kerfmaster pin list · UI / workflow decisions
rulingmixedA decision by Aristide or Jordan. True because it was decided; it can be superseded, but it cannot be stale.
Content last changed 2026-08-19 — computed from the item itself, not typed.
Contract — Cross-cutting stage
This contract states a decision, not an implementation.
takes —
makes —
fails if Any mockup or interface code before the love/hate research is delivered and the panel-layout choice is made; treating the two panel proposals as decided.
Contract last changed 2026-08-18 — computed, not typed. Dated separately from the text above, so neither date can speak for the other.
Source of truth: design/interface-look-2026-08-17.md, rendered to /design/look/. Discussion 2026-08-17 evening, recorded 2026-08-18. Mixed on purpose — it carries rulings AND an open question; each is labelled in the document.
Gate satisfied 2026-08-19: the operator love/hate research is delivered at /love-hate-research/ (10 verified findings, adversarially checked; source md research/love_hate_research_2026-08-19.md). Look-and-feel design may start once the partners have read it and picked a panel proposal.
Aristide, after the research landed: “using that as a basis, and the feedback from the forums, come up with 3 design mockups.” Delivered at /design/mockups/: the same Nest-stage screen (build -93's real numbers) drawn under each panel proposal — A the Workbench (docked slots, tear-off for monitor 2), B the Studio (full Adobe floating workspaces), C the Graft (A's dock base + B's tear-off and named presets). Everything Jordan ruled and every research finding that touches the screen (auto-nest as draft f6, repeat-nest f7, arcs-preserved gauge f5, live sliders f2, status tab strip f1/f3) is FIXED across all three; only the open panel decision varies. The remaining question is the A/B/C pick; detailed look-and-feel design proceeds on the winner. Mockups are static HTML drawings, deliberately non-functional — nothing here builds the interface.
Aristide: “leaving these intact, what would the interface look like if we went with your suggested 1 and 3 combo, and included the research feedback.” Read as mockups 1 (A — Workbench) + 3 (C — Graft): docked ground state everywhere, tear-off + named per-user Adobe workspaces as the machinery. Delivered at /design/mockups/combo.html: four screens of one job walking the tab strip — Jobs home (front door with browse/drop/draw-from-scratch intake, machine + material-table + licensing cards), Heal (feature-class tolerance sliders, borderline-chain review flag, kinks=0 gauge), Nest (dock state with Nest controls torn off to monitor 2), Cut Plan (order badges, leads, pierce clear-air, 4:30 tab, rerouted rapid) — plus a table placing all 10 research findings. The three A/B/C mockups are untouched as the decision record. If Aristide confirms 1+3 as the pick, the panel-layout question closes; the interpretation of '1 and 3' was flagged back to him in case he meant the older Rail/Ledger numbering.
Aristide: “make a case for each of these interfaces, pro's and con's.” Delivered at /design/mockups/cases.html: an honest advocate's argument, pros, cons and a pick-this-if for A, B and C (the Combo clarified as C realized, not a fourth system), each grounded in the verified research findings (f1/f3/f4/f8 cited). Recommendation sharpened: C, built in A's order — architect panels for tear-off + workspaces from day one, ship the docked workbench first, turn on the graft as a fast follow. Flip-to-A fact: shared workstations + sovereign v1 date. Flip-to-B fact: single-seat programmer desks where layout freedom sells. The deciding question posed to the partners: who actually sits in front of cadmaster at customer number ten?
Source of truth: design/interface-philosophy-2026-08-19.md, rendered to /design/philosophy/. Aristide's thesis (near-verbatim in the doc): CAD interfaces are accreted button dashboards, not premium, not intuitive; coming from graphic design he sees what CAD-native users cannot — “users don't know what they don't know.” Recorded as a structural limit on the research: forum evidence tells us what operators hate, it cannot tell us what a designed interface would win, because none of them has seen one. Jordan's story 1: a vendor's engineer answered his ask to modify the healer's output with “why would anybody ever need or want that” — Jordan never adopted the software. Story 2: everyone he knows has healer access but no flexibility to integrate its output into their own process. Bound as principle: NOTHING cadmaster generates is take-it-or-leave-it — every stage's output is editable material and an edit re-runs the gates. Effect on the pick: orthogonal to A/B/C but raises the execution bar; A's 'looks utilitarian' con weighs more; recommendation gains the rider that the dock ships looking designed.
