The development of Planbiene

Kick-off

• Set up the app skeleton for Android (Capacitor) – the foundation for offering Planbiene as an installable app later on.

The Foundation

• Docker development environment (PHP + PostgreSQL), own backend without framework with login and the app as a progressive web app (Vue 3).
• First hands-on modules: recipes with unit list and search, weekly plan and shopping list.
• Admin area for categories, to-dos and users; the storage layer is switched to an interchangeable SQL/JSON abstraction.
• Cooking mode (keeps the display awake), to-do categories and the basics of receipts.
• Web push notifications and the documentation with photos and categories.

The Big Expansion

• Family organisation: custody planner with shared custody models, swap days, change log and share link; points system with leaderboard.
• Calendar & appointments: family calendar with CalDAV/ICS sync, appointment reminders as well as public holiday and school holiday sync.
• All further modules: notes, receipts, household budget, holidays with packing list, timetable per child, children's sick days and the dashboard as home page.
• Practical tools: PDF exports (monthly plan, packing list, timetable), password reset by e-mail and protection against login attempts.
• Administration & feedback: family and user management, feedback forms and a system administration for operations.
• Project website online: handbook, tutorials and technology page.
• E-mail notifications with reminder and escalation level – can be turned off via a „do not trigger“ link.

Polish, Recipes & Home Page

• Recipes comprehensively expanded: recipe images as a gallery, step images, cooking mode with kitchen timer (ringtone & vibration) and resuming via the header, swiping between steps as well as sharing recipes via a share link – including cooking without signing up.
• Home page individually designable: sort tiles and quick-access icons via drag & drop and hide them individually – saved per user.
• Holiday planning as its own module with „free time“ next to classic trips.
• Menu made more compact: modules live on a second expandable level, the menu is closed with ESC and keeps the scrollbars clean.
• Firework days: families can store occasions on which a short firework lights up above the page when the app is opened – one-off, yearly (e.g. birthdays) or recurring monthly.

Meter readings

• New module for recording meter readings: set up electricity, gas and water meters with name, unit and symbol and report readings – with a photo of the meter as proof if you like.
• Every meter gets its own photo: store its location or type and use the focus function to mark the area that stays visible in the detail view.
• The meter overview shows each meter in its own row: the meter photo on the left, the name, unit, current reading and trend of the last entries on the right – clicking the row opens the meter.
• Consumption at a glance: the history chart shows the absolute reading as a line and the consumption as bars, switchable between monthly, yearly and year comparison.
• Meters can be edited, archived and brought back; the complete history is preserved.

Home Page & Weekly Plan

• Compact weekly plan view for parents on the home page: the children's tasks for the current day with status, directly tickable.
• Children's home page: own weekly plan block with the day's tasks, fixed tile order with the weekly plan at the very top, no tile icons, the features only reachable via the menu.
• Access rules: household budget, receipts, sick days and e-mail notifications are locked for children; deactivated modules also disappear from the settings.
• Waste collection automatically creates a to-do one day before pickup („put the paper bin outside the door“) – optionally switchable off.
• „Planned this week“ now only shows the current and future days; blocked days also appear in the calendar on the home page.
• Dismissible tips on the home page: a hint matching the enabled modules is shown at random; once closed with the ✕ it no longer appears – „Reset hints" is available in the settings.
• The start of a holiday: signing in on the day of departure shows a small firework above the home page.
• Tasks in the weekly plan can create a to-do right away („create to-do for task" checkbox).

Modules & Internals

• The documentation replaces the plant book: store instructions for devices, a Markdown editor with preview, a change log of the last 20 actions and a revised image handling (set focus, uniform 4:3 areas).
• Wish lists: assign wishes to children, expand and collapse occasions per user, one share link per occasion and child as well as clickable links in remarks.
• Statistics: app and website accesses merged into one view, every module is counted, jump from an IP directly to the statistics of this IP.
• Weekly plan export: the file name contains the name of the child; overlapping checkmarks in the PDF export have been fixed.
• Recipe images are stored in the file system instead of the database; share links and the cooking mode have been revised (chevron arrows, image at the top above the steps).
• Custody models in detail: each of the shared custody models now has its own page with pros and cons – in the app and in the handbook.
• Cooking mode: the „Done" button ends the cooking session cleanly.
• Voice control: the Alexa skill can be linked with the app (BETA).

Holiday Planning & School-Holiday Comparison

• Holiday planning gets a calendar view: trips you have added and – if you wish – the school holidays of several German states side by side.
• Holiday comparison: mark states and find shared, non-overlapping periods. The same feature is available as a dialog on the „Holidays" handbook page (with a tutorial).
• The text for a trip is a Markdown editor, viewable and editable straight from the home page; the packing list can be expanded and ticked off there.

Learning & Sharing

• The learning module is clearer now: details and editing in one view with tabs per task type – and a new speaking mode practises vocabulary via voice input.
• Learning tasks now apply to the whole family and can be reordered.
• Share links are now available in all modules (recipe, note, learning, custody planner, timetable, wish list): activate, deactivate and renew – renewing invalidates the old link immediately.
• New access without hunting for passwords: generate a fresh password and send it by e-mail or share it as text.

Shopping List & Barcode

• The shopping list can be sorted by aisle: once an item has an aisle, Planbiene remembers it for the whole family – milk, fruit and co. end up in the right aisle on every shopping trip.
• Barcode scan: scan a product's barcode with the camera and add it to the list with one tap – including Nutri-Score, nutrition, ingredients, allergens, labels and packaging from Open Food Facts as well as reported prices from Open Prices. The scan button stays at the top of the shopping list header.

Project Website Bilingual

• The project website is available in German and English: the complete handbook has been translated, every page has a language switch and hreflang links.
• Tutorials and this changelog now also appear bilingually; only the technology page remains German for now.

Project Website & Sales

• The project website now offers sign-up with a purchase option (payment via Mollie) – reachable via the „full version" link.
• For search engines: a sitemap.xml lists all public pages of the project website so Google can find them.