00:07: Where Obsidian users meet Mapsmith Pro

00:07: Where Obsidian users meet Mapsmith Pro

• Obsidian is the one place with pull. Check what the README and the plugin show a new user, and what the Pro path looks like from inside Obsidian; fix the weakest step.

02:07: Forum questions Mapsmith answers

• Search the Obsidian forum for open questions about maps and generators for games; draft short honest replies for the boss where Mapsmith is a real answer.

02:11: Explore mode frames what you've seen

• The solo link opens on a speck in a corner of a dark map. Frame the explored rooms (at least 16 squares a side), test, release 0.9.4 and deploy the web page.

04:07: Who sends GMs to Obsidian plugins

• Read mail. Then find who recommends TTRPG plugins for Obsidian (video makers, roundups, lists) and how each takes suggestions; draft one honest note for the boss where it fits.

06:07: Mapsmith search pages for solo dungeon play

• Read mail. Check what /mapsmith/ is found for in search and whether a solo dungeon crawl page has an open spot; build the page if the search shows a gap.

14:08: Back after the restart: mail, daily, crawl page check

Read mail/in. If it is past 11:07Z and today's derelict is missing, run the daily. Then check that /solo-dungeon-crawl/ and the 0.9.4 web app still load after the restart, and look at whether the page has any views yet.

11:07: Daily derelict, 3 Nov

The crons are paused and the server was down for hardware work, so run the daily by hand now (14:09Z).

14:15: Solo play picture in the Mapsmith README

The README is what Obsidian's plugin page shows, and it has no picture of explore mode, which is the reason a solo player would install it. Copy the crawl page's picture (a part-explored crypt) into docs/, put it under "Exploring alone", and push the mirror. No version bump, since only the README changes.

16:07: Which Mapsmith pages Google shows, and fix the one nearest a click

Ask the search broker which queries and pages got impressions in the last 28 days. Find the Mapsmith page that shows for searches but gets no clicks, and rewrite its title and description to match what people searched. If nothing has impressions, inspect the newest pages to see whether they're indexed.

17:45: Clear the Obsidian scan errors in foundry/module.ts

The boss sent the Obsidian community scan of Mapsmith 0.9.2. Its source code section has 3 errors, all on foundry/module.ts:10: an eslint-disable of no-explicit-any with no description, which isn't allowed. There are also warnings for unsafe any use, fetch, createElement and innerHTML in the same file. The scan lints the whole repo, so it includes the Foundry module that Obsidian never loads. Give the Foundry globals real types instead of any, drop the disable, and make the file pass the same rules, with the plugin's eslint run over foundry/ too. Then rebuild the Foundry module, check it still works, and release 0.9.5 so the scan runs again.

18:07: Where Mapsmith visitors come from, and feed the best source

Read mail/in. Then use events.sh for the Mapsmith pages since 30 Oct: views, referrers, and whether anyone reached the Pro link. Pick the source that sends the most people and do one thing that helps it: a link, a better first screen, or a fix to the page they land on.

20:07: The Foundry page's pictures and first screen

/mapsmith/foundry/ gets as many views as /mapsmith/ (36 each since 30 Oct), and its pictures still show the old look. Shoot new ones on Foundry's public demo with the 1.0.3 module, so the page shows what a buyer gets: a dungeon scene with Pro walls and lights. Check the first screen says what it is, the price and how to install. Deploy behind the site tests.

22:07: Mapsmith installs, and the path from install to Pro

Read Mapsmith's download count from Obsidian's community-plugin-stats.json and compare it with earlier counts in actual/. If people install it but nobody buys, walk the plugin as a new user does and find where they would meet Pro. Fix the weakest step, if it can be done honestly in the time.

Next

• Clips for docent: Mapsmith done 2 Nov. One clip left, no rush: the small plugins together in one note, opening on Solo Oracle, with DM Screen as the last beat (the fight in the note, then the link putting turn order and the map on a player's phone). No DM Screen clip on its own. Raw mp4 + claim JSON under /media/, no captions or music, group clip filed under the group.

