vision-start/project-context.md

project_name, date, type

project_name	date	type
Vision Start	2026-07-08	general_overview

Vision Start — Project Context

A general, non-normative overview of the Vision Start project: what it is, how it's structured, what features it offers, and which files do what. This document is intended as a map for humans and AI agents to orient themselves in the codebase. It deliberately avoids coding-style prescriptive rules.

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1. What Is This Project?

Vision Start is a glassmorphism-styled, highly customizable browser startpage (new-tab page).

• Distributed as a Chrome/Chromium extension (Manifest V3) that overrides the new tab with index.html.
• Also runnable as a standalone web app and shipped as a Docker image served via nginx.
• Built with React + TypeScript, bundled with Vite, and styled with Tailwind CSS v4 (using the @preact/preset-vite so Preact is the actual React runtime).
• Persistent state lives in localStorage and, when available, chrome.storage.local.

Live instances / artifacts:

• Public demo: http://vision-start.ivanch.me
• Source: https://gitea.com/ivan/vision-start.git
• Container registry: git.ivanch.me/ivanch/vision-start
• Releases: https://git.ivanch.me/ivanch/vision-start/releases/latest

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2. Technology Stack

Layer	Tech
Language	TypeScript (~5.7), target ES2020, strict mode
UI runtime	Preact 10 (via @preact/preset-vite); types from @types/react 19
Bundler / dev server	Vite 6
Styling	Tailwind CSS v4 (@tailwindcss/vite plugin + @tailwindcss/postcss + autoprefixer)
Drag & drop	@hello-pangea/dnd 18
Build output	Plain static files in dist/ (relative base: './', single CSS bundle; modals code-split into separate JS chunks via React.lazy)
Container	Node 22 Alpine build stage → nginx Alpine serving dist/
Extension packaging	Manifest V3 (manifest.json) consuming dist/ + manifest.json zipped as vision-start-<tag>.zip
CI/CD	Gitea Actions workflows (.gitea/workflows/)

Entry points: index.html → index.tsx → App.tsx.

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3. Feature Overview

The startpage is composed of widgets and a configuration panel:

• Website Tiles — Bookmarks organized into categories. Each tile shows an icon + name and opens the configured URL. Tiles can be added, edited, deleted, and moved left/right within their own category (reordering) while in edit mode.
• Categories — Groupings of website tiles (e.g. "Search"). Add/edit/delete/name.
• Clock — Optional header clock with selectable size, font, and 12h/24h format.
• Title — Optional big header title (text + size configurable).
• Server Status Widget — Bottom-center glass pill that periodically "pings" configured server addresses and shows online/offline indicators. Ping uses an image-load trick (components/utils/jsping.js) with a 5s timeout, at a configurable frequency.
• Wallpaper background — Fullscreen background image with adjustable blur, brightness, and opacity, rendered behind a soft readability layer for the liquid-glass UI. Supports rotating through multiple wallpapers at an hourly cadence selected by slider (1h–48h).
  • Built-in wallpapers: Abstract, Abstract Red, Beach, Dark, Mountain, Waves (components/utils/baseWallpapers.ts).
  • User wallpapers: upload from a file (≤4MB, ≤4.5MB base64) or add by URL; stored in chrome.storage.local when available, falling back to storing the URL directly on CORS failure.
• Icon library & auto-fetch — Website icons can be picked from the Dashboard Icons library (metadata pre-downloaded to public/icon-metadata.json) or auto-fetched from the target site's apple-touch-icon/icon link tags, with a fallback to Google's S2 favicon service.
• Configuration panel — Slide-in right-side modal with four tabs: General, Theme, Clock, Server Widget. Includes Export (downloads a JSON bundle of selected localStorage keys) and Import (restores from JSON and reloads the page).
• Edit mode — Toggle via the top-left pencil button; reveals per-tile glass action toolbars, per-category edit buttons, and ghost glass "add" tiles.
• Liquid glass design language — Soft translucent surfaces, restrained edge highlights, moderate backdrop blur, soft shadows, cyan focus states, and iOS-like easing tokens (ease-ios, ease-spring, ease-liquid) defined in index.css.

