What comes in, what goes out

Each almanac — one of your calendars, a named, coloured layer of commitments — has at most one wire to somewhere outside Zenith. Or none at all. That wire says two things, separately: where the almanac is fed from, and what of yours goes back.

You find both on an almanac's page, under "what comes in" and "what goes out". On an almanac under the lock — a locked almanac refuses every change until you unlock it — both doors stay shut, and their switches answer with the lock's line.

#What comes in

With nothing plugged in, the sheet reads "what feeds “‹name›”". An almanac is fed by one place, and nothing here is permanent. You can change or unplug it whenever you like. There are four kinds of feed:

• "my other devices" — carries the almanac between your own devices. It opens the travel sheet.
• "a calendar on this phone" — lists every calendar on the phone, grouped by account. Each says what it feeds, or "feeds nothing", and notes things like "not syncing" or "read only". Tap one to plug it in. One calendar feeds one almanac, so a calendar already in use asks "move it here? …" first.
• "a copy in my drive" — an almanac carried in your own Google Drive.
• "nothing" — "leave it unplugged and fill it by hand". This is an ordinary and complete thing for an almanac to be.

Zenith's own copy on the phone cannot feed an almanac. Without calendar access, the list offers "✛ let zenith see this phone's calendars" instead.

#Once something is plugged in

The sheet names the source and its state — live with when it was last heard from, paused, not set to download to this phone, read-only, or gone. If the calendar is not set to download, "open sync settings" takes you there. Zenith will not switch that on for you. Then:

• "listening" — the almanac talks to its source. Paused, nothing goes out and Zenith stops watching it.
• "my edits go to ‹service› too" — adding, editing and deleting here changes it there. Off, anything you change stays in Zenith. A read-only source always keeps your edits in Zenith.
• "carry zenith's detail" — anyone who reads that calendar can see it. Your other Zenith devices read it back whole; everyone else sees plain entries.
• "⊘ unplug it" — nothing is removed from the source. The almanac keeps its commitments, material — the files its commitments share — and records, and whatever Zenith already wrote into a real calendar stays there.
• "⇄ carry it between my own devices instead" — stops reading the source and moves the almanac into a calendar your other devices can see.

A travelling almanac is not unplugged; its travel is stopped instead. Below, "where else it reaches" holds "○ carry it in your drive" and "○ show it to the rest of this phone".

#What goes out

The door's line tells you the state: "your edits go back, carrying zenith's own detail", "your edits go back, plainly", or "your edits stay in zenith".

• With nothing plugged in, everything stays in Zenith.
• "your edits go back" writes what you add, change or delete to the calendar it came from. "your edits stay in zenith" sends nothing back.
• When edits go back, "carrying zenith's own detail" sends the kind, repeat rule, colour and mark — the small symbol a commitment wears — along too. Another Zenith brings it back whole; any other app shows a normal entry with a little extra text. "plainly" sends only the title, time and place.

Unplugging never goes back and removes what you wrote. A single commitment can disagree with its almanac about going out and about carrying detail, from its expand sheet.

#When it talks

The phone's calendars are read again each time the app comes back to the front. An almanac carried in Drive comes down on return, at most every 15 minutes, and goes up when the app leaves the screen.

#The two overrides

Two switches act on every almanac at once, without changing any almanac's own setting:

• "nothing is coming in" stops watching every source.
• "nothing leaves this phone" holds back every edit. While it is on, the first switch on the sheet reads "held back — nothing leaves this phone". Your choice is kept, and when you lift the override, what was held is sent and Drive copies go up.

Both live in the binder's ⚙ panel — the binder is the page where all your almanacs live — and in quick settings.

See also. Your Google account & Drive · Travel & the phone's own calendars · An almanac's page · The binder's settings · Privacy across the suite