What’s
New

Signed,
Xavier de Belle

The What Is This Website? page now ends with my signature.

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Now at
xavierdebelle.com

The site has its own address. Old links to xavierdebelle.github.io/website forward here on their own. Signed in to a synced tool? Sign in once more at the new address and everything comes back. Installed one of the tools as an app? Install it again from here.

Cycle Calendar
works offline

Install it from its Install app button and it gets its own icon on the home screen, opens with no connection, and syncs the moment it's back.

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No more sideways
in the recipe window

The window for adding or editing a recipe no longer slides from side to side on a phone.

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Steadier
on phones

Kitchen sits still on a phone now. Tapping a field no longer zooms the page or lets it slide sideways, the bottom bar stays out of the way while you type, and an open recipe or editor always keeps its × in view, keyboard or not.

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Say what it is,
and room to edit

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Snap a dish,
get the recipe

Cooked something good? Tap Snap a dish in the Book and photograph the plate. Claude works out what it is and writes the ingredients and method into a new recipe card, ready for you to adjust to how you actually made it. If you've already typed its name, it writes the recipe for that dish. The photo stays with the recipe.

Also: the "Take a photo of the card" box in handwritten recipes now looks like a box.

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Kitchen learns
to read

With a Claude key added (Taste → Claude), Kitchen can now:

Nothing is sent unless you press one of those buttons. Without a key, Kitchen works exactly as before.

• Read a recipe card. Photograph Grandma's card and tap *Read it for me*. It copies the card into the form as written, French stays French, and anything it can't make out is marked [?] for you to check against the photo beside it.
• See what's in the fridge. Snap the fridge and tap *What's in there?*. The food it recognises appears as chips; untick what's wrong, add the rest.
• Suggest new dishes. *Ideas from Claude* (in Leftovers and Ideas) gives three dishes that aren't in your book yet, built around what's in the fridge and what you like to cook. Save one, cook it tonight, or send what's missing to the grocery list.

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Swap recipes
between kitchens

Every recipe now has a Share button. It sends the recipe as tidy text, and the other person pastes it into *Paste a whole recipe*, where it sorts itself back into name, who it's from, ingredients and method.

To swap the whole book, use Send the book at the bottom of the Book tab, and the other person taps Import recipes. New recipes are added and edited ones updated. Their menus, grocery lists, stars and favourites are left alone.

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One book,
two shelves

A book I've read and would hand you now sits on Read and on Recommended at the same time — one book, not two copies.

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Cards: every
loyalty card, one place

Scan a loyalty card's barcode once, with the camera or from a photo, or type its number. At the till, tap the card: it fills the screen, big and sharp, and the screen stays on. Cards sync between your devices, install as an app, and work offline.

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Cycle Calendar,
on every device

Sign in and the period log follows you between phone and computer, live. Signed out, it works exactly as before, on this device only.

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The Library

Three shelves: what I've read, what I'd recommend, and what's still on the pile. Pull a book off the shelf for the genre, a rating and what I thought of it.

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Maria's Tools,
and a Kitchen

A new corner of the workshop, built for Maria. The first tool in it is a kitchen.

It syncs between your devices once you're signed in, installs as an app, and works offline.

• The book. Every recipe keeps who it came from and when: Mom's, Grandma's, yours, or the one saved from Instagram or TikTok, with its link. Paste a whole recipe and it sorts the ingredients from the steps.
• Grandma's cards. Photograph a handwritten card and it stays on screen beside the form while you type it in. The photo is kept with the recipe.
• Ideas for when nobody knows what to make, from your own book and seventy-odd everyday dishes.
• Leftovers. Say what's in the fridge (a photo helps you remember) and it finds what you can make, best match first.
• A menu for the month, filled in one tap if you like, and the grocery list that comes out of it, added up and sorted by aisle.
• It learns. What you cook, rate and love moves what it suggests.

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Notes and
a Journal

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Three more apps
that work offline

Budget Tracker, Project Phases and Idea Bank now install like apps, with their own icon, and open without a connection. Work offline as usual: everything saves on the device, and the moment you're back online it syncs to your account and your other devices.

• Chrome, Edge and Android: Install app (in Idea Bank, under Manage).
• iPhone and iPad: open the tool in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.

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Install them. Use them offline.

Feed Planner and Carousel Planner now install like apps, with their own icon on your phone or computer, and open without a connection.

• iPhone and iPad: open the tool in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. The Install button shows you how.
• Chrome, Edge and Android: tap Install.

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A quieter way back to your booking

The big "View and modify your reservation" box is now a small button inside "Join an activity". Each activity's own page has it too.

