FINAL|FINAL - an
Started by Luhmann
on 3/13/2026
Luhmann
8/16/2026 8:40 pm
I've come to realize that it isn't "vibe coding" that is a problem, but that a lot of vibe coders simply don't do the followup work.
Tom Cargill once said "The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time."
If you spend tokens on that other 90% you can get decent code.
Tom Cargill once said "The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time."
If you spend tokens on that other 90% you can get decent code.
Paul Korm liked this
Dr Dog
8/19/2026 2:17 pm
Nice. Are you planning on adding folding and/or a typewriter mode?
DD
DD
Luhmann liked this
I don't use MacOS anymore, although I do have a 2011 MacBook Pro running Linux Mint with a Sierra theme. But I have to say that watching this thread was a lot of fun and made me want to get my hands on it.
Luhmann is a staggeringly swift developer with a clear and comprehensive view of what he's trying to do. This is a thoughtful approach to academic writing and workflow. Good marketing and customer support too, although it's hard to know how well that scales as a business. Right now, one remarkable human being offering gifts.
Impressive work, and really a pleasure to see it snap forward. Looks good, too. Rock on!
Luhmann is a staggeringly swift developer with a clear and comprehensive view of what he's trying to do. This is a thoughtful approach to academic writing and workflow. Good marketing and customer support too, although it's hard to know how well that scales as a business. Right now, one remarkable human being offering gifts.
Impressive work, and really a pleasure to see it snap forward. Looks good, too. Rock on!
Luhmann liked this
Luhmann
8/20/2026 8:37 pm
It already has "folding" though I call it "zoom." You can zoom in on any level of the outline by double-clicking the left sidebar.
Typewriter mode is on the roadmap, as an enhancement to the existing "focus" mode. (Focus mode features can be turned on/off via the preferences.)
Typewriter mode is on the roadmap, as an enhancement to the existing "focus" mode. (Focus mode features can be turned on/off via the preferences.)
Luhmann
8/20/2026 8:41 pm
although it's hard to know how well that scales as a business
Thanks for your kind words. This app is primarily a tool for my personal use. My hope is that if I make the best app for my own needs, it will also meet other people's needs as well. I don't really plan to commercialize it, though I do hope that eventually other people might donate to support my costs, or even contribute code via open source PRs.
I do, however, have plans for two other apps that will be offered commercially, and the skills I've learned making this app should help me develop those. It is my hope that, eventually, profit from those apps can help subsidize my costs for developing this one. (They are much simpler apps, but will require more work to make them easy and pleasant to use.)
Paul Korm
8/21/2026 6:44 am
I regret I didn't get around to downloading FINAL|FINAL until now. (CRIMPing delayed is dangerous for one's health.)
I am very impressed @Luhmann. This is very inventive, feature rich, and unique software. I've tried many authoring apps over the years and never been as satisfied.
(Note: we can show appreciation by sponsoring Luhmann on his GitHub.)
I am very impressed @Luhmann. This is very inventive, feature rich, and unique software. I've tried many authoring apps over the years and never been as satisfied.
(Note: we can show appreciation by sponsoring Luhmann on his GitHub.)
Luhmann liked this
Dr Dog
8/21/2026 2:38 pm
Many thanks - I missed that. Very nice feature!
Luhmann wrote:
Luhmann wrote:
It already has "folding" though I call it "zoom." You can zoom in on any level of the outline by double-clicking the left sidebar.
Typewriter mode is on the roadmap, as an enhancement to the existing "focus" mode. (Focus mode features can be turned on/off via the preferences.)
Luhmann liked this
Added
- Undo (cmd-Z) and Redo (cmd-shift-Z) now cover restoring a previous version and duplicating or deleting a section from the outline sidebar, not just typing — before, once you confirmed a restore from Version History, or deleted or duplicated a section, that was final; now cmd-Z undoes it like anything else you did, and steps back through everything — typing included — in the exact order you did it. For example: type a sentence, restore an earlier version, then type another sentence; cmd-Z removes the second sentence, cmd-Z again reverts the restore, and a third cmd-Z removes the first sentence, with cmd-shift-Z replaying all three back in order. If there's genuinely nothing left to undo, you'll now hear a short beep instead of nothing happening.
- Duplicate and Delete are new options when you right-click a section in the outline sidebar — Delete removes the section and everything nested under it; Duplicate makes a copy right after it, with "copy" added to the heading. Both can be undone.
