Five fix rounds (v4.9.1 → v4.9.5) couldn't make the sidebar flowchart
panel feel right — at 280 px sidebar with canvas + preview cramped to
~175 px each, plus the editor-container hide/show dance the
maximize/restore toggle required, the panel kept presenting as
cramped and unreliable at runtime. Strategy pivot: the flowchart
editor now lives in its own BrowserWindow, matching the ASCII Art
Generator pattern.
- src/flowchart-generator.html — new standalone HTML with header,
toolbar (Insert at Cursor / Reset), canvas host, and preview host.
Stylesheet hrefs are src/-relative (no ../). Forced light surface
via background/color !important rules — mirrors the v4.9.5 CSS fix.
- src/renderer/flowchart-controller.js — pure browser IIFE. Hydrates
from <userData>/flowchart-session.json once on mount, persists on
every mutation with 500 ms debounce. Insert at Cursor wraps the
generated Mermaid source in a fenced ```mermaid block and sends
it through the existing insert-content IPC.
- src/main.js — openFlowchartGenerator() launches the standalone
BrowserWindow (1100×720, contextIsolation:true, nodeIntegration:false).
Tools menu entry 'Flowchart Generator' with Cmd/Ctrl+Alt+F.
- src/preload.js — new window.electronAPI.flowchart.* namespace with
getUserDataPath/readFile/writeFile/insertAtCursor, reusing the
existing thin text-file IPC handlers.
- The four pure modules (flowchart-shapes.js, flowchart-mermaid.js,
flowchart-store.js, flowchart-canvas.js) gained a tiny UMD wrapper
so they work both as CommonJS (legacy sidebar) and as browser
globals (standalone window). No behavioural change to the 73
flowchart unit tests in tests/flowchart-*.test.js.
- src/renderer.js — sidebar registerPanel('flowchart', ...) and the
commandPalette entry are now commented out. Legacy panel file
(src/sidebar/flowchart-panel.js) preserved for rollback.
Tests:
- tests/flowchart-controller.test.js — 10 new tests covering
stylesheet paths (no ../ escape), bootstrap wiring
(getUserDataPath once, reads flowchart-session.json), hydration
from a saved session, Insert-at-Cursor fenced block format,
Reset (with and without confirm), and two regression tests that
src/renderer.js no longer has a live sidebar registration.
All 1122 tests pass; lint + format clean.
Amit Haridas
