premium account upgrade. 

## Settings, Preferences & Customization
- **Cover Images**: Configurable via Google Image URLs or external links in the book sidebar.
- **Auto-Sync Toggle**: Users can enable background synchronization to automatically push local changes to the cloud when logged in.
- **Theme**: Currently utilizes a typography-focused dark mode.

## Data Ownership, Privacy, & Limitations
- **Local-First Architecture**: By default, the application runs offline using the browser's local storage (IndexedDB). If a user clears their cache or uninstalls the browser without syncing, data is lost.
- **Privacy Controls**: Data is strictly private. Cloud backups are isolated to the user's authenticated Google Account.
- **System Constraints**:
  - Image hosting is not provided; custom covers require external URLs.
  - Cross-device sync requires explicit Google Sign-in and authorizing popups.
- **Data Deletion**: A "Clear all local data" option provides permanent deletion of all stored books and journal entries.