The ring engine

The ring — a wheel of your apps that opens under your finger — is the heart of Zenith. Nearly everything you do starts here. What feels like one smooth motion is really a few stages flowing into each other, and knowing them makes the whole gesture feel natural.

#One gesture, start to finish

Press and hold anywhere on empty sky — your home screen. For a brief moment nothing shows: the sky is waiting to see if you mean it. Hold past that short pause and the ring blooms around your fingertip, its stars — your apps — arranged in a circle you can reach.

Now, without lifting, slide toward any star. The one under your finger lights up as the chosen one. Let go, and it opens in a burst of light. That's the core loop: hold, slide, lift.

If you move your finger before the ring has bloomed, Zenith reads it as a quick flick instead of a hold — a fast stroke you can bind to its own action. So the ring only opens when you actually rest and wait.

#Going deeper and coming back

Some stars are folders, holding a ring of their own. Slide onto a folder and pause on it, and its inner ring blooms outward from it — you drill inward without lifting, ring after ring, as deep as you nested them.

To back out, trace your line inward, toward the point the current ring grew from. That folds it shut and returns you to the ring before it. The whole trip in and out is one unbroken touch.

#The other things the ring can become

The same held gesture opens onto a few other views:

• The full A–Z list of your apps, the star index, which you can reach with a drawn circle or a drag from the screen edge.
• A caught comet — a notification drifting across the sky — which opens its own small menu when you catch it.

While the ring is open you can also use a second finger to pinch it larger or smaller, without collapsing it, so a crowded ring is easier to aim at.

You don't have to think about any of this while you use it. It's built so that one hold, one slide, and one lift do the everyday work, and the rest is there when you reach for it.

See also. Stars, nodes & regions · Skies, usage-as-light & list mode · Hold to bloom the ring · Slide to launch