Comets & notifications
What they are. A comet is a notification, drifting across your sky — the home screen — so you can catch it. When an app posts a notification, it streaks across the sky; hold it and a small menu opens to act on the real notification.
Catching a comet
Behavior. Press and hold on a drifting comet. Its flight freezes and a floating menu opens beside it with three choices: "open", "dismiss", and "snooze 30 min". These act on the actual notification behind the comet.
Catch grace. A small movement of your finger while catching won't turn the hold into a flick, so slow comets are still easy to grab. You can widen that wiggle room at Settings › system › comets · notifications › catch grace (dp). The slider runs from 0 to 40, where "0 = default". It shows only while comets are on.
Turning comets on and off
The switch. Settings › system › comets · notifications › notifications drift by as comets is on by default. Turn it off and notifications no longer appear on the sky.
What comets need. Comets read your notifications through a system permission called notification access, granted to "Zenith comets". Until you grant it, the section shows "comets need notification access for “Zenith comets”", with an "enable comet feed →" button that opens the system screen to turn it on. Once connected, it reads "comet feed connected ✦ — hold a comet to catch it (open · dismiss · snooze)".
What becomes a comet. Only fresh, dismissible notifications from other apps become comets. Ongoing ones (like a music player or a download), Zenith's own notifications, and blank ones are skipped. A comet shows the app and the notification's title — or its text, when it has no title. No icons are carried.
Notifications Zenith itself sends
What they are. Separate from comets, Zenith can send you a few of its own notifications. Each kind has its own switch at Settings › system › notifications, and a switched-off kind is never sent — not merely silenced.
The three kinds:
- Backups — when your sky is backed up. Tapping opens settings.
- Zenith Gold — purchase and restore confirmations. Tapping opens the Gold screen.
- New Zenith apps — when another app in the suite is installed. Tapping opens deep sky — the full A–Z list of every app.
Each kind is on until you turn it off. On a locked phone, a Zenith notification shows only "Zenith Launcher", never its words. On Android 13 and newer, Android asks before Zenith can send any. Zenith asks in the welcome's "notifications" step, with "allow →" and "skip". Say no and you see "notifications stay off — you can allow them in android settings". While they're off, Settings › system › notifications reads "android has these off for now. zenith only sends the three below." with an "allow notifications →" button. Say no there and it reads "android has zenith's notifications off — you can allow them in android settings", with "open android settings →" when Android won't ask again. Without the permission, or with Zenith's notifications blocked in Android's settings, nothing is sent.
See also.
Catch comets · The permissions gestures need, and why · Zenith gets killed / notifications die after reboot · The ring & list mode