00:07: Where Obsidian users meet Mapsmith Pro

• Checked the boss's Obsidian forum account: it's out of review. The Dice Tray topic (4 plugins in one) is visible with 44 views; recent Share & showcase topics get 20 to 40 views in a day or two, the good ones hundreds.
• Mapsmith has no thread there, and the forum wants one per plugin. Wrote forboss/2026-11-03-obsidian-forum-mapsmith.md: the template's disclaimer answered truthfully (not completely free: Pro is $6; code and textures made with AI), the browser demo and source as inline code, the README town picture.
• Funnel since 30 Oct: 29 views of /mapsmith/, 24 of /mapsmith/foundry/. Traffic is the gap, not the pages.
• Finished 00:10

02:07: Forum questions Mapsmith answers

• Searched the Obsidian forum (search.json) for map and TTRPG questions. Nothing open: the TTRPG questions thread t/15625 last had a post in May 2025, and the map topics are other makers' announcements (Hexmap World Creator, Hex Cartographer). The forum is for announcing, not for answering questions. The Mapsmith thread (forboss 2026-11-03) is the one move there.
• Changed the r/Solo_Roleplaying November megathread walkthrough from Solo Oracle to Mapsmith. Solo Oracle had its own post on 28 Oct. The comment is about the solo dungeon crawl, with a link that opens a crypt already in explore mode in the plain look. Checked live in Chromium: "1 of 9 rooms explored", plain look.
• Seen while checking: in explore mode, the first room sits small in one corner of an empty map. Someone arriving from that link sees mostly blank space. Next fix: frame the explored rooms.
• Finished 02:08

02:11: Explore mode frames what you've seen

• In solo play the map is now framed on the rooms seen so far and the doors out of them: 3 squares round them, at least 16 squares a side (or the whole side), kept inside the map. Once everything has been seen it frames the whole map. fogView in src/ship/svg.ts, plus a test (plugin 164/164).
• Mapsmith 0.9.4: the web page is rebuilt and deployed (site tests 267/267). Checked live: the crypt link opens on room 1 at about twice the old size. The itch web zip and the Pro zip are rebuilt; re-uploading them is optional for the boss. The Foundry module doesn't use explore, so it stays at 1.0.2.
• Finished 02:21

04:07: Who sends GMs to Obsidian plugins

• mail/in is empty.
• Checked who points GMs to Obsidian plugins (LEARNED, 3 Nov section). The TTRPG Discord invite is dead. The official Obsidian Discord has about 195k members, and its #updates channel is the second place Obsidian's docs say to announce a plugin. Gnome Stew, obsidian-collection and the forum's TTRPG thread are not fits.
• Wrote forboss/2026-11-03-obsidian-discord-updates.md: join, get the developer role (the docs link to a Discord message I can't read; the boss pastes it back for FACTS), then a short #updates post that says AI helped with the code.
• Finished 04:08

06:07: Mapsmith search pages for solo dungeon play

• mail/in is empty.
• WebSearch, "solo dungeon crawl generator" and "solo dungeon map generator fog of war free": nothing free does both. Endless RPG generates and reveals rooms but is paid (Steam, iOS). Dungeon Revealer is free but only puts fog over a map you bring. Dungeon Scrawl, donjon and watabou's One Page Dungeon draw the whole map at once. Mapsmith's Explore does both, free, in the browser.
• Built /solo-dungeon-crawl/ (python-split from /dungeon-map-generator/ so it keeps the beacon). It has a picture of the Penlow Crypt four rooms in, with the well chamber's card. It explains how a crawl goes, the three kinds and sizes, and that it's free in the browser, on itch and in Obsidian. Pro is mentioned once, for group play. The footer says the code was written with AI and the plain look has no generated art. The links open in explore mode in the plain look.
• Found and fixed: a seedless mine link opened a town. It's now seeded (greyhollow), checked: "1 of 8 rooms explored", Mine mouth.
• /dungeon-map-generator/ links to the new page from its "Play it alone" section. The page is in the sitemap. Site tests 267/267, deployed; page and picture return 200 live. Google sitemap re-read requested, and the page submitted to Bing (search broker) and IndexNow (200 accepted).
• Finished 06:17

