Your first five minutes

Let's go from a fresh install to your first commitment — anything on your calendar, an event or a thing to do — then take a short trip through the views and find Settings. It takes about five minutes.

#1 · Open it

Open Zenith Calendar. Nothing is asked. The sky — the whole calendar screen, one canvas that becomes each view — draws on the year view. A few almanacs — your calendars, each a named, coloured layer — are already on: "personal", "work", "celestial" and most of the holiday almanacs.

About a second later, the "make zenith your calendar" sheet offers itself. You can skip it. If you want it now, work through its four steps:

1. Under "let zenith see this phone's calendars", tap "allow calendar access", then "feed personal" and "feed work" from calendars you already use.
2. Under "quiet your old calendar app", tap "open notification settings" for your old calendar app.
3. Under "open zenith when something wants a date", there is nothing to tap now. The next time an app opens a date, pick Zenith and tick always.
4. Under "carry your almanacs between your devices", tap "set up syncing".

Tap "· done ·" to close it. You can always come back through Settings › make zenith your calendar.

#2 · Read the year

Look at the middle of the screen. The sun sits there, with the year ring round it. Today's earth and moon ride the ring.

Now tap the ring, or drag your finger along it, to pick a day. That day's commitments open two ways: as a fan — the day's commitments spread inside the ring — and as the brief — a list of the day's commitments along the bottom of the screen.

To come back to today, tap the big date at the top left, tap ◉ "today", or double-tap the sky.

#3 · Place your first commitment

Let's place one.

1. Tap ✛ "add" at the bottom left. (Later, you can also hold a day in the day, week or month view.)
2. In "new commitment", type under "what happens?". Or tap its microphone and say the whole thing.
3. Choose "how often": "☄ once", "↻ repeats" or "✦ yearly".
4. Choose "what time" and the almanac it goes in.
5. Tap "place it".

The first time you place a commitment, the app asks once for notification permission, so its reminder can ring. Your commitment is now on the sky.

#4 · Move between the views

You move by touching the bodies on the sky:

• Tap today's earth for the day view.
• Tap today's moon for the week view.
• Tap the sun for the years view.
• From the week, carry the moon down past halfway for the month.
• In the month, tap a day twice to open its day.

Every day brief ends with "view in" and the other views. The phone's back retraces the way you came.

#5 · Find Settings

At the bottom right, tap ⚙ "settings" for the settings book. Hold it instead for quick settings: "button labels", "nothing comes in", "nothing leaves this phone" and "all settings ›".

Beside it is the "almanacs" book. Tap it to turn almanacs on and off. Hold it to open the binder — the page where all your almanacs live, in order.

That's it. You have placed a commitment, walked the views and found Settings. The rest of this guide goes deeper into each one.

See also. Install & make it your calendar · Add a commitment · Moving between the views · The settings book · The binder