Themes, colours & My Sky

The "the sky" settings page sets the look of the whole sky — the calendar screen, one canvas that becomes each view. It sets the theme, the glow, the soft cloud, the background stars, the real stars overhead and the size of the earth and moon.

Where. Settings › the sky. It is the first page of the settings book. From top to bottom: the ten theme chips in two rows of five, "halo", "nebula", "vignette", "starfield" (with "star density" under it while it is on), "my sky — the real stars overhead", and "earth & moon size". Tap ‹ to step back to the settings list. You can also ask the sky to set any of these by name.

#Themes

There are ten: "clean", "mono", "pastel", "rainbow", "daytime", "ink", "iridescent", "neon", "ember" and "abyss". The default is "clean".

• Free and Gold. Clean, mono and pastel come with the app. They are the same three Zenith Launcher gives away. The other seven are (Gold). A Gold theme's chip wears ✦, and tapping it opens the Gold offer instead. A theme you already chose keeps drawing if Gold lapses.
• Dark and light. Most themes are dark skies. "daytime" and "ink" draw on a light ground.
• Iridescent moves. Its colours sweep once round the colour wheel every 40 seconds.
• A filter, not a replacement. An almanac's colour — the colour of one of your calendars, a coloured layer of commitments — is the information on the sky. So a theme only tints it. Mono and ink turn everything toward one ink but keep a whisper of each almanac's hue. Iridescent turns every colour together, so they stay apart. Every other theme leaves almanac colours exactly as they are.
• "colour strength" on the ease page works on top of any theme.

#The sliders and switches

#My Sky — the real stars overhead (Gold)

"my sky — the real stars overhead" draws the real constellations over the place you are, in place of the decorative starfield. It is (Gold) and off by default.

• Without Gold its label ends in ✦, and turning it on opens the Gold offer. If it is already on and Gold lapses, it stays on.
• Turning it on asks for your phone's location, since the stars overhead depend on where you are.
• About 36 of the brightest stars, plus the pattern stars of the best-known constellations, are placed for your latitude and the time of day. The sky is turned so the real sun lines up with where the calendar draws it. Stars, sun and hours all point the same way.
• It uses the location the app saved. Until one is known, it assumes 40° north and guesses your longitude from the phone's time zone.
• While it is on, the decorative starfield is not drawn.

#Colours and the vivid set

These are the colours an almanac, or a single commitment, can be drawn in.

• The soft set — twenty-four colours, all held soft so nothing shouts against the dark. First the six starlight tones (starlight, pale gold, ice blue, lilac, mint, rose). Then coral, amber, wheat, pear, jade, aqua, sky, periwinkle, violet, orchid, fuchsia, blush, stone, slate, clay, sage, sand and dusk.
• The vivid set (Gold) — eighteen more hues at full strength, spaced evenly round the colour wheel. Any two can be told apart, even on a tiny meteor — a one-time commitment. Every set of swatches shows them after the soft set. Without Gold they are dimmed and marked ✦, and a tap opens the Gold offer.
• A swatch shows the colour at the strength you set, never the theme's tint. Otherwise, under mono, every swatch would be the same grey.
• If you cannot tell the soft colours apart, "colour strength" on the ease page is free and works on the colours you already chose.

See also. Ease — motion, colour & touch · Ease — presets & sizes · Edit an almanac · Zenith Gold in the calendar (Gold)