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Potluck goes online

Potlucks now live in a real database, so guests sign up and claim dishes from their own phones and everyone sees the same list, live. Organisers sign in with Google; guests never need an account.

• Start a potluck, send the link, watch the dishes fill in.
• Starting potlucks is by invitation, like the synced tools.

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Activity Planner goes online

Events now live in a real database, so guests can sign up from their own phones. Organisers sign in with Google; guests never need an account.

• Guests see the activities, the spots left and who's coming. Their email, phone and payments stay private to the organiser.
• A guest can still find and change their booking by typing their email.
• Creating events is by invitation, like the synced tools.

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Potluck

The Volley & BBQ zine, minus the volleyball. Anyone can start a potluck with its own link and password. Guests sign up with how many they're bringing, the dish slots grow with the headcount, and whoever hasn't claimed a dish shows up in red. Trial version: saved in your browser only.

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Create event works

The Activity Planner's Create event button did nothing. It does now. The example text in the form is also lighter, so it no longer looks filled in.

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Activity Planner

The wedding activities app with the wedding taken out. Create an event, add its activities with dates, spots and prices, and share the link. Guests sign up, say how many are coming, and can come back to change it; you see who has paid and who still owes.

• Each event has its own password, currency and payment instructions.
• Every activity gets its own sign-up link.
• Trial version: everything is saved in your browser only, so it is for trying the flow, not yet for a real event.

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Client links stay quiet while you work

A client watching their project link no longer sees a timer ticking. Time shows up there once you stop it.

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A Mind Map
Of Your Own

The Neural Mind Map now grows a map for whoever opens it. The first time, it asks a few questions — what you do, what you're making, who your people are, where you're headed. Each answer becomes a branch; write *Photography: weddings, portraits* and it grows twigs too.

• Your name sits in the top left, your initial in the middle.
• Pick an accent colour. It lights up whatever fires.
• Double-tap the letter and the piece turns white: that's edit mode. Add, rename, delete. Double-tap again to save.
• Settings changes your name and colour, or asks the questions again.
• It lives in your browser. Nobody else sees it.

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Try It Before
You Move

The Budget Tracker has a Simulate button. It makes a scratch copy of your budget: change the rent, add a mortgage, drop an income, and it shows what that does to each month next to the real numbers. Nothing in it is saved. End it and your real budget is exactly where you left it.

Also new: an investment calculator — what you have now, what you add each month, a yearly return and a number of years, drawn as a chart. Export now makes a spreadsheet or a printable PDF of every saved month. The old Import and Export buttons live under Save session, for anyone not signed in to sync.

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Project Phases,
easier to find your way

A timer left running in another project now says so, in black, with a button to jump back to it. A search box finds anything in any project. Points to discuss can carry a note under them, and both they and the client's homework can be dragged into order.

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Fewer buttons

The six buttons under the project picker are down to two: your sync status and Manage, which holds New project, Rename, Delete, Export and Import. A new project can also be started from the picker itself.

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Idea Bank,
tightened up

Scoring an idea no longer throws it somewhere down the list: it stays put until you press Re-sort, then takes you to it. Build gets a timer on every card, a box to add a project straight to Next up, and a way back to Prioritise. Plan steps can be moved up and down, and long descriptions show in full.

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What Is This
Website?

An experiment, a lab, a digital mind map, a place for the tools — and a page that says so. On the map (About → What is this website?) and in the Index.

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Who
Am I?

A new page, and a short answer to a long question. It's on the map (About → Who am I?) and in the Index.

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Two Buttons,
That's It

Every page's top bar is down to two buttons: Index, which opens the whole site as one list, and Sign in (your account, once you're signed in). The home page drops its shortcuts too — the map is the way in.

Open the map →

One Sign-In
For Everything

Sign in once and you're signed in everywhere — every page, and Project Phases, Budget Tracker and Idea Bank all connect by themselves. An account button in every page's top bar (and on each tool's sync button) shows who's signed in and whether sync is on; tap it for your account panel: your status, your synced tools and when each last synced, and Sign out.

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The Whole Map,
On Your Phone

On a phone the mind map now opens every branch as soon as it blooms, and frames the five main nodes at a size you can read — the smaller branches fan out around them, a drag away. Before, phones opened only the five main nodes and you had to tap each one.

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Clearer Choices,
With an Undo

When two versions of your work meet — a browser with its own data signing in for the first time, or two devices that both changed things before they could sync — Project Phases, Budget Tracker and Idea Bank now say so in plain words: what each side holds, when it was saved, and which is newer.

