This is the experience I want reading with Luminary to feel like — not a feature list, but a day in the life: a trip to the library. The story runs on top; the italic line under each screenshot says what you are looking at.
Jump to: Determination · The Road Ahead · The Scout · Dig Deep · Recall · Sense of Satisfaction · What's new
Determination
You've been procrastinating about reading. Your super-talented friend inspires you. Today, you decide to take up a membership at the state library.
Some of the best things in life are free.
Your membership is a download: the macOS bundle, dragged into Applications. You've taken the first step toward reading. You set a reading time and put together a timetable.
Installing.
The Road Ahead
It's time to head to the library. You open the app, and your friend is right there beside you as you follow the green, twisting pathway across the park.
The launch screen.
You're greeted by huge wooden doors opening onto a magnificent campus. As you step in, a quote carved into a stone wall catches your eye.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
— Socrates
The home screen.
You linger on the thought, momentarily lost in it, until a message on your phone breaks the spell — your partner, asking you to meet for lunch. You reply, put your phone on silent, and make a mental note to set a timer. Looking up, you take in the sheer abundance of books before you. You don't know where to start. You settle on a genre, climb the winding stairs to level two, and head toward the section that interests you.
The Scout
The Library.
You pick a book that catches your eye, a tutorial on retrieval and memory, and settle at a corner desk — ambient window light, a view toward the fountain. You open it, glance at the title, skim the preface and the contents to get a feel for what it's about.
The reader: Contents on the left, Insights (your preface) on the right.
Before you begin, you check your watch and set a reminder for lunch with your partner. (Luminary has a Pomodoro focus timer at the top of the screen.)
As you settle in, you lay out your reference cards and sip some water. The smell of the paper draws you in (paper mode, in the Universal Reader). You grab your notebook and pen, and start writing down your understanding, sketching things out to cement what you've learned.
Notes, written beside the page.
As you read on, you slip into a focused rhythm.
Focused reading, side panels closed.
Dig Deep
A particular topic still isn't clicking, even after re-reading. You turn to your expert friend and select the passage, and he elaborates in plain language.
Select text, then Explain.
You discuss it further; your friend offers an analogy, and when you push with a deeper question, he points you back to the book itself.
Ask AI, beside the page.
Recall
Your reminder nudges you softly. (The focus timer ends.) It's about time to leave and meet your waiting partner. You let your friend know it's time to go and gather your things — glad you nearly made it to the end of the chapter. Your friend checks in: how well did you really understand the topic? Feeling fairly confident, you ask to be quizzed. On the way to the restaurant, the questions come — some easy, some that make you think. Before each answer is revealed, you're asked to predict how you'll do. Your neurons start firing, forging stronger connections.
The Map.
Then comes the honest part: what you predicted, next to how you actually did. It isn't always flattering — fairly confident, less right than you thought — but now you know exactly where you stand.
Progress.
Sense of Satisfaction
Caught up in the discussion, you barely notice arriving — until you spot your partner smiling in the distance. She greets you both, but your friend excuses himself and says goodbye. (The laptop closes, and Luminary with it. Your friend was Luminary all along.)
As you settle in with your partner for lunch, you have a relaxed, enjoyable meal — laughing, talking, sharing. Just as you're about to pay the bill, your partner notices a card fallen a couple of feet from the table. She picks it up and hands it to you with a smile. You take a look, and a similar smile spreads across your face.
It was never a lending library. It is all yours, in one folder.
That's the flow I'm building toward — not another chat window bolted onto your files, but a library experience, built around retrieval you can actually trust, grounded in the books you brought with you. This release gets us a step closer.
What's new since my last post
My last post was at 0.8.28; this walk is 0.13.1.
- A library that looks like one: covers and thumbnails, and filters by form, domain and register.
- One docked panel beside the page for notes, chat, Explain, cards and teach-back, instead of five dialogs.
- Citations open on the passage, and every click works, not only the first.
- Fast or private, with a receipt for every answer: engine, latency, cost, and what left your machine.
- Practice hides the answer until you commit; teach-back is scored and can be retried.
- Dictation, O'Reilly URL ingest and EPUB figures.
The full list is in the changelog.
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