The home screen — header & corners

The home screen is a frame laid over whichever view you are on — the sky, the list, the orbits or insights. The header sits top left, round buttons sit in three corners, and a notice line speaks at the foot.

#The header

Top left: "the journal", and under it the year the sky is turned to, how many stars ("no stars yet", "1 star", "N stars") and how many journals — for example "2026 · 12 stars · 2 journals".

Under that is the view switch: "sky", "list", "orbits", "insights". The view on screen is marked with dots — "· sky ·" — never by colour alone. Without journal gold, insights reads "insights ✦", and a tap opens the Gold sheet. See Journal Gold.

With "view transitions" on, one view fades into the next. See Ease.

#The corner buttons

Top right — the suite corner

• "undo" / "redo" — a curled arrow, left of "AI" and "shuttle". It is there only after you do something that can be taken back. Tap it and the thing goes back; when it can be done again, the button turns into "redo". See Undo & earlier versions.
• "AI" — the tall zenith star. Opens ask the sky, the built-in AI assistant. It shows only while the suite's AI switch and "zenith ai in this app" are both on. See Ask the sky in the Journal.
• "shuttle" — the rocket. Opens the shuttle, the suite's shared tray for passing things between Zenith apps. See The Shuttle in the Journal.

Bottom left

• "add" ✛ — tap for a new entry in compose. Hold for three choices over a dimmed screen: "✛ an entry" (in no journal, loose in the sky), "✛ a spoken entry" (say it now, write it out later) and "✛ a journal". Tap the dimmed screen or press back to close them.
• "voice" — the microphone. Hands you to the phone's own speech recogniser ("speak an entry"). What it heard opens compose with those words. A phone without one says "this phone has no speech recogniser".

Bottom right, from the top, each only when it applies:

• "back" ‹ and "open" ◉ — while a star's card is open with latched buttons or the suite's "tap" navigation. ‹ "step back" closes the card; ◉ "open it" opens the entry to read. See Tap, hold, drag & pinch.
• "back" ‹ — when the view on screen isn't the one the journal opens as: "back to the <view>".
• "today" ◉ — on the sky, when the year is turned away from today: "go to today".
• "journals" — the book. On the sky, a tap opens or closes the short list of journals on this stretch of sky; anywhere else, a tap opens the escritoire. A hold always opens the escritoire. In the short list, tap a journal to switch it off the sky or back on; hold a journal to go into it, and hold "loose" to open the escritoire.
• "settings" ⚙ — opens settings. See Settings, page by page.

Hold to hear it. Hold a button that has no hold of its own, and the notice line says what it is.

Button labels. The words beside the buttons show while settings › "ease" › "button labels" is on. It starts on.

#The notice line

A short lower-case line near the foot, for four seconds. When what you did can be undone, "undo" rides beside it for as long as it shows, and goes sooner if the screen changes. It is the same step as the "undo" button top right, which stays longer — for example after "taken back · it waits in the burn pile 30 days", or "filed in …" in the orbits. See Undo & earlier versions.

#Which view it opens on

settings › "the journal" › "opens as" — "the sky", "the list", "the orbits", "insights" or "where I left it". It starts on "the sky". "where I left it" opens on whichever view you were last on. Insights wears a ✦ and needs journal gold (Gold).

#Back

• On a view that isn't the one it opens as, back goes home.
• On the sky turned away from today, back comes to today first.
• Back first closes whatever is open in front — the ✛ choices, an entry's ⋯ menu, a star's card, the list's ⋯ menu or search. Then it closes the journals short list, then turns the sky back to today, then goes home. Only then does it leave the journal.

#Full-screen rooms

Each screen that opens over the views — compose, the reader, the escritoire and the rest — has "‹ its name" at the top. That line is the way out, spoken as "back", and the back gesture does the same.

#See also.

The sky · Journals on the sky · Quick reference · Ease