Performance notes:

• Modals (ConfigurationModal, WebsiteEditModal, CategoryEditModal) are code-split via React.lazy + Suspense and only loaded when opened. ConfigurationModal is the heaviest chunk (it pulls in @hello-pangea/dnd via ServerWidgetTab); the rest of @hello-pangea/dnd is isolated from the initial load.
• WebsiteTile and CategoryGroup are wrapped in React.memo; App.tsx handlers are useCallback-stabilized and pure alignment helpers are hoisted to module scope, so opening a modal / toggling edit no longer re-renders every tile.
• Clock updates on the minute boundary (one setTimeout → setInterval(60_000)) instead of every second.
• jsping cancels its 5s timeout on image resolve/error and nulls the Image handlers, preventing leaks across ping cycles.
• ServerWidget batches pending-status updates into one setState and depends on a stable servers signature (ids+addresses) so unrelated config edits don't restart pings.
• Icon metadata (/icon-metadata.json) is module-level cached and hydrated into each icon-picker instance, fetched lazily on first focus of the icon field with cache: 'force-cache', filter debounced ~150ms, and color variants are expanded lazily during filtering rather than upfront.
• Wallpaper caches resolved wallpaper URLs in a module-level Map; its image transition and readability overlay classes live in index.css.

Planned / To-do (tracked in README.md):

• Dynamic Weather widget, Search Bar widget, draggable/resizable grid system, Notes/Scratchpad widget, theming (light/dark, accent colors, wallpaper-derived accents, minimal feel toggle), and a general "refactor everything" note.

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4. Project Structure

vision-start/
├── App.tsx                      # Root React component; central state + handlers
├── index.tsx                    # React root mount (ReactDOM.createRoot)
├── index.html                   # HTML shell, links index.css, mounts #root
├── index.css                    # Tailwind v4 import + liquid glass utilities, wallpaper overlays, and easing tokens
├── vite-env.d.ts                # Type declaration for CSS imports used by TypeScript verification
├── types.ts                     # Core domain types (Config, Category, Website, Server, Wallpaper)
├── constants.tsx                # DEFAULT_CATEGORIES seed data
├── manifest.json                # Chrome MV3 manifest (newtab override, storage permission)
│
├── components/
│   ├── Clock.tsx                # Header clock widget
│   ├── Wallpaper.tsx            # Background image renderer + rotation logic
│   ├── WebsiteTile.tsx          # Individual bookmark tile + loading/edit controls
│   ├── WebsiteEditModal.tsx     # Add/edit a website (icon picker inside)
│   ├── CategoryEditModal.tsx    # Add/edit a category
│   ├── ConfigurationModal.tsx   # Tabbed settings drawer with Export/Import
│   ├── ServerWidget.tsx         # Bottom server status pill
│   ├── Dropdown.tsx             # Reusable glassy dropdown (single/multi select)
│   ├── ToggleSwitch.tsx         # Reusable toggle switch
│   │
│   ├── layout/
│   │   ├── Header.tsx               # Renders Clock + Title
│   │   ├── CategoryGroup.tsx        # Renders a category's title + its tiles + edit controls
│   │   ├── EditButton.tsx           # Top-left pencil toggle
│   │   └── ConfigurationButton.tsx # Top-right gear button
│   │
│   ├── configuration/
│   │   ├── GeneralTab.tsx           # Title, sizes, alignment, tile size
│   │   ├── ThemeTab.tsx             # Background selection, wallpaper cadence, wallpaper mgmt, blur/brightness/opacity
│   │   ├── ClockTab.tsx             # Clock enable/size/font/format
│   │   └── ServerWidgetTab.tsx      # Server widget enable/ping/servers (drag-to-reorder)
│   │
│   ├── services/
│   │   └── ConfigurationService.ts  # DEFAULT_CONFIG, load/save config & wallpapers, add/delete wallpaper, export/import config, reset wallpaper state
│   │
│   └── utils/
│       ├── baseWallpapers.ts        # Built-in wallpaper catalog (imgur/wallpapershome URLs)
│       ├── iconService.ts           # getWebsiteIcon: fetch HTML, parse apple-touch-icon/icon, fallback to Google favicons
│       ├── jsping.js                # Image-load based "ping" with 5s timeout (used by ServerWidget)
│       └── StorageLocalManager.ts   # chrome.storage.local wrappers + availability check; wallpaper fetch/base64/URL storage
│
├── public/
│   ├── favicon.ico
│   └── icon-metadata.json        # Dashboard Icons metadata (gitignored; fetched at release build)
│
├── screenshots/                  # README screenshots (dark page, editing, configuration)
├── scripts/
│   ├── prepare_release.sh        # Downloads icon-metadata.json from homarr-labs/dashboard-icons
│   └── check_virustotal.sh       # Uploads the release zip to VirusTotal, waits for & reports the verdict
│
├── .gitea/workflows/
│   ├── main.yaml                 # On push to main: build, push staging Docker image, SSH-deploy to staging
│   └── release.yaml              # On v* tag: build, zip, VirusTotal check, Gitea release, push latest image, SSH-deploy to prod
│
├── Dockerfile                    # Node 22 build → nginx serving dist/ (with gzip via nginx.conf)
├── nginx.conf                    # nginx gzip config (JSON/JS/CSS/SVG/XML), mounted into container
├── .dockerignore
├── .gitignore                    # Ignores node_modules, dist, .claude/, public/icon-metadata.json, etc.
├── postcss.config.cjs            # @tailwindcss/postcss + autoprefixer
├── tailwind.config.js            # Content globs + safelist of dynamic w-/h- sizes
├── tsconfig.json                 # Strict TS, bundler resolution, `@/*` path alias to project root
├── vite.config.ts                # preact + tailwindcss plugins; single-bundle output; base './'
├── package.json                  # Scripts: dev, build, preview
├── README.md                     # Public-facing readme + feature list + roadmap
└── .env.local                    # Local env (not tracked in context here)

