First launch

When you open Orrery for the first time, a starter universe is already waiting for you — a small solar system with a main goal (the sun), two orbit planets, and a third planet that carries two moons.

The starter universe exists so the overlay is immediately alive and meaningful without any setup. You can replace any project name or delete them all and start fresh — the overlay rebuilds instantly.

macOS first run: right-click the app icon → Open the first time to pass Gatekeeper. After that it launches normally.

After launch, the app opens the Projects page automatically so you can rename the placeholders to match your actual work.

Your projects

Every project becomes a celestial body. The structure maps to the solar system:

The sun — your main goal

The first top-level project is always the sun. It sits at the centre, always brightest. Give it the name of the one thing that matters most right now.

Planets — top-level projects

Every other top-level project becomes a planet in its own orbit. Weight (1–10) controls its size and orbit radius. The planet with the highest weight wears the rings — your largest active project becomes the ring host automatically.

Moons — sub-projects (sputniks)

Indent a project under another to make it a moon. Moons orbit their parent planet. Use them for tasks, sub-projects, or anything that belongs under a specific goal. Maximum two levels deep.

Opening the Projects page

Press Esc to open the menu, then select Projects. From there you can rename, add, remove, and reorder projects. Changes appear in the overlay live — no restart needed.

Sizing planets in the overlay

While in Inspect mode (hold Ctrl), you can resize planets directly in the 3D view:

Click on a planet — shrink it
Shift + Click — grow it

Size changes are saved automatically and reflected across all devices that share the same projects file.

Corner mode

Default state

Passive overlay — always visible, never in the way

Corner mode is the resting state. Orrery sits in the bottom-right corner of your screen as a small transparent window. Clicks pass straight through to apps behind it. The orbits keep moving quietly while you work.

When you hover over the overlay, it brightens. When you move away, it fades back. The fade threshold is adjustable in Config → Opacity.

The overlay follows your cursor between monitors if Config → Follow active screen is enabled. You can also drag it to any position by holding Ctrl and dragging.

The anchor dot

The small dot in the corner is the anchor icon. It pulses when there is a pending notification (an update or a news item). Click it — or press Esc — to open the menu.

Inspect mode

Hold Ctrl · macOS: ⌘

Top-down view — interact with your universe

Hold Ctrl (or ⌘ Cmd on macOS) while the cursor is inside the overlay window to enter Inspect mode. The camera snaps up to a top-down view, motion slows to make planets easier to click, and a glow appears around the window border.

What you can do in Inspect mode:

Click a planet → shrink it
Shift + Click → grow it
Scroll → zoom the view in or out
Ctrl + drag → move the overlay window
Ctrl + F → switch to fullscreen Space Mode
Esc → open the menu

Release Ctrl to exit Inspect mode. The camera drifts back into the passive flyby and the glow fades.

Tip: a semi-transparent HUD appears in the overlay corner when Inspect mode is active, listing all available actions. In corner mode it uses a larger font so it stays readable at the small window size.

Space Mode (fullscreen)

Ctrl + F

Your universe fills the screen

Press Ctrl + F from either corner mode or inspect mode to switch to Space Mode. The window expands to cover the entire display. The starfield appears, full MSAA kicks in, and high-resolution planet textures load.

Press Ctrl + F again — or select Exit Fullscreen from the menu — to return to corner mode.

While in Space Mode:

The overlay is fully opaque — nothing bleeds through from behind.
Hold Ctrl to enter Inspect mode inside Space Mode — top-down camera, planet resize, zoom all work the same way.
Press Esc to open the menu (Exit Fullscreen is the first option).
Press Space to cut to the next camera flyby scene.

Tip: Alt+Tab (or switching apps) collapses Space Mode back to the corner overlay automatically, so you can't get "stuck" fullscreen when you need to switch tasks.

License requirement

Space Mode requires a license key. You can still enter it while unlicensed — a prompt appears to activate. Inspect mode in corner mode is always free.

Window controls

Orrery runs as a borderless, transparent, always-on-top window. Here is how to control it:

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Move the window

Hold Ctrl to enter Inspect mode, then click and drag anywhere in the overlay. Release Ctrl to freeze its new position. The overlay follows whichever screen your cursor is on if Follow active screen is enabled in Config.

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Resize the window

Open the menu (Esc), go to Config, and adjust the Window size slider. The aspect ratio is fixed so the solar system always looks right.

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Opacity / hover reveal

In Config → Opacity you can set how transparent the overlay is when the cursor is elsewhere, and enable the hover-reveal fade so the overlay is nearly invisible until you hover over it.

Keyboard shortcuts

All shortcuts are rebindable. Open the menu (Esc) → Keymap to change any binding and save it.

Shortcut	Action
Global
`Ctrl` + `F`	Toggle fullscreen Space Mode / corner mode
`Esc`	Open menu (Projects, Keymap, Config, Quit)
`Space`	Skip to next camera flyby scene
`?` (slash)	Show quick key reference overlay
Inspect mode (hold Ctrl)
`Click`	Shrink the hovered planet
`Shift` + `Click`	Grow the hovered planet
`Scroll`	Zoom view in / out
`Ctrl` + drag	Move the overlay window
Menu navigation
`↑` `↓`	Move selection
`Enter`	Open selected item / confirm
`Esc`	Back / close menu

macOS note: Ctrl and ⌘ Cmd both work as the inspect/fullscreen modifier on macOS. The modifier monitor helper runs in the background so CTRL is detected even when the overlay window is not focused.