11:07: Daily derelict, 3 Nov

• The first run at 14:08Z failed before it posted anything: the restart had wiped Playwright's browser cache, so daily-derelict.mjs couldn't launch chromium. The 3 Owlbear status checks failed for the same reason.
• Ran npx playwright install chromium in app/ and ran the daily again. It exited 0, and today's Bluesky URL is in meta.json. Status: 28 of 28 pass.
• Finished 14:15

14:08: Back after the restart: mail, daily, crawl page check

• mail/in is empty.
• /solo-dungeon-crawl/, /mapsmith/ and its app.js all return 200 after the restart.
• The daily is done (see its own entry). I'll check the crawl page's views with events.sh later; it has only been up since this morning.
• Finished 14:15

14:15: Solo play picture in the Mapsmith README

• Copied the crawl page's picture to app/plugins/mapsmith/docs/explore.jpg and put it at the top of "Exploring alone" in the README. It shows a crypt with four rooms explored, question marks on the unopened doors, and the well chamber's card.
• Pushed main and the ms-split mirror. raw.githubusercontent.com serves docs/explore.jpg (200), so Obsidian's plugin page will show it. There was no version bump.
• Finished 14:16

16:07: Which Mapsmith pages Google shows, and fix the one nearest a click

• I asked the search broker for 6 Oct to 3 Nov. Not one Mapsmith page has an impression. Of the whole site's impressions, the home page has 24 (6 clicks), /maps/ 14 and /foundry/ 12. So there was no Mapsmith title to fix.
• What each page's inspection says: | Page | Google | | --- | --- | | /mapsmith/ | URL is unknown to Google | | /dungeon-map-generator/ | URL is unknown to Google | | /mapsmith/foundry/ | Discovered, not indexed | | /fantasy-town-map-generator/ | Discovered, not indexed | | /solo-dungeon-crawl/ | Submitted and indexed, crawled 08:03Z today (2 hours after the sitemap resubmit) | Their heads are fine (a canonical and no noindex), and the home and About pages already link to them. The sitemap was downloaded at 06:17Z today with 0 errors.
• I added two links from the plugin README, which Obsidian's plugin page and GitHub both show. "Exploring alone" now ends with a link to try the solo crawl in a browser. The Pro paragraph links /dungeon-map-generator/ for how to load the file in Foundry and Roll20. Pushed main and the mirror; raw README has both links.
• Submitted the 4 unindexed Mapsmith pages to Bing.
• Next: inspect /mapsmith/ and /dungeon-map-generator/ again on 5 Nov. If they're still unknown, the indexed solo page needs plainer links to them (it only links /mapsmith/ with a hash).
• Finished 16:09

17:45: Clear the Obsidian scan errors in foundry/module.ts

• The scan lints every TypeScript file in the repo. foundry/module.ts had a bare eslint-disable no-explicit-any over declare const game: any and the other Foundry globals. That was the 3 errors, and every any use after it was a warning.
• I replaced the any globals with small declared types for the parts the module uses: game.settings, ui.notifications, Hooks, DialogV2, FilePicker, Scene, JournalEntry and CONST. The other changes: - fetch is now window.fetch. - The button's icon is built as an element, not with innerHTML. - Form fields are read through a string check. - A scene that fails to create is skipped.
• The plugin's eslint config now covers foundry/**/*.ts too. npx eslint src foundry gives 0 errors. 3 prefer-create-el warnings remain, because createEl is Obsidian's and doesn't exist in Foundry. tsc is clean.
• Plugin tests: 164 of 164 pass. On Foundry's public demo (app/scripts/foundry-mapsmith-gm.mjs): - A dungeon with Pro made its scene with walls, doors and 5 lights, and the GM's key. - A town without Pro made its scene with no walls and showed the Pro note. - Neither run had any errors.
• main.js is unchanged, because the Foundry folder isn't in the Obsidian build.
• Released Mapsmith 0.9.5 (GitHub release with 3 assets, mirror pushed) so the scan runs on the fixed code. Foundry is now 1.0.3, and /mapsmith/foundry/module.json serves 1.0.3. The Pro zip was rebuilt with the 0.9.5 manifest and is live.
• Site tests: 267 of 267 pass, then deployed.
• LEARNED.md has a new section on what the scan lints.
• Finished 18:01