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5. Data Model & State

The shape of all persisted data lives in types.ts:

• Website — id, name, url, icon, categoryId
• Server — id, name, address
• Category — id, name, websites: Website[]
• Wallpaper — name, optional url or base64
• Config — Everything else: title, wallpaper list + hourly frequency/blur/brightness/opacity, titleSize, vertical & horizontal alignment, tileSize, clock {enabled, size, font, format}, serverWidget {enabled, pingFrequency, servers}

ConfigurationService (components/services/ConfigurationService.ts) is the source of truth for default config and persistence helpers. Config loaded from localStorage (and imported from export files) is run through normalizeConfig(), a schema-driven deep merge against DEFAULT_CONFIG: nested blocks (clock, serverWidget) inherit new sub-fields added to defaults, stored values with the wrong type fall back to defaults, and keys absent from the default schema are pruned. The merge is self-healing — App.tsx's persist-useEffect writes the normalized shape back to localStorage on first run.

Storage layout (browser-side):

Key	Where	Contents
config	localStorage	The full Config JSON
categories	localStorage	Category[] JSON
userWallpapers	localStorage	Wallpaper[] index (names)
wallpaperState	localStorage	{ lastWallpaperChange, currentIndex } for rotation
<wallpaperName>	chrome.storage.local (when available)	base64 (or URL on CORS failure) image data

Export/import bundles keys: config, categories, userWallpapers, wallpaperState.

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6. Application Flow (high level)

1. index.html loads index.tsx, which mounts <App/> into #root.
2. App.tsx initializes state from localStorage (categories) and ConfigurationService.loadConfig() (config), falling back to defaults.
3. useEffect hooks persist config and categories back to localStorage whenever they change.
4. The screen renders:
   • <Wallpaper> behind everything (fetches URL/base64 from base catalog or chrome.storage.local; rotates per frequency).
   • <EditButton> (top-left) and <ConfigurationButton> (top-right).
   • <Header> (clock + title).
   • One <CategoryGroup> per category (renders its <WebsiteTile>s and, in edit mode, add/edit/move controls).
   • Optional <ServerWidget> if enabled.
   • Conditionally one of: <WebsiteEditModal>, <CategoryEditModal>, <ConfigurationModal>.
5. Edit / configuration interactions update central App state; the existing useEffects persist it.

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7. Build, Release & Deployment

Local development / preview

npm install
npm run dev       # Vite dev server (note: PROJECT.md says prefer `npm run build` for real testing)
npm run build     # Production build → dist/
npm run preview   # Serve built dist/

Chrome extension install (manual)

Build, then combine dist/ + manifest.json into a folder and "Load unpacked" from chrome://extensions. The release workflow automates this zip.

Docker

Dockerfile builds in Node 22 Alpine (npm ci → runs scripts/prepare_release.sh → npm run build) and serves /app/dist + manifest.json via nginx:alpine on port 80.

