Viasterra

What's changed

Every release, newest first. The app shows you the most recent one when it updates; this is the whole record.

23 August 2026latest

2026.08.23

  • LUMEN is now VIASTERRA. Same journal, same writing, same device — only the name on the door has changed. Older notes below still say LUMEN, which is how it was at the time.
  • A new mark to go with it: the ring you know, with the dot drawn out into a compass needle.
  • The icon in the browser tab is drawn heavier than the one on your home screen, so it stops looking washed out at small sizes.
  • Saving a copy now works properly from the home-screen app: it opens the share sheet so you can put the file in Files, AirDrop it, or mail it to yourself. If that route fails, the backup can be shown as plain text and copied by hand.
  • The reminder to save a copy now comes early — within a few days of starting to write, rather than after three months. A young journal is the one with no copy of itself anywhere.
  • About this journal now explains what deleting the app from your home screen costs, and what to do before you do it.
  • The welcome screens now offer to bring in a backup. A reinstalled app looks exactly like a new one, and that is the moment the offer is needed.
  • Settings shows how long it has been since you last saved a copy, so the answer is always there rather than only when a reminder appears.
  • Saving a copy now reads the file back and counts the pages before telling you it worked.
  • The compass now sits beside the name at the top of every screen, so the mark is in the app itself rather than only on your home screen and in the browser tab.
  • The settings control in the corner is three dots. It used to draw the app’s own mark, which read as a logo rather than a button.
  • The calendar in Journal can be pointed straight at a month and year instead of stepping there. The arrows are still fine for a hop or two back.
  • The month in Journal now spans the page, in line with the search field and the entries beneath it, instead of sitting in a narrow box on the left.
  • The main button on Today, Journal and Reflections is now the same size on every page.
  • Today, Journal and Reflections now open at the same size and wrap the same way. The headings on the two empty pages were smaller than Today’s and squeezed into a narrow column, so they broke over three lines where Today used one.
  • A new first screen asks you to acknowledge, before you write anything, that this journal lives on this device and nowhere else. The three welcome screens are unchanged; this comes after them, and it is the one screen that cannot be skipped.
  • Before a first copy exists, a quiet line on Today says so and stays until it is no longer true — and once there are seven pages, the app interrupts once to explain what that means. Once, not repeatedly.
  • About this journal is more exact about privacy: the app still never sends a word of your writing anywhere, and it now also says that whoever hosts a website can add scripts to its pages — naming any it finds on this one.

22 August 2026

2026.08.22

  • Milestones: mark a page as a moment worth remembering, and see them all on a timeline in Reflections. Mark one while writing, from the finished page, or straight from the Journal list.
  • A long entry no longer jumps away from the cursor while you type.
  • Long words and pasted links now wrap instead of running off the side of the screen.
  • The "newer version" notice sits properly on a phone screen instead of running off the edge.
  • Updates now appear as soon as they are published, rather than after a delay of up to ten minutes.
  • Settings now carries a short anonymous feedback form, if you have something to say about the app.
  • The Journal calendar now shows the dates, with a small mark under the days you wrote on.

10 August 2026

2026.08.10

  • Photographs: add pictures to a page, kept as polaroids.
  • LUMEN now opens without a connection once you have used it once.
  • An occasional, dismissible reminder to save a backup copy.
  • About this journal, in Settings, explaining where your writing lives.
  • Text throughout is darker and easier to read in daylight.
  • Backups now carry edits and deletions between devices, not just new pages.

9 August 2026

2026.08.09

  • The first version: Today, Journal and Reflections, written and kept entirely on your own device.

VIASTERRA was called LUMEN until 23 August 2026. The notes from before that date use the old name, which is how they were written at the time.