18:07: Where Mapsmith visitors come from, and feed the best source

• mail/in is empty.
• events.sh since 30 Oct counts views, not people: | Page or action | Count | | --- | --- | | /mapsmith/ | 36 views | | /mapsmith/foundry/ | 36 views | | /dungeon-map-generator/ | 4 views | | /fantasy-town-map-generator/ | 3 views | | Pro preview opened | 1 | | Picture, VTT save or buy click | 0 | The "from" counts were Bulkhead's alone, so I couldn't tell where Mapsmith's visitors came from. I also couldn't tell whether anyone played the solo crawl the new page is built around.
• I couldn't feed a source I couldn't see, so I added the counting first. The Mapsmith web app now sends: - /e/mapsmith-from/<site> once per visit (another site's host name, or our own page's path). - /e/mapsmith-explore-<kind> when a solo crawl starts. - /e/mapsmith-explore3-<kind> once a crawl has 3 rooms seen. Each is sent once per visit, only on our host, with no id. events.sh now groups mapsmith-from/ with the other "from" counts.
• Checked with Playwright, with the local build served under the real host. Starting at /solo-dungeon-crawl/ and opening the crypt link sent from/self/solo-dungeon-crawl/ and explore-dungeon. Three clicks on the question marks sent explore3-dungeon. There were no page errors.
• The privacy page now says that the name of the site that linked to a page is counted. Bulkhead was already counting it and the page didn't say so.
• Re-zipped the itch web build. The pings don't fire on itch.
• Site tests: 267 of 267 pass, then deployed. app.js and the privacy text are live.
• Next: read mapsmith-from and explore in events.sh on 5 Nov, then feed whichever source is sending people.
• Finished 18:18

20:07: The Foundry page's pictures and first screen

• The pictures didn't need a reshoot. scene.jpg and walls.jpg are from 2 Nov, on Foundry 14, and match what 1.0.3 makes (the crypt with 239 walls, 16 doors and 5 lights). My handoff note calling them old was wrong.
• The real gap was the first screen. Its only buttons (Pro and Try) were at the very bottom, under the install steps, and nothing counted clicks on them.
• I added a button row under the intro: "Install it free" (jumps to #install) and "Walls, doors and lights: Pro, $6".
• A click on any itch Pro link now sends /e/mapsmith-buy-foundrypage-<nav|top|bottom>, with no id.
• Checked with Playwright on the local page under the real host. At phone width both buttons sit above the picture. A desktop click on the top Pro button sent mapsmith-buy-foundrypage-top.
• Site tests: 267 of 267 pass, then deployed. The live page has the new row.
• Finished 20:16

22:07: Mapsmith installs, and the path from install to Pro

• Mapsmith had 66 Obsidian downloads and 0 sales. As a new user, the first place you meet Pro is pressing Save for virtual tabletop without a key. In the plugin that gave only a notice that fades, with an itch address you can't click. The web app shows a picture of what you'd get instead.
• Mapsmith 0.9.6: without a key, the plugin now opens a window showing the map you're looking at, with the file's walls (red), doors (blue), windows (green) and lights (yellow) drawn over it. It also counts them ("This one has 451 walls and 1 door"), and has a "Mapsmith Pro, $6 once" button and a line on where the key goes. The drawing code moved to src/preview.ts, so the web app and the plugin share it.
• The plugin test for the no-key path now checks the window: the count, the itch link and the Pro key line. 164 plugin tests, 267 site tests, eslint has 0 errors. A browser check of the web page: the preview canvas is 1400x1400 with no page errors.
• README: says the button shows the preview without a key. Deployed: the web app, the Pro zip (0.9.6) and the itch-web files. The GitHub release and mirror follow this commit.
• Finished 22:22