## Episode 14: I Didn’t Know the Sky Was This Blue

I Didn’t Know the Sky Was This Blue

Today I started thinking about features that sounded simple.

Line numbers.

Character counts.

Invisible character markers.

Vertical writing support.

The kind of things that make a text editor feel powerful.

I wanted them.

All of them.

So I asked Mr. Gemini.

A storm arrived.

Monaco.

CodeMirror.

contenteditable.

IME behavior.

BOM handling.

WebView integration.

Words flew past faster than I could understand them.

As usual, I was reminded that I am not a programmer.

Then I used one of my favorite prompts:

“Please explain it so even a monkey can understand. Ooh-ooh, ah-ah.”

For some reason, that always works.

The explanation suddenly became understandable.

The problem wasn’t adding one feature.

The problem was adding all of them at once.

Every solution seemed to introduce new concerns.

Input methods.

Multilingual text.

Font metrics.

Character width calculations.

Platform differences.

Complexity kept multiplying.

So I asked Mr. Crow as well.

His conclusion was similar.

Finding a solution that handled line numbers, character counts, invisible characters, and vertical writing perfectly at the same time wasn’t easy.

Especially while keeping the editor lightweight and reliable.

That led to an important decision.

I chose stability.

Some features would wait.

At least for now.

Instead, DriveNote will use a lightweight MAUI editor for writing and a more visually rich full-screen WebView with CSS for reading.

Writing and presentation.

Two separate responsibilities.

A simpler design.

A safer design.

Perhaps not the most exciting answer.

But DriveNote is being built around a long-term goal.

I want these notes to remain readable decades from now.

That goal often pushes me toward reliability instead of complexity.

Of course, I haven’t completely abandoned the idea.

A richer editing mode may appear someday.

Maybe.

Future-me can worry about that.

Present-me has enough problems already.

I slept.

If this resonated with you, a Clap or two would make one slightly confused Japanese developer very happy.

Just saying.

Thank you for all the comments and reviews.

I read every single one.

Very happy. Truly.

Sometimes development is not about adding features.

Sometimes it’s about deciding which features not to add.

Today was one of those days.

Thank you for following along.

This series documents real app development, created together with AI assistants.