- Dragging a section to reorder it in the outline sidebar can now be undone and redone too, just like typing — before, dragging a section into a new position made any earlier restore, delete, or duplicate on that document permanently un-undoable, even though your regular typing undo kept working fine. This matters most right after restoring a section from Version History, since a restore often lands the section in the wrong spot and dragging it into place is really the second half of that one action; that combined restore-then-reorder sequence can now be undone as two separate steps, in the right order, including while zoomed into a section. One narrow, deliberate quirk of this and the changes above: if you type something and then delete it back to exactly how the document read right after a restore, delete, duplicate, or reorder, ?Z can undo that action one step sooner than you'd count keystrokes for, because nothing is left on screen to tell it otherwise — nothing is ever lost or corrupted, it just happens slightly earlier than expected in this one specific case.
- Undo now steps back through automatic corrections instead of skipping them — when the app automatically fixes something right where you were just typing (in the formatted editor, an automatic heading-level fix; in the source editor, any automatic correction landing on your last edit), cmd-Z now undoes that fix first, then undoes your typing, instead of jumping straight past it as if it never happened.
Note: undo/redo history is currently limited to the current editor view, so if you switch between WYSIWYG and Source mode, the history resets. I will look into fixing that later, but it is complicated so it might take some time.
https://github.com/kerim/finalfinal/releases/tag/v0.2.126
- Undo (cmd-Z) and Redo (cmd-shift-Z) now cover restoring a previous version and duplicating or deleting a section from the outline sidebar, not just typing — before, once you confirmed a restore from Version History, or deleted or duplicated a section, that was final; now cmd-Z undoes it like anything else you did, and steps back through everything — typing included — in the exact order you did it. For example: type a sentence, restore an earlier version, then type another sentence; cmd-Z removes the second sentence, cmd-Z again reverts the restore, and a third cmd-Z removes the first sentence, with cmd-shift-Z replaying all three back in order. If there's genuinely nothing left to undo, you'll now hear a short beep instead of nothing happening.
- Duplicate and Delete are new options when you right-click a section in the outline sidebar — Delete removes the section and everything nested under it; Duplicate makes a copy right after it, with "copy" added to the heading. Both can be undone.
- Dragging a section to reorder it in the outline sidebar can now be undone and redone too, just like typing — before, dragging a section into a new position made any earlier restore, delete, or duplicate on that document permanently un-undoable, even though your regular typing undo kept working fine. This matters most right after restoring a section from Version History, since a restore often lands the section in the wrong spot and dragging it into place is really the second half of that one action; that combined restore-then-reorder sequence can now be undone as two separate steps, in the right order, including while zoomed into a section. One narrow, deliberate quirk of this and the changes above: if you type something and then delete it back to exactly how the document read right after a restore, delete, duplicate, or reorder, ?Z can undo that action one step sooner than you'd count keystrokes for, because nothing is left on screen to tell it otherwise — nothing is ever lost or corrupted, it just happens slightly earlier than expected in this one specific case.
- Undo now steps back through automatic corrections instead of skipping them — when the app automatically fixes something right where you were just typing (in the formatted editor, an automatic heading-level fix; in the source editor, any automatic correction landing on your last edit), cmd-Z now undoes that fix first, then undoes your typing, instead of jumping straight past it as if it never happened.
Note: undo/redo history is currently limited to the current editor view, so if you switch between WYSIWYG and Source mode, the history resets. I will look into fixing that later, but it is complicated so it might take some time.
https://github.com/kerim/finalfinal/releases/tag/v0.2.126
Paul Korm liked this
jaslar
8/23/2026 5:46 pm
I suspect that all great software begins like that: a desire to make something you can use. And maybe also a pleasure in learning. Best wishes on future apps, too.
Luhmann liked this
Luhmann
8/26/2026 3:26 am
new
Export preferences now lets you rename what your bibliography heading is called
https://github.com/kerim/finalfinal/releases/tag/v0.2.127
Export preferences now lets you rename what your bibliography heading is called
https://github.com/kerim/finalfinal/releases/tag/v0.2.127
Luhmann
9/21/2026 10:03 pm
NEW
(I'll just post enhancements here, skipping bug fixes, of which there have been many. These are mostly all small quality and UX improvements.)
Each project now remembers how you like its annotations shown
Focus Mode has a new Inline Annotations setting
Confirmations for things like exporting, saving a version, or generating a diagnostic report now appear as a brief message that fades on its own, instead of a popup you had to click to dismiss.
Deleting a saved preset, clearing your recent-projects list, or resetting a Preferences pane back to its defaults now asks you to confirm first, since none of those can be undone.
You can now delete a single comment, task marker, or reference note directly — from its right-click menu, its popup, or its card in the side panel. Like everything else in the document, this can be undone with ?Z.
