Jeff, an 18-year veteran at 37signals, and one of the clearest explainers of technical topics I've ever known, sits down and explains the recordables pattern. The recordables pattern has been the single-most important architectural pattern we've used on both Basecamp and HEY. It's a key reason both code bases are still a joy to work on. Deep, practical insights in this one. Interesting for non-technical folks, too.

More NEW in HEY, today. Introducing HEY for Families. Add up to 4 additional family members (that's 5 people total, including you), for $179/year total. One person pays, but the accounts remain separate and private. We also launched a significant update to search. We know search has been one of HEY's weak spots, so we're working on improving it on multiple dimensions. More on both new updates: updates.37signals.com/post/n…

Good time to preview the next ONCE product. We're calling it Workbook. You know, it's really easy to publish short form content on a variety of social platforms. And individual blog posts on a number of other platforms. These are solved problems. But it's surprisingly challenging to publish books on the web in nice, cohesive, tight, easy-to-navigate HTML format. A collection of 20 essays can be a book. Or a company's handbook can be a book. Or an actual book like Shape Up can be a book. But usually you have to make a custom web site, or stretch to use a blog publishing tool to kinda-sorta squish separate posts together into a packaged whole. It's really not ideal. We know — we've published a variety of books online, and we've had to go the custom route each time. Having to go the custom route for something that should be fundamentally simple is a red flag. And an opportunity. It really shouldn't be this hard. So we're doing something about that. That's Workbook. It's a dead simple platform to publish web-based books. They have covers, they can have title pages, they can have picture pages, and they can have text pages. Each book gets its own URL, and navigating and keeping track of your progress is all built right in. I'll be sharing much more about this soon, but here's a screenshot on the editing end. This is how you put a book together. Make the pages (there are three styles of pages available), drag them around to put them in the order you want, and Workbook takes care of the rest. A page can be a literal page of text, or an entire chapter — you can set it up however you'd like. Text editing happens in Markdown. Once you're done, and ready to publish, you'd flip the toggle on the left under the cover, customize your URL (at your domain, of course), and the book is live on the web for the whole world to read. Workbook will be a ONCE product, so you get all the code too. And for the first time, it'll be entirely free. You don't even have to pay once! You pay zero! Workbook is our love letter to truly independent, zero-cost web publishing. We'll be republishing all our public books (Getting Real, Shape Up, The 37signals Employee Handbook, etc) using Workbook as well. That's it for now, more soon.

Some of the most rewarding features to add to products are ones that don’t increase surface area, but increase depth. This is how you continue to make a product a whole lot better without it feeling like it got a whole lot bigger. Basecamp’s new References feature is a great example of this. Barely any surface area — just a subtle tab down by the comments section. It’s almost not even there. Easy to ignore if you aren’t interested, but click that tab and a whole world of connections opens up. That’s the depth. All the sudden you can see how this is related to that, who’s referenced it across the entire system, how recently it’s been discussed (is it “alive” or “dead”), and where the energy is around the topic. Surface area vs. Depth. An important thing to internalize when designing products.

Big new feature release for Basecamp today. It's called References. Now linking to a message, to-do, card, event, document, or file automatically creates a Reference, instantly tying related things together. Basecamp’s always been a library of your company's knowledge. But now the library is linked up and cross-referenced wherever one thing is mentioned somewhere else. It’s like a living bibliography. Here's how it works: updates.37signals.com/post/n…

Something brand old is coming. Once upon a time you owned what you paid for, you controlled what you depended on, and your privacy and security were your own business. We think it’s that time again. Have a seat, SaaS. Introducing: once.com

HIRING: Just one more week to apply to join our mobile team as a Senior Product Designer. You'll work on Basecamp, HEY, and future apps. We have a small team, so you'll be able to make a big impact. Fully remote, salary is $185,488. Details here: apply.workable.com/37signals…