Aristide: “I will answer all these questions when I sit with Jordan in 2 hours.” The ten design questions (who sits in front of it, roles/doors, panel inventory, environment + color-blind statuses, muscle-memory model, how a gate says no, editing mechanics, draw-from-scratch scope, first hour + visible improvement, brand identity + who holds the pen) posted with already-ruled context per item at /design/agenda/ (source design/design-agenda-2026-08-19.md). The part-tab width for MSO7 0.125 is flagged on the same page as the number that unblocks the four posts.
Source of truth: design/sitting-answers-2026-08-19.md → /design/answers/. Rulings: (1) who sits in front — one full-option station, one or several CAD-background operators by shop size; laser operators never the main operator; changes made on the fly by the cadmaster operator with INTERRUPT-AND-RETURN as a first-class requirement (pull job in, change, repost, resume prior work losslessly); 'our software wraps itself around their workflow', versatility over prescription. (2) roles — floor gets a PDF/printout packet (pin 7c), sales gets a stripped intake/quote surface (pin 7d) and jobs may originate there ('it moves the start, not the program'). (4, partial) light+dark themes, one-click switch; hardware/color-blind halves open. (5) shortcuts on favorites, configurable, copy/paste/cut fixed. (3) panel inventory arrives as the partners' MetaCam document, upload pending. Station profile bears on the A/B/C pick: expert single-station points away from plain A.
Same source doc, part 2. Rulings: (5+) every tool selectable by ONE letter, Adobe-style. (6) the status/gate vocabulary — colors, dots, glows — is a designed language cadmaster OWNS and teaches once (first-run tour); the bar is iPhone-grade, a visual learner reads it in minutes; blocking form (modal vs flag) follows the vocabulary. (7) 'yes to all' editing mechanics; Adobe-style preferences: configurable nudge notches, per-user display units, and unit-suffix input everywhere (see pin 7e). (8) draw-from-scratch = a REAL SKETCHER: lines, arcs, circles, all numerically assignable; not a constraint solver. (9) guided first-run tour per user, skippable per step or all; manual/help/bug-report reachable from anywhere; auto-capture spec and the partners' existing bug-server details to come (pin 7f). (10) Jordan gives Aristide full control of visual identity, reviews the result; Aristide purchases the domain, points it at the server, cadmaster gets its own subdomains. Remaining: the A/B/C pick (only open design question), item 4's hardware/color-blind halves, MetaCam panel doc, domain + bug-server handoffs, the part-tab width.
Zoom indication addendum (2026-08-19, with Illustrator screenshot): ruled 'for sure' — dual zoom indication on the canvas, every tab: an Adobe-style live percentage readout with preset dropdown (3.13%–64000%, Fit On Screen; plus Fit Sheet / Fit Part for us), 100% meaning actual size, AND a Google-Maps-style scale bar ('this length = 1 inch' / '= 0.01 inch') auto-picking round values in the user's units preset per pin 7e. The bar is DPI-honest, the percentage is muscle memory; both together. Recorded in the sitting-answers doc addendum.
Aristide: “A+C, rest coming up.” The Combo as drawn at /design/mockups/combo.html is the picked interface: dock ground state everywhere, tear-off + workspaces underneath, snap-back one click; ships dock-first, designed-looking, graft as fast follow on a day-one architecture. Panel-layout question CLOSED — this pin moves from question to ruling; remaining opens are pending INPUTS (MetaCam panel doc, hardware/color-blind halves of item 4, domain, bug-server), not decisions.