Whichever version you don't pick is kept on that device for 7 days, with a Restore button. Restoring can itself be undone.

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Notes, Homework,
Real Times

Project Phases has a new Client tab for each project: meeting notes, the points you want to raise next time, and the client's homework — what they owe you, with due dates that turn red when they slip. Clients see their homework on their client link.

Logging time by hand now takes real start and end times. Type any two of start, end and duration and the third fills itself in.

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Bring Your
Own Account

Project Phases, Budget Tracker and Idea Bank can now sync for friends and family too — by invitation. Sign in with Google in any of them (or on the new Access page) and your request comes to me; once it's approved, your own data follows you between phone and computer, live.

Every tool now starts clean, too: a fresh budget with the usual lines at zero, a blank starter project, neutral idea areas. And anyone approved can make client links in Project Phases.

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Idea Bank,
Redesigned

Idea Bank now wears the site's own look — black, white and one volt of yellow — with a big header showing how many ideas are in the pile, shipped and in flight. Your ideas, projects and live sync carry over untouched.

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Project Phases,
Redesigned

Project Phases has a new look in the 333 Photo & Design style: a proper header with the 333 mark, the open project's name in large type across the top, and new type and colours throughout. It works exactly as before — phases, the timer, Split, sync and client links are all unchanged.

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Food for
Thought

A new page for writing. Short pieces on what I'm reading, watching, building and arguing with, newest first, each with its own link.

New posts show up for anyone who has the page open, without a refresh.

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Full Screen,
On A Phone Too

Tapping a piece in Liquid Silver now fills the screen on a phone, the way it always has on a laptop. iPhones never allowed a page to make anything but a video full screen, so the tap did nothing at all there.

Tap a piece to open it, tap it again — or the ✕ in the corner — to go back to the six.

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Forgot To Switch?
Split It

Deep in the work, it's easy to leave the timer on the wrong step. Any time entry — including the one running right now — can now be split between steps after the fact.

Tap the bar to cut it, drag a cut to where you actually switched, or type the exact time, then give each piece its step. The pieces always add up to exactly the time that was logged: nothing lost, nothing counted twice. Split the running timer and the last piece keeps running on the step you're really on.

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For The Things
That Happen Once

Every line in the Budget Tracker now has a Once frequency (shown as 1×). A car repair, a tax refund, a one-time bill — it counts in full in the month you add it, and it is never copied into the months after.

If it pushes the month over budget, that still carries into next month's starting balance, the way real money does. It just doesn't come back as a recurring cost.

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One Bank,
Many Projects

The Idea Bank can now hold separate projects — one for each business, client or part of life — each with its own pile, priorities and board. Start one, rename it, switch between them from the top bar, or move an idea from one project to another without losing its score, plan or notes.

Your existing ideas are waiting in the first project, "My ideas".

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Your Ideas,
On Every Device

The Idea Bank now syncs the same way Project Phases and the Budget Tracker do. Sign in on your phone and your laptop, jot an idea down on one, and it shows up on the other a second or two later. Stay signed out and nothing changes: it saves only in your own browser.

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A Link For
The Client

Every project in Project Phases can now have its own client link. Your client opens it and sees the project exactly as you do — phases, steps, estimates, logged time and notes — updating live as you work. They cannot change, add or remove anything.

Turn a link off, or replace it with a new one, whenever you like.

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Changes Now
Arrive Live

Sign in on your phone and your laptop, change a number on one, and it appears on the other within a second or two — no reloading, no tapping to sync.

Signed out, nothing is different: both tools still save only in your own browser.

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Your Budget,
On Every Device

The Budget Tracker can now follow you between phone and laptop, the same way Project Phases does. Sign in and your months and saved templates are kept in step; stay signed out and it behaves exactly as it always has, saving only in your own browser.

If both devices changed since they last agreed, it stops and asks which copy to keep rather than quietly picking one.

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Your Phases,
On Every Device

Project Phases can now follow you between phone and laptop. Sign in and your projects, phases and time log are kept in step; stay signed out and it behaves exactly as it always has, saving only in your own browser.

If both devices changed since they last agreed, it stops and asks which copy to keep rather than quietly picking one.

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The Map Now Grows
This Site

The Neural Mind Map used to branch into placeholder words — reading, cooking, a cabin somewhere. It now grows the shape of this site instead: the work, the tools, the ways to get in touch. The piece and the thing it describes are finally the same object.

• A branch that leads somewhere can be opened. Tap once to arm it, tap again to go, so nothing launches from a stray finger.
• Every node still fires when you tap it, and the signal still takes its time reaching the other end.

