Today and Everything

Today

Only what needs you now:

• anything you have floated
• anything due today
• anything overdue

Nothing else. A todo does not turn up in Today because it looks important or because it has been sitting a while. It turns up because you floated it, or because a date has arrived. That is what keeps the list short enough to be worth reading every morning.

A todo you have anchored stays out of Today until it is due. On its day it turns up here like any other dated todo. A todo you set aside half-typed waits at the bottom here too, as it does in Everything.

When there is nothing to show, Float says so and leaves the screen quiet.

Today on your Home Screen

The Today widget shows the same Today, in the same order, on your Home Screen or your Mac desktop. Every size says Today at the top, with how many things Today holds beside it, and has a coral plus in the bottom corner for adding a todo. It comes in three sizes:

• Small: the first two things in Today. Tap it to open Today.
• Medium and Large: as many rows as fit, each with its circle, its date and its marks. On a Mac the rows are smaller, so more of them fit.

Tap the plus to add a todo. On iPhone, Float opens with the box ready to type in. On a Mac, the quick capture box appears over whatever you are doing, as it does when you press the shortcut.

A todo you set aside half-typed shows up too, after the others, with its dotted circle and the word Draft, just as it does in the list. Tap it to pick it back up where you left off.

Tap a circle to mark that todo done. It leaves the widget straight away, the rest move up, and the count at the top goes down by one. Float finishes the job the next time it opens, or at once on a Mac where it is already open: a repeating todo comes back for its next time, with its reminder, exactly as it does in the list. Tap anywhere else on a row to open that todo in Float.

The widget has no Undo. If you tick the wrong one, it is in Done like anything else you finish, and you can bring it back from there.

On iPhone, Today's count can sit on your Lock Screen, in the row of widgets under the clock: the sun, and how many things are in Today. It is the same number as on the app icon, at the top of the Today widget, and on a Mac in the Dock, counted the same way, so they always agree. When Today is clear it shows the sun on its own. Tap it to open Today.

The widgets never reorder anything. It is Today, shown somewhere else, and it keeps up with the day on its own: something due tomorrow appears in it tomorrow morning even if you have not opened Float.

Pushing something out of Today

Anything in Today can be deferred, and only what is in Today: it is the quickest way to say not today to something that is due. A todo due later has nothing to defer; change its date instead. Press and hold a todo (right-click on a Mac) and choose Defer until tomorrow, or Defer until the day your next week starts, which the menu names by its date.

You do not have to think about what moves. Float pushes whatever put the todo in Today in the first place:

• Floated? It comes back, still floated, on the day you chose.
• Due today or overdue? The date moves, and the reminder moves with it.
• Both? Both move together, so it comes back exactly as it left.

Deferring never hands a todo a deadline it did not already have. A floated todo you push to Thursday is not due Thursday; it simply floats again on Thursday, so it never turns red for being late to something you never promised.

Every defer offers you an Undo, and nothing changes position in the list: a todo you push out drops back to exactly the spot it came from.

Everything

The whole list, top to bottom, in the order you have put it in. This is where you add things, sort them out, and push things down out of the way. It is also where the darkening water means something: the further down you scroll, the darker it gets. New todos arrive down at the bottom, so the darkest part of the list is a mix of what you just added and what you dropped in long ago and never moved. Low Tide is what tells the two apart.

At the very bottom is a Done row, which opens what you have finished, with the Trash one tap away. It is there only when Done or the Trash has something in it.

What you have anchored

Anything you have anchored waits in a band of its own, just above those rows, below the rest of the list and closed up behind one row labelled Anchored, with the anchor beside it and, at its end, when the next one is due: next todo due Nov 11. Tap or click the row to open it, and the list scrolls down to show them; tap or click it again to close it. It is closed each time Float opens, so the bottom of your list stays quiet. If you have nothing anchored, the row is not there at all.