Exporting or printing (Word, PDF, ODT, Markdown, or Print) now shows a brief on-screen message while it's working, and the menu item you used is temporarily grayed out so you can't start the same export twice by accident. The message updates to "Exported. Show in Finder." when it's done.
Hovering over a heading with ? held down now shows a small hint that Cmd-clicking will zoom into that section, and a button to zoom back out is now always visible at the bottom of the window while you're zoomed in.
A few problems that used to happen silently now tell you about them.
The Citation and Footnote toolbar buttons now use standard icon glyphs instead of custom text symbols, and every toolbar button now looks and behaves consistently.
Toolbar buttons' tooltips now spell their keyboard shortcuts the way macOS does, and the Annotations-panel toggle button, which had no tooltip at all, now has one.
The project picker now shows a "No recent projects" message when you have none, instead of an empty space.
Cmd-click any heading in the editor to zoom into that section.
A "Notes" card now appears in the outline sidebar alongside "Bibliography" whenever your document has footnotes, so you can see and navigate to it like any other section.
Export preferences now lets you rename what your bibliography heading is called
Undo (?Z) and Redo (??Z) now cover restoring a previous version and duplicating or deleting a section from the outline sidebar, not just typing
Duplicate and Delete are new options when you right-click a section in the outline sidebar
Dragging a section to reorder it in the outline sidebar can now be undone and redone too, just like typing
Undo now steps back through automatic corrections instead of skipping them
Tables can now be deleted in one click
A new "Markdown Only" option in File ? Export
Export preferences now has a "Use custom citation style" option — load your own citation style (.csl) file instead of being locked to the built-in Chicago style.
(I'll just post enhancements here, skipping bug fixes, of which there have been many. These are mostly all small quality and UX improvements.)
Each project now remembers how you like its annotations shown
Focus Mode has a new Inline Annotations setting
Confirmations for things like exporting, saving a version, or generating a diagnostic report now appear as a brief message that fades on its own, instead of a popup you had to click to dismiss.
Deleting a saved preset, clearing your recent-projects list, or resetting a Preferences pane back to its defaults now asks you to confirm first, since none of those can be undone.
You can now delete a single comment, task marker, or reference note directly — from its right-click menu, its popup, or its card in the side panel. Like everything else in the document, this can be undone with ?Z.
Exporting or printing (Word, PDF, ODT, Markdown, or Print) now shows a brief on-screen message while it's working, and the menu item you used is temporarily grayed out so you can't start the same export twice by accident. The message updates to "Exported. Show in Finder." when it's done.
Hovering over a heading with ? held down now shows a small hint that Cmd-clicking will zoom into that section, and a button to zoom back out is now always visible at the bottom of the window while you're zoomed in.
A few problems that used to happen silently now tell you about them.
The Citation and Footnote toolbar buttons now use standard icon glyphs instead of custom text symbols, and every toolbar button now looks and behaves consistently.
Toolbar buttons' tooltips now spell their keyboard shortcuts the way macOS does, and the Annotations-panel toggle button, which had no tooltip at all, now has one.
The project picker now shows a "No recent projects" message when you have none, instead of an empty space.
Cmd-click any heading in the editor to zoom into that section.
A "Notes" card now appears in the outline sidebar alongside "Bibliography" whenever your document has footnotes, so you can see and navigate to it like any other section.
Export preferences now lets you rename what your bibliography heading is called
Undo (?Z) and Redo (??Z) now cover restoring a previous version and duplicating or deleting a section from the outline sidebar, not just typing
Duplicate and Delete are new options when you right-click a section in the outline sidebar
Dragging a section to reorder it in the outline sidebar can now be undone and redone too, just like typing
Undo now steps back through automatic corrections instead of skipping them
Tables can now be deleted in one click
A new "Markdown Only" option in File ? Export
Export preferences now has a "Use custom citation style" option — load your own citation style (.csl) file instead of being locked to the built-in Chicago style.
Luhmann
9/23/2026 8:39 am
NEW
Added typewriter scrolling. It works when you are in "focus mode," and is turned on in the focus mode settings from the preference pane for that feature.
https://github.com/kerim/finalfinal/releases/tag/v0.2.135
Added typewriter scrolling. It works when you are in "focus mode," and is turned on in the focus mode settings from the preference pane for that feature.
https://github.com/kerim/finalfinal/releases/tag/v0.2.135
NEW
Added typewriter scrolling. It works when you are in "focus mode," and is turned on in the focus mode settings from the preference pane for that feature.
https://github.com/kerim/finalfinal/releases/tag/v0.2.135
Added typewriter scrolling. It works when you are in "focus mode," and is turned on in the focus mode settings from the preference pane for that feature.
https://github.com/kerim/finalfinal/releases/tag/v0.2.135
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