Ring Launcher

Pick a feature by direction from a ring that appears around the cursor. Press the left and right mouse buttons together and it appears wherever you are (Ctrl+Shift+Space works too; the key can be changed under Settings → "Shortcut Keys").

It is a feature you use while holding the mouse, so summoning it takes nothing but the mouse. Single left and right clicks behave exactly as before — only the moment a second button goes down is examined, and the first press is always passed straight through.

Where the command palette (2-12) is the route that reaches every feature by name, this is the route that reaches the eight you use most without moving your hand. Both entry points share the same catalogue of features.

• Hold, flick toward one, and let go — it runs right there. Flicking far is fine: the ring stays live past its outer edge, so only the direction matters. Let go without moving and the ring simply stays open.
• Release straight away and the ring stays open. Pick with a click, 1–8, the numeric keypad (where the key's position is the direction — 8 is up, 6 is right, 3 is lower right), or the arrow keys plus Enter. When you summoned it with the key, holding it and pressing 3 is the quickest route of all.
• To close: Esc, the same gesture again, a click outside the ring, or switching to another app.
• The file list underneath never starts a drag while the ring is up. Moving the mouse with a button still held affects neither the selection nor any drag.
• Your keyboard focus never moves. You can be in the nav pane tree or midway through typing in the search box and carry straight on afterwards.
• It opens while you are typing in the terminal too — with the two buttons or with the key. In that case the digits and arrows go to the terminal, so you pick with the mouse (the number labels are hidden as well).
• You can see what is currently on. Features with an on/off state, such as the split modes and the nav panes, light a thin outer arc the moment the ring opens.
• The contents are yours to change under Settings → "Ring Launcher" (see 1-3-1). Summoning the ring and its eight starting entries are available to everyone.
• The look and motion can be chosen from five presets (Settings → "Ring Launcher" → "Design"). That one is available to everyone too.

A second ring (multi-level mode, Pro)

When eight is not enough, a second ring can sit beyond a slot (set the mode to Multi-level, then press [Sub-ring] on the Assignment tab).

• The parent ring stays where it is and the child blooms outside it. Keep the buttons held, flick to the entry, then flick further out and release: your finger never stops on the way to the deeper feature.
• You never lose sight of where you came from. The parent you came through stays lit, the centre reads "parent › child", and a small outward mark sits on every slot that leads somewhere.
• While the buttons are held, there are only two ways to close a child — return to the centre, or move to a different slot. A shaky hand will not make the rings flicker.
• Once the ring is left standing, moving the pointer never switches rings. The child blooms outside the parent, so heading straight for the entry you want always takes you across another slot; switching there would force you to arc around the rim instead. To open a different slot, click it (or use 1–8 / Enter). Passing back through the centre does not close it either.
• With the ring left open, 1–8, a click, or Enter goes down, and BackSpace, a click in the centre, or a right-click goes back up. Esc and a click outside the ring both close the whole thing from any depth — clicking outside means "never mind", so it never just folds one layer away.
• Nesting goes two levels deep (8 + 7×8 = up to 64 entries).
• If you do not use sub-rings, the ring's size and feel are completely unchanged. It only grows once a sub-ring is attached, so near a screen edge the ring is pulled inward (and the cursor moves to its centre with it).

The starting layout gives each direction a meaning.

Direction	Feature
Upper left	Single pane
Up	Side-by-side panes
Upper right	Stacked panes
Left	Show / hide the left nav pane
Right	Show / hide the right nav pane
Lower left	New folder
Down	Working sets
Lower right	Terminal

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