Issue 001 · April 6, 2026
Founding Note: Why Excalicord Exists
English-first with Chinese support notes.
Excalicord is not just a drawing app. It is a speaking-and-thinking environment for visual explanation.
1. What It Is Based On
The product foundation is Excalidraw: a mature whiteboard engine with expressive sketching interactions. We did not try to replace that strength. Instead, we built a creator shell around it for recording workflows.
Chinese note: the main change is not the drawing engine, but the explanation-and-recording workflow layer around it.
2. Philosophy
- Keep creation local-first whenever possible.
- Reduce friction between drawing, speaking, and recording.
- Prioritize clarity over feature count.
- Design for repeatable explainers, not one-off demos.
3. What We Have Already Implemented
- Scene list for stepping through explanation structures.
- Camera bubble with drag, shape, and size controls.
- Teleprompter panel with speed and opacity controls.
- Recording preview frame and in-browser local WebM export.
- Bilingual interface with EN default and Chinese switch.
- Excalidraw internal UI follows language switch.
4. Current Capabilities
Today, a creator can open the board, plan scenes, keep a teleprompter visible, keep camera presence visible, and export a local take without leaving the browser workflow.
5. Unfinished But Important
- External video embed + live explanation support.
- Local webpage operation while narrating in one capture flow.
- Unified recording mode for board, browser, camera, and microphone.
- More durable project state and richer export targets.
6. Why This Blog Exists
This blog is a build log, not a marketing channel. We publish decisions, shipped work, and unfinished work in plain language. The purpose is alignment and continuity: anyone can see where the product is and where it is going.
Chinese note: this blog is primarily a product log and philosophy archive, not a landing page.
7. What Comes Next
Next issues will track concrete implementation progress for mixed media explanation: operating real web pages and videos while narrating with whiteboard support.