Explore
Writing & accessibility
Assisted transcription, accessibility metadata, PDF attachments through Writing Hand, deeper tablet integrations and richer history only where they solve a real problem.
After v1.0
Road
map
Helping Hand now does what it was built to do. The original four-tool publishing suite is complete, Dent Hand has grown into a deliberately small multi-network social client, and Drawing Hand is now live as the sixth member of the family.
What remains is a shelf of possibilities, not a release calendar. New work happens when real use exposes a real itch — including the unglamorous reliability, authentication, privacy and compatibility fixes that keep existing workflows trustworthy.
Release boundary
The core is complete.
The original four publishing workflows are covered: write by hand and send to Micro.blog; build richer mixed-media handwritten posts; batch-upload ordinary files without creating posts; and move carefully prepared Markdown unchanged into a private GitHub working draft or onward to Micro.blog.
Four publishing hands, four jobs: Writing Hand, Publish Hand, BUM Hand and Markdown Hand.
Dent Hand is the post-v1.0 fifth member. Micro.blog and Mastodon-compatible accounts sit behind a provider boundary rather than being mixed together: each keeps its own authentication and API behavior, while Dent Hand provides the common chronological interface and a local Circle independent of either network.
Drawing Hand is the sixth. Elijah publishes a reference drawing, entrants submit private attempts without creating accounts, and Elijah judges them through a private Judging Desk using his own score and grading system. Each entrant receives an unguessable private result link; entries do not become public automatically.
Micro.blog uses secure OAuth / IndieAuth with the profile read create update scopes its real features require. Mastodon-compatible accounts use instance-aware OAuth with encrypted server-side client secrets and access tokens. In both cases the browser receives only an opaque HttpOnly session cookie.
The Mastodon provider now covers the authenticated home timeline, profile links, replies, favourites, bookmarks, boosts and new statuses. Public Mastodon profile/history reading also remains available when a federated author is encountered through Micro.blog.
Recent real-world testing has reinforced these boundaries rather than dissolving them: BUM Hand carries the selected Micro.blog destination through image, audio and PDF uploads; Dent Hand keeps reusable social credentials out of browser JavaScript; and Drawing Hand keeps challenge/submission data in its own private-by-default application boundary.
The rule from here: maintain what works, fix genuine friction, and resist turning a small toolkit into another CMS, a sprawling social dashboard or an unnecessary account platform.
Only if useful
Possible future work.
Explore
Media & outputs
Additional BUM Hand types, useful media-specific shortcuts, and video only if the API and an actual use case justify it.
Explore
Social, drawing & destinations
Better Dent Hand history/paging and interaction-state polish where real use needs them. Test additional Mastodon-compatible servers by capability rather than assumption. A moderated Drawing Hand gallery or challenge archive should exist only if real use makes it worthwhile. Optional Micro.blog Notes and other publishing adapters remain similarly need-driven.
Maintenance
Keep the hands working.
Reliability
Protect what already works.
Bug fixes, API changes, OAuth/scope changes, browser regressions, instance quirks, file-provider failures, destination-routing bugs and privacy regressions take priority over speculative features. Android batch staging, multi-blog uploads, secure Dent Hand sessions, Mastodon DNS pinning and Drawing Hand's private submission/judging boundary are the model: follow real use, diagnose the actual failure, then make the fix permanent.
Documentation
Keep it easy to take home.
Keep setup, architecture, provider/authentication boundaries, child-safety boundaries and release notes current so the suite remains understandable and self-hostable.
Product boundary
Small on purpose.
A new feature belongs only when it removes repetitive publishing or interaction machinery while leaving the original work, conversation, participant and chosen destination in charge. Federation alone is not a reason to bolt another network into Dent Hand; a public gallery alone is not a reason to turn Drawing Hand into a social network.
Open source
Portable, inspectable, yours.
Prefer ordinary files, standards, explicit APIs and revocable credentials over lock-in.