Ease — motion, colour & touch

These controls share settings › "ease" with the presets and sizes on Ease — presets & sizes. To open the settings book, hold the gear ⚙ in the bottom-right corner of the sky — the sky being the whole calendar, one canvas that becomes each view.

Everything here is free.

#Colour

"colour strength" — a slider from 1 to 2.5, the first control on the page, starting at 1. It pushes the almanacs' colours toward full, for eyes that see every pastel as the same grey. An almanac is a named, coloured layer of commitments, like one calendar.

The paragraph under it explains: the calendar is drawn in soft colour, and turned up, the colours go as far toward full as they can. The legend, the menus and the calendar all change together.

• At 1 it is exactly the colour as set, so the default never shifts anything.
• It never changes a hue — red stays red, only stronger.
• It is applied before the chosen sky's colour filter, so the sky has the last word. Under a greyscale sky it raises contrast instead of putting colour back. On a pale sky it darkens a mark instead of brightening it (see Skies, colours & my sky).

What it cannot do. It does nothing for an almanac left on the default near-white. There is no hue there to strengthen, and stretching the tiny difference would invent one. The page says so: such an almanac needs a colour of its own.

It only changes how things are drawn. Nothing you saved, and no choice you made, is changed by it. It never reaches the sun, the earth or the moon.

#Motion

"reduce motion" — a switch, off to start. One switch that stops the calendar moving by itself. The picture stays the same picture, held still:

• the nebula stops drifting and the stars stop twinkling;
• the binder and an almanac's page hold still;
• changing view cuts straight across instead of flying into the earth or the moon;
• a day's fan — its commitments spread out of the year ring — arrives already open instead of swinging out.

It also stops the dive between views. While reduce motion is on, views cut even though "view transitions" still shows on.

"remove glows" — a switch, off to start. Whether the bodies wear their halo of light. It overrules the "halo" slider on settings › "the sky" completely, so nothing glows at any halo setting. A glow is not only decoration. It spreads a mark's light into the dark around it and softens the edge where one thing stops and the next begins — the very edge you need when colours are hard to tell apart. "easier to read", "text only" and "calm" all turn it on.

"view transitions" — a switch, on to start. This is the dive — the camera flying through the body you touched, with the next view opening out of it. Off, every change of view is instant. "calm" turns it off. While "reduce motion" is on, views cut too, even though this switch still shows on.

#Immersion mode

"immersion mode" — a switch, off to start, just under "remove glows". On, both of the phone's bars are hidden while the calendar is open: the status bar along the top — the clock, battery, signal and notification icons — and the navigation bar along the bottom. The sky runs edge to edge. The line under it says: "the phone's status bar and navigation bar are hidden while the calendar is open. swipe in from the top or bottom edge to see them for a moment."

• Seeing them for a moment. Swipe in from the top or bottom edge and the bars come back over the calendar. They hide again on their own.
• Everywhere in the app. They stay hidden in settings and in every other panel and pop-up, not only on the calendar itself.
• Leaving the app gives the bars back to the phone.
• If you had the old status bar switch on before 1.2.0, you find immersion mode on.

The "standard" preset, and "↺ back to standard", turn it off. You can also ask the sky to switch it on or off.

#Turning the phone

"turning the phone" — three chips: "rotate", "portrait", "landscape". The line under them: "upright, sideways, or following the phone's own rotation — which is what the app does unless you say otherwise. it holds for every screen in the app." It starts on "rotate". Your choice takes effect the moment you tap it.

#Touch

Under the heading "touch" are four controls.

"haptics" — a switch, on to start. Whether the app answers a touch with a small vibration: the phone's own long-press buzz for a firm touch, and its clock tick for a light one. Off, no vibration plays anywhere in the app. The same switch also stands on settings › "the calendar's voice" (see The calendar's voice). The phone's own touch-vibration setting still rules it: if that is off, these go quiet too.

"scrub texture" — a switch, on to start. Its line: "a soft bumpiness under a finger scrubbing the calendar, and nothing over empty space." As your finger drags across the calendar, you feel a gentle bump at each step. It needs "haptics" on as well.

"texture strength" — shown only while "haptics" and "scrub texture" are both on. One slider with two ends: "empty scrub" at one end and "most important" at the other. Each runs 0 to 1, starting at 0.25 and 1.

• Whatever is under your finger gets a weight, and the bump plays at that weight's place between the two ends.
• The page puts it plainly: "a commitment feels stronger the more it carries — notes, a place, material, a section, links, its own mark."
• Being a commitment at all is most of the weight. Each thing you added to it adds a little more.
• A day with nothing on it is a bare surface. A day, a body or a door feels as strong as the heaviest commitment on it.
• As you drag either end, you feel it at its new strength, so you can set it by feel.

Landing on a commitment mid-scrub plays a separate, firmer bump. That one needs only "haptics".

"bump spacing" — three chips: "fine", "medium" and "coarse", starting on "medium". How far your finger travels between one bump and the next. Nothing plays until your finger has moved that far, which keeps the texture a texture and not a buzz.

On some phones the vibration motor cannot play graded bumps. The calendar then uses two of the phone's own ticks instead — a softer one below half strength, a fuller one above — so it never goes silent.

#The scale the calendar plays

Sound is not on this page. Volume, the sound switch and the musical scale are on settings › "the calendar's voice" — see The calendar's voice.

#See also.

Ease — presets & sizes · Skies, colours & my sky · The calendar's voice · Moving between the views