The todos inside look quieter than the rest of the list: a plainer card with a thin outline and a softer title, all the same shade however far down they sit. They wait soonest first, and on its day each one comes back up into Today, and near the top of Everything, with everything else that is due.

Search for one, or tap its reminder, and Float opens the band for you. On a Mac, Go → Anchored takes you to Everything with the band open. How to anchor a todo, and how to let one go, is in Float, surface, sink, anchor.

Getting back to the top

New todos go in at the bottom, so the bottom is where you tend to end up. Tap the view you are already on (the one that is lit) and the list jumps back to the top. It only scrolls; it does not change what you are looking at.

Nothing happens if you press the pill and slide it part way before letting go. That is how you change view, and changing your mind about it leaves the list exactly where it was.

On a Mac the Go menu has a row for it as well, with its key printed alongside.

The bar at the bottom

It switches between the two views, and on a Mac the Go menu does the same.

On an iPhone Duo there is nothing to switch: the screen decides. Folded, the outer screen shows Today; opened out, the inner screen shows Everything, whether you hold it upright or on its side. Fold or open the phone and the view changes with it, the water rising or falling as it does for a tap. Search sits at the top of the column down the right-hand edge, just below the time and the battery, and settings and the plus at the bottom, settings above the plus. While a todo is open, its own buttons take search's place; see Float, surface, sink, anchor. On the inner screen held upright there is no column: settings and search are at the top as on any iPhone, and the bar at the bottom holds only the plus. The Done row is at the foot of Everything, so on a Duo you reach it with the phone open. With the phone open, tapping the Today widget brings Float forward just as you left it.

Float opens on whichever view you were using when you last left it. On an iPhone Duo the screen decides instead.

The sky at the top

The strip above the water is not just a background. It follows the real position of the sun where you are, and the season. Mornings are pale, evenings go warm, and at night it goes dark and the stars come out.

The moon is the real one too. It rises and sets when it really does, in its real phase, and it comes out as the sun goes down rather than waiting for full dark, so a full moon rising at sunset, or a thin crescent after it, is there to see. Low on the horizon it looks bigger and turns orange, the way a rising moon does. At night it lays a path of light on the water, as bright as the moon is: faint under a crescent, and none without a moon.

The water follows the same light. In the middle of the day the sun lights the shallows, so the top of the sea is bright and it deepens below; at night the whole sea goes dark. In dark mode the change is gentler: the sea brightens a little by day and keeps its usual colour at night.

The sky moves on its own, and there is nothing to set for that: if you have turned on Reduce Motion in your system settings, Float holds the sky still and keeps the colours changing through the day.

One setting controls the rest, in Settings → General, and it is set separately on each device:

• Live weather: off unless you turn it on. If you do, Float asks for your location once and then shows real conditions: cloud flattens the light and turns the sea grey, clouds pass in front of the moon and its light on the water fades behind them, rain falls over the water, and fog lies on it. The sea is at its brightest on a clear, sunny day. The wind shapes it too: on a still day the water is glassy, and the windier it gets the bigger and choppier the waves, with whitecaps on them. Gusts sweep across the water, lines of wind cross the sky, and the clouds and the rain go the way the wind is really blowing. On a windy or squally day, the words at the top of the sky say so. The sailboat's sails fill as the wind rises and hang slack on a still day, and its pennant flies the way the wind blows. It asks for the rough area rather than a precise position, sends it to Apple's weather service to get the forecast, and keeps a rounded copy on this device so the sky still works offline. It is never synced between your devices and never sent to a server of Float's own. Turn live weather off and the copy is removed.

When a view is empty

When a view has nothing in it, the water is left open, and a small sailboat is out on it. Some days it has company, and the sky brings its own moments when the real weather allows. Float does not point any of it out: it is there to be noticed, or not.

The words in the sky are about the open time in front of you, with a light nod to the boat, and they never tell you how much is left or that you are done.

With Reduce Motion turned on in your system settings, the boat holds still, the same as the sky. It does not go away.