Ship log

Every release, newest first.

Beckon updates itself from GitHub. This is what each release changed.

v2.0.0 Sep 24, 2026

The rebuild release. Beckon 2.0 drops every third-party library and ships an interface written for it alone, adds search across boards, live reload, WordPress publishing and a command line, and stays one file.

🎨 New interface

  • Built from scratch, no frameworks: Vue, Tailwind, markdown-it, dayjs and Tribute are gone. The interface is now hand-written CSS and JavaScript inside index.php, with a custom SVG icon set and a custom Markdown engine. Beckon makes no requests to any CDN.
  • Design tokens with light and dark themes: follows the system preference by default, with a toggle in the top bar and no flash of the wrong theme on load. Right-click the toggle to pick Light, Dark or System.
  • Inline card composer: type a title and press Enter to add a card, instead of a "New Card" placeholder.
  • Labels with names on the board: labels render as named pills rather than bare color bars.
  • Card window: segmented Edit / Split / Preview control, resizable panes, collapsible activity drawer, and a details sidebar that becomes an overlay on phones.
  • Custom dialogs: confirm and prompt dialogs replace the browser's native ones.
  • Boards overview: a full-screen board picker with the version and update button in the footer.
  • Emoji picker: : autocomplete in the editor and comments, and a reaction picker, both backed by an embedded emoji table.
  • Phone layout: snap-scrolling columns, a compact top bar menu, full-screen card window.
  • Deep links: ?board=<slug> opens a board directly.

📦 New features

  • Search: full-text search across all boards (SQLite FTS5) with / or Cmd+K.
  • Live reload: the board updates when its files change on disk (Server-Sent Events).
  • Device sync API: PIN-based pairing and a pull/push sync endpoint for companion apps.
  • Beckon CLI: beckon-cli.php for creating, listing, importing and exporting cards. See cli.md.
  • Paste images: paste a screenshot into the editor to upload it.
  • A proper updater: downloads are verified against the sha256 checksum GitHub publishes for each release asset, the outgoing files are kept in boards/.updates/ and can be restored from the boards screen, release notes show before installing, and the web endpoint no longer accepts a target version so nobody can downgrade a board from the browser. Update checks are cached for a week and only happen while someone has a board open. php beckon-cli.php update runs the same updater from a shell (--check, --yes, --rollback), lints the download first, and updates the CLI itself.

🔒 Security

  • Uploads can no longer run as code: uploads keep only known safe file types, so a .php (or .phtml, .htaccess and so on) can't be dropped into a board and executed. Avatars accept images only. Imported Trello attachments of any other type are kept but saved as inert .bin files, and only http and https links are fetched. On Apache, boards/.htaccess adds a second layer.
  • Other websites can't drive your board: Beckon still has no login and anyone who can open it can use it, but requests that a different website sends through your browser are now refused. Changes must be sent as POST requests, so a link or image on another page can't trigger one either. Beckon behind a reverse proxy keeps working.
  • Card ids are checked: card ids can only name files inside their own board, which closes a path to reading, overwriting or deleting other files, including the updater's state.
  • Safer Markdown: raw HTML in cards and comments still works, but scripts, event handlers and javascript: links are stripped before anything is shown, including links that SVG animation would write in after the fact.
  • Sync hardening: synced uploads and card ids are held to the same rules, and a pairing PIN is cancelled after five wrong guesses.
  • The updater re-reads the release from GitHub before installing instead of trusting its cache.