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Steps That Move,
Between Phases Too

A plan never survives its first week in the order you wrote it. Every step and every phase now has a grip on its left: drag it where it belongs, including into a completely different phase, and the hours already logged against it move with it.

• Drag the grip and a label follows your finger while a dashed band shows exactly where the step will land. Works with a mouse and works with a thumb, which it never did before.
• Drop a step onto a phase that is collapsed and it goes to the end of it — no need to open the phase first.
• Prefer the keyboard? Focus a grip and press the arrow keys. A step at the top or bottom of its phase steps into the next one rather than stopping.
• Editing a step now offers a Phase dropdown, so you can rename it, re-estimate it and re-home it in a single save.
• Importing a backup asks for the file instead of asking you to paste the contents of it. It reads the file first and tells you what is inside — "3 projects · 14 phases · 82 entries" — before you agree to replace anything.

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The Filter Bar,
Actually Scrollable

The row of filters on the tools page was wider than the screen it sat on, so its last few buttons were cut off with no way to reach them. It scrolls properly now, all the way to the end.

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The Tools Page,
Uncrammed

On a phone the header took three rows, the filter bar was half hidden behind it, and between them they ate 40% of the screen before a single tool showed.

The header is two clean rows now, the filters scroll sideways in one line, and nothing sits on top of anything else.

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The Map
Grew Two Branches

About opened up into Who am I?, the changelog and what this website even is. A new Personal branch joined it — Food for Thought, Digital Archives, Self Improvement — and Connect gained a way to submit a tool.

Most of those pages don't exist yet, so they say so plainly rather than leading nowhere.

Open the map →

Click A Node,
Go There

The map no longer explains itself. Clicking a node takes you straight to the thing it names, in a new tab, so the map stays where it is behind you. The text index still lists everything in plain form for anyone who wants it.

This Page,
And A Quieter Map

This page. Everything that changes on the site now gets written up here in plain language, newest first.

The map also stopped explaining itself — clicking a node used to slide a panel over it. Now it just takes you where you were going.

Project Phases

A phase tracker with a time log. Break a project into phases, move through them, and keep an honest record of where the hours actually went.

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Budget Tracker,
Twice Over

Assets, per-line frequencies and templates, so it handles money that doesn't arrive in neat monthly lumps. Then a second pass so the whole thing reads properly on a phone rather than asking you to pinch at a spreadsheet.

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The Map Became
A Point Cloud

The homepage mind map is no longer boxes joined by lines. It's a single field of particles that forms the nodes and the links themselves, with the mark held sharp at the centre while everything around it drifts.

The layout is grown rather than placed — by space colonization, the algorithm behind tree branching and leaf venation — and then kept, so it doesn't rearrange itself every time you open it.

Open the map →

Neural
Mind Map

The generative piece the homepage grew out of. Added to Art, then rebuilt so its structure is grown rather than positioned by hand.

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Carousel Planner
On A Phone

Several rounds of it, honestly. Phones are unforgiving about memory, and a carousel of full-resolution photos is exactly the thing they give up on.

• Fixed views that were unusable on a small screen
• Stopped the page reloading itself mid-edit
• Slides past the fifth now behave — the fix that needed three attempts

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Feed Planner,
Properly Portable

Carousels, export post by post, and enough memory discipline that a phone can hold a full grid without dropping it. Drag to reorder now works with a finger, which it never did.

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Idea Bank

Dump it, rank it, ship it. Every idea scored on impact, confidence and ease, plotted on a matrix, then pushed across a board until it's done or honestly parked.

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Volley & BBQ

The Monday night zine now notices who's coming to eat but hasn't claimed a dish, and keeps that in each week's history. Gently accusatory, as intended.

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Carousel Planner

Build an Instagram carousel that reads as one picture. Photos span across slides, snap to the edges, and export ready to post.

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Every Tool,
Public

The whole workshop is on the site now rather than half of it. Sixteen builds across five categories, all running in the browser, none of them needing an install.

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The Site
Went Up

First public version. The map, the tools hub and the work page, in black, white and one yellow.

Day One

An interactive mind map as the front door, a hub for everything I'd built, and a page for the three things I actually spend my life on.

Initial build.

• index.html — interactive force-directed mind map as the entry point.
• tools.html — all 12 browser tools, grouped in four categories, with live search, filter chips and category deep links.
• work.html — three-chapter portfolio: de Belle Photography, 333 Photo, real estate.
• Black / white / one-yellow brand system, shared in assets/style.css.
• Repaired Cloudflare email-obfuscation artifacts in two copied tools that had broken the Interac payment address on the wedding activities page.