BUILD 29/30: ETP 365 Day Journal Updated for 2026!

⊕ show captionAbout the Title Picture: I updated the horrible mess of my early ETP Journal generator code. SO JANKY. With this, though, I am positioned to do a refactor in the future which hopefully will open all kinds of dynamic form generation possibilities!!!

Wow, it's the second-to-last day of the Month of Building. Today I updated the PDF generator software to output a more font license friendly versionA PDF document can embed a font description, but some end user license agreements (EULA) for commercial fonts forbid it depending on the use. For an editable PDF, converting type glyphs to outlines can bring the use of the font into compliance. version of the Emergent Task Planner Journal, a 365 page version of the ETP with dated entries with editable memo and task fields!

A nice thing about this PDF is that you can save edits you make. For example, the Macos Preview app allows you to edit the text fields like any form PDF:

⊕ show captionFigure 1. This is the Macos Preview application, showing that you can edit the MEMO at the top and add tasks. You can then save the file in Preview so the changes stick around. This should work for any PDF Viewer that supports forms.

Like with the Word Counting Calendar, this 365-page PDF was an enormous pain in the butt to update every year. Double- and triple-checking all the holidays and month against other calendar data sources, laboriously updating the InDesign XML import tables, and then generating each variation really sucked. Having custom software to generate the designs for me is a HUGE quality of life improvement, and I'm looking forward to opening up customization to Patreon supporters in the future. Uh, once I figure out how to set up a server to do that...

Patreon Supporters

I've made the PDFs in both US Letter and A4 available on my Patreon account. If you're subscribed at the $1 or higher tier, you can get both 365-page PDFs! If you prefer, you can also just buy the downloads outright on Patreon for $10.00. Eventually they'll also be available on my Shopify store once I uppdate it so it works again.

⊕ show captionFigure 2. All Patreon supporters at the $1 level and above can get this digital edition of the Emergent Task Planner Journal. Non-supporters can also purchase access to the download for $10. Here's the link

BUILD CHALLENGE COMMENTARY

I was actually able to enter deep focus to get this software update done, overcoming the resistance to look at my two-year old code by asking Claude Code to summarize it. I also asked Claude Code to try debugging an error, and its diagnostic sense was so bad that this fire me up to really fix it! TO be fair, my codebase is in a messy prototype state and is not structured in a way that's easy for an AI (or a human developer) to quickly discern its architecture. Refactoring the codebase is a job for Sri of the Future!

Working with Patreon was a bit frustrating, as its new post editor is missing features and has annoying issues with its editor. The editor has always been underbaked in Patreon. It's not quite Wordpress Block Editor levels of dysfunctional, but boy howdy did it remind me of that time I assumed that it couldn't be that bad when I suggested that wordpress.com would be good for my sister to use. Ooops.

ANYWAY...

I have to work on my sensitivity to annoying technology that doesn't work the way I want. I'm not sure how to develop that resiliance, or balance the designer compulsion to improve things with just learning how to use the existing tool. It's important because my irritation with tools creates a toxic environment as a byproduct, and I certainly can't build a nice community if I continue to emit clouds of discontent at the smallest thing...

Just one more Build Day! Gasp!