🐛 Fixes

  • Two tabs on one board no longer overwrite each other: every board now carries a revision number. When a tab saves on top of changes it has not seen (another tab, the CLI, a card moved in from another board), Beckon merges both sides and saves again: cards added, moved, edited, archived or deleted in either place all survive. Rapid edits are batched into fewer saves.
  • Merges keep both sides of the same card: when one tab moves or relabels a card and another renames it, both changes land. A list deleted in one tab no longer takes cards that another tab had just added to it; those go to the archive.
  • Comments from two tabs both survive: comments, edits, deletes and reactions are saved one at a time on the server, so a tab with an older copy of the card can't drop someone else's comment. An open card shows comments added elsewhere. The device sync API follows the same rule and writes under the board lock.
  • The CLI won't overwrite a board that changed while it ran: it stops with a message to run the command again.
  • Touch reordering: on phones and tablets, hold a card to pick it up and drag it within a list or to another one, with the board scrolling at the edges. Hold a list's header to move the list. Holding without moving still opens the card menu, and swipes still scroll.
  • Changes made elsewhere no longer get wiped: a card added from another tab or the CLI while you had a card open is kept, and your own saves no longer hide other people's updates for two seconds.
  • Deletes and archives always hit the card you picked, even if the board reloads while the confirm dialog is open.
  • Enter on a dialog's Cancel button cancels.
  • Cmd+C no longer offers to archive the card under the pointer.
  • Task checkboxes toggle the right line for numbered, quoted and nested tasks and skip code blocks, and those tasks now count toward the card's progress.
  • Nothing is saved from a card that failed to load, so a slow or broken load can't blank its description or comments.
  • Closing or reloading the tab keeps the last second of typing and records the revision.
  • Moving cards between boards can't deadlock when two tabs move cards in opposite directions.
  • Renaming a board keeps search results, covers and avatars working.
  • Cards in long lists keep their height and the list scrolls instead.
  • Archived cards from early versions open again.
  • Live reload uses short streams: each connection lasts 30 seconds and reconnects, which frees server workers quickly, and a change made between two connections is still picked up.
  • Members from 1.0 boards are kept: 1.0 stored some board members only inside layout.json. They move to users.json on the first save instead of disappearing.
  • Trello import: due dates land on the right day in your time zone, and card covers point at the same file name the attachment was saved under. Attachments such as .msg, .eml, .vcf and .ics keep their extension.
  • Live reload on PHP's built-in server: php -S answers one request at a time unless PHP_CLI_SERVER_WORKERS says otherwise, and the live reload stream held that one request, so every other tab and API call stalled while a board was open. On a single-worker server Beckon now says so once and the board runs without live reload; the readme's quick start sets four workers. On every server the stream sends a keep-alive comment every 15 seconds so a closed tab frees its worker promptly.
  • Leftover 1.0 backup: the 1.0 updater left index.php.bak next to the app, where a web server serves it as plain text. The first update check after upgrading moves it into boards/.updates/ under the name the Restore link understands.
  • WordPress publishing: images now become proper image blocks in the draft. The transform previously never matched and swapped the id and URL. The editor's internal line markers no longer leak into the published post.
  • Standalone export: the exported presentation is self-contained and no longer loads Tailwind from a CDN.
v1.0.0 Dec 15, 2025

🚀 New Features

  • Zero-Config Core: Single-file PHP deployment with flat-file storage (JSON/Markdown)—no database needed.
  • 📦 Trello Import: Import full boards, lists, cards, and checklists via JSON export.
  • 🎨 Modern UI: Built with Vue 3 and Tailwind CSS, featuring a built-in Dark Mode 🌙 and resizable split-pane editor.
  • 📝 Smart Editor: Markdown support with live preview, drag-and-drop image uploads, and interactive checkboxes that update progress bars ✅.
  • 📊 Editor Stats: Real-time word count and estimated read time display in the markdown editor.
  • 🕰️ Time Travel: Detailed revision history for card descriptions with a slider UI to preview and restore past versions.
  • 🗂 Kanban Flow: Drag-and-drop cards between lists, move cards across different boards, and organize with color labels.
  • 🖱️ Context Actions: Right-click cards to quickly duplicate, delete, or edit them.
  • 🗄️ Archiving: Keep boards clean by archiving cards, complete with search and restore functionality.
  • ⚙️ Board Management: Rename boards, safely delete projects, and filter through boards via the quick switcher.
  • 📅 Due Dates: Set deadlines with visual color indicators for approaching or overdue tasks.
  • 👤 User Identity: Guest-mode settings to customize your display name and avatar color.
  • 💬 Activity Log: Track card history (moves/creation) and leave comments.
  • 🔄 Auto-Sync: Visual status indicators (Synced/Saving/Offline) with local buffering.
  • 🔄 Self-Updater: Built-in notification and one-click update mechanism for future releases.
  • 🖼️ Drag & Drop Images: Paste or drag images directly into the Markdown editor to auto-upload them to a local folder.
  • ⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts: Quick actions for opening (Enter) and archiving (c) cards via keyboard.