01
Music from any app
Solaris, a player, a video in your browser: if it reports to Windows' media controls, Zahir shows it, with its cover art.
in final testing · for Windows · by Northlane Studio
What's happening, always in sight.
Zahir is a small island that lives at the top of your Windows screen. It shows what's playing, your batteries, a timer and the weather, grows when you point at it, and steps aside for games and movies.
In final testing
See what it does
Low Tide
70%
82%
Low Tide
Marina Vale
ZahirNothing playing
5:00
CPU
14%
GPU
22%
RAM
47%
22°
Partly cloudyYour city15° / 26°
- Size
- 5.3 MB
- for the whole program. It runs on the WebView2 already built into Windows.
- At rest
- 0%
- CPU with nothing playing, measured on the current build.
- Windows to manage
- 0
- Just the island and an icon in the tray.
- Sources
- Any
- app that reports to Windows' media controls, even a video in your browser.
01What Zahir does
Always there, never in the way
Zahir is Arabic for "the visible", and a story by Borges in the same book as The Aleph. Everything on this list is in the build we are testing.
02
Controls without switching
Play, pause, next and previous, plus how far along the song is. No need to go find the app that's playing.
03
Grows when you point at it
Small until your mouse gets there, then it opens with a short bounce. Move away and it goes back to its place.
04
The rest of the screen stays yours
Only the island takes clicks. Everything around it goes straight through to whatever you are working on.
05
Nothing to open
No main window, no dashboard, no taskbar button. The island at the top and an icon in the tray are the whole app.
06
Part of the family
Built on Zenith, in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Change the appearance in another Northlane app on your PC and the island follows.
07
A timer always in sight
Five, ten or twenty-five minutes. The countdown stays on the island, and it tells you when time is up.
08
How busy your PC is
CPU, GPU and memory, one tab away. It only measures while you are looking.
09
The weather
Temperature, conditions and the day’s range for your city, with no permission to give and no account to create.
10
Your batteries
Bluetooth headphones report their charge when they connect. On a laptop you also see when it plugs in or runs low.
11
Camera and microphone
A small icon whenever an app is using them, so you always know.
12
Steps aside in full screen
Games and movies get the whole screen. The island comes back when you leave.
02The island
Small until you need it
Quiet, playing, telling you something, or open. Shown here at actual size.
Quiet
The mark and the time. This is what it looks like most of the day.
Low Tide
Something's playing
Cover, title and small moving bars. When you pause, the bars stop and it dims.
Your headphones
70%
Telling you something
Headphones connected, charger unplugged, time's up. A few seconds, then it goes back.
70%82%
Low TideMarina Vale
1:02
Open
Music, timer, performance and weather, one move of the mouse away.
03Built light
An app that's open all day has to weigh little
That's why Zahir is written in Rust on Tauri instead of Electron. Measured on the current build: about 5 MB on disk and about 175 MB of memory, WebView2 included.
01
Listens instead of checking
Music, camera and microphone arrive as events from Windows, and the clock wakes up once a minute. Batteries and full screen are a quick look every few seconds.
02
Draws only what you can see
The progress bar moves only while the island is open, the small bars stop on pause, and performance is measured only on its tab.
03
Opens without a flicker
The window never actually resizes. It keeps one size and only the visible shape changes, so the bounce stays smooth.
04Next
More to show, same small island
What we want the island to do next. None of this is in the app yet.
Lyrics
The current line of the song, right on the island.
File shelf
Drop files on the island and pick them up again from any window.
Nothing here has a date.
05Status
Zahir is in final testing
It's in its last round of testing before release, so it isn't available to buy or download yet. When it's ready, you'll get it here: one payment, with no subscription and no account.
Windows · final testing
- Windows 10 & 11
- In final testing
- macOS & Linux
- Not yet
- Price
- 15 USD, one payment
- One key
- up to 3 computers