CI/CD (Gitea Actions)

• main.yaml — Triggers on push to main (and workflow_dispatch). Builds, pushes a staging multi-arch (amd64/arm64) image to git.ivanch.me/ivanch/vision-start:staging, then SSH-deploys on the staging host via docker compose up -d --force-recreate.
• release.yaml — Triggers on v* tags. Builds, zips dist/ + manifest.json as vision-start-<tag>.zip, runs scripts/check_virustotal.sh against it (publishes analysis URL + detection ratio on the release body), creates a Gitea release, pushes a latest multi-arch image, and SSH-deploys to production.

Required CI secrets (referenced by the workflows): REGISTRY_PASSWORD, HOST, USERNAME, KEY, PORT, STAGING_DIR, PROD_DIR, VIRUSTOTAL_APIKEY.

External assets fetched at build time by scripts/prepare_release.sh:

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/homarr-labs/dashboard-icons/.../metadata.json → public/icon-metadata.json (used by WebsiteEditModal for the icon picker; gitignored).

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8. Notable Behaviors & Quirks

• EditModal.tsx has been removed. It was a legacy drag-and-drop editor that imported non-existent lucide-react and ./IconPicker; it was never wired into App.tsx. Use WebsiteEditModal.tsx / CategoryEditModal.tsx instead.
• @hello-pangea/dnd is used only in ServerWidgetTab.tsx (server reorder), which itself is imported by the lazy-loaded ConfigurationModal, so it lives in a separate chunk and is absent from the initial page load. WebsiteTile moves tiles within their own category via simple left/right buttons (no cross-category movement), not drag-and-drop.
• Chrome storage is optional. StorageLocalManager checks availability once (checkChromeStorageLocalAvailable) and caches it. When unavailable (e.g., running as a plain web page), wallpaper upload/delete flows are gated off and addWallpaperToChromeStorageLocal throws.
• Wallpaper rotation is time-based, evaluated on render/mount rather than via a timer. It reads wallpaperState from localStorage, advances the index if the frequency window has elapsed, and writes it back; the frequency is clamped to 1–48 hours, while older saved values like 1d/2d still resolve to their hour equivalents. The renderer clamps currentIndex to the valid range of the current selection and walks the list forward to find a wallpaper whose data actually resolves (so deleting the currently-displayed wallpaper, or shrinking the selection, never leaves the background blank); if no wallpaper resolves, the background layer is hidden. When the selection becomes empty, wallpaperState is reset and the background is hidden. A manual "Next Wallpaper" button in the Theme tab advances currentIndex (with wraparound) and bumps a wallpaperVersion nonce in App.tsx that retriggers the renderer.
• Icon picker in WebsiteEditModal loads /icon-metadata.json at runtime and expands each icon's colors into duplicate-name entries so color variants are searchable.
• tsconfig.json does not emit JS (noEmit: true, bundler resolution); Vite handles all transpilation.
• tailwind.config.js safelists a set of w-[Npx]/h-[Npx] classes because WebsiteTile generates tailwind classes dynamically from tileSize (w-[42px], etc.).
• Project guidance note in PROJECT.md: do not use npm run dev for real verification — use npm run build.
• .claude/ and .env.local are local-only / gitignored; not part of shipped artifacts.

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9. Where Things Live (Quick Lookup)

You want to find…	Look in…
The default config	components/services/ConfigurationService.ts (DEFAULT_CONFIG)
The default seed bookmarks	constants.tsx (DEFAULT_CATEGORIES)
Built-in wallpaper list	components/utils/baseWallpapers.ts
Type definitions	types.ts
Main app wiring (state, handlers, layout)	App.tsx
Settings UI	components/ConfigurationModal.tsx + components/configuration/*Tab.tsx
Wallpaper rendering/rotation	components/Wallpaper.tsx
Server status logic	components/ServerWidget.tsx + components/utils/jsping.js
Icon fetch / picker / metadata	components/utils/iconService.ts, components/WebsiteEditModal.tsx, public/icon-metadata.json
chrome.storage.local access	components/utils/StorageLocalManager.ts
Export/import config	components/services/ConfigurationService.ts (exportConfig, importConfig)
Release packaging	scripts/prepare_release.sh, scripts/check_virustotal.sh, .gitea/workflows/release.yaml
Docker build	Dockerfile

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Last updated: 2026-07-08. Generated as a general project overview; not a coding-style guide.