v3 · The Design Awakening (STMC)
The Story Behind This Version
I abandoned vanilla Tkinter and dove into CustomTkinter — a fresh, modern UI library that promised rounded buttons, smooth widgets, and a look that finally matched what I had in my head. It was my first project with this framework. Everything had to be learned from scratch.
The app got a name: STMC — Setting, Timer, Main, Calendar. Four modules, four goals. I locked the window at 800x450 and refused to let it resize. That tiny rectangle became my canvas. Every pixel inside it was intentional. Every color had a purpose.
I cycled through over 50 palette attempts, deleting, rebuilding, and obsessing until the first 8‑theme system emerged — light and dark variants that gave the app a mood. I drew every icon by hand: simple, a little awkward, but unmistakably mine. A calendar landed. Notes and goals found basic forms. Under the hood, it was chaos — 13 Python files, four separate SQLite databases, and bugs that would freeze the whole window if you clicked the wrong place.
But when STMC ran, even for a minute without crashing, it felt like a professional product hiding inside a student’s laptop. I never released it. I didn’t have to. That 800×450 window, with its fragile code and beautiful face, was the birthplace of Paxalia’s visual identity. Every theme, every icon, every layout you see today grew from that stubborn, buggy, magnificent prototype.
New in this release
- First CustomTkinter app — left Tkinter behind for a modern widget set
- Locked window size: 800x450 — no resize, total design control
- Named STMC (Setting, Timer, Main, Calendar)
- 8‑theme palette system (light + dark) born from 50+ color trials
- Hand‑drawn custom icon set (flat, personal, imperfect)
- Basic calendar with note & goal entry
- 4 separate SQLite databases (fragile, but functional)
- 13 Python files, 16 design assets
- Very unstable — frequent freezes and crashes
Design Assets
