The window

Reveal is one window with one loop in it: look at a folder, pick what is good, develop it, write it up. Everything below is a different way of looking at the same folder.

The sidebar

The sidebar is a floating card on the left. From the top:

• The brand row: three buttons and the REVEAL wordmark. They show or hide the folder panel (b), switch Focus mode (o), and flip between light and dark (l). The wordmark opens the list of keyboard shortcuts, the same one ? shows.
• Frames and Editorial: two tabs. Frames is the folder tree. Editorial swaps it for the story tools described in Stories.
• All Library is everything Reveal has indexed, across every catalogue, with a total.
• One section per catalogue. A catalogue is a folder you added with the + button: pick it once, and Reveal indexes everything under it. Libraries do not nest: a folder that is already inside one is already part of it, and a folder that contains a library asks you to remove that library first. The Apple Photos library, if you connect it, appears as a catalogue of its own. Each section opens into the folder tree, with a photo count on every row and a small dot on folders that already contain a story.
• Library and your Garden account sit at the bottom.

Right-click a catalogue or folder to reveal it in the Finder or re-index just that part. When the panel is hidden, hovering the folder button shows it temporarily; clicking pins it open again.

The grid

Choosing a folder shows its photos in the grid.

• Layout. m switches between a uniform grid and masonry, which keeps each photo’s real shape. + and − show fewer or more photos; add ⇧ to change the margin between them.
• Moving. Arrow keys move through the grid.
• Selecting. A click replaces the selection, ⌘-click adds or removes one photo, ⇧-click selects a range. ⌘A selects everything, ⌘D nothing.
• Looking closely. Space opens the photo on its own, and Space again returns to the grid. f makes it full screen. Esc always takes you back.
• Rating. 1 to 5 give stars, 0 clears them. Stars show on the photo itself.

Develop and Editorial

Two things happen to a photo once you have picked it.

Develop (d) opens the selected photo alone, with the development panel beside it (⇧D shows or hides the panel). Changes are saved per photo and are never written into the original. This is the subject of the Develop book.

Editorial (s) is not a separate place: it is a filter on the same grid, and it turns the folder into a note you can publish. See Stories.

Focus mode and appearance

Focus mode (o) blurs and desaturates everything on screen except Reveal’s window, then lays a flat dark wash over it. It is for the two-hundredth frame of an edit, when what sits in your peripheral vision starts to decide what you can still see.

Appearance (l) switches between light and dark, following the system. A photo is judged against its surround, and a white panel around a dark frame lies to you about contrast.

Preferences, including the interface text size, are in the settings window: ⌘,.