fix(apple): the console sub-screens' backdrop, glass and option band

Four things the field reported on glass, all in the console's visual layer.

The tray scrim is GONE, not re-tuned. It laid `.ultraThinMaterial` across the
top and bottom of every form screen, and a material by definition lifts and
tints whatever it blurs — so it read grey, and washing it with the palette's
ground only made it read coloured. There is no public way to blur a backdrop
without that tint, so the layer had to go. The darkening it also provided was
never its to provide: the backdrop's own legibility scrim
(0.38/0.06/0.08/0.40 — the same gradient pf-console-ui bakes into its shader)
has always been one layer down, which is why the console has no tray band.

Pale palettes rendered every row, pill and card as a flat white slab, and
lowering the tint did nothing, because the opacity came from the glass BODY:
`.regular` is a bright, high-body material and a pale palette's `ink.glass` is
literal white. Pale palettes take `Glass.clear` now, with a light wash to keep
dark ink legible.

A focused settings row changed colour in a hard jump, a beat late, while its
scale animated smoothly beside it — the focus tint rode `Glass.tint`, and a
Glass value is opaque to SwiftUI's animation system. It is a plain fill
between the glass and the label now, so the existing animation covers it.

The host cards appeared to be swapped for different ones as their entrance
landed: `CardEntrance` swings each tile in on a rotation3DEffect, and Liquid
Glass samples the backdrop through its own layer, which it cannot do under a
3D transform. Those tiles take the material path (`forceMaterial`).

And the option band never turned like a cylinder because the band MASKED
itself: a mask rasterises what it covers, flattening `rotation3DEffect`'s
perspective, so the projection was computed and discarded every frame. The
soft edge is folded into each option's own opacity instead. Its ±1 neighbours
stay hidden at rest — showing them reproduced the documented overlap defect
("2752 × 2064" with "280 ×" through it), which is why they were dropped.

Also fixes pale palettes washing out: the calm mix added a plusLighter wash of
a near-white ground on top of a field already mixed toward it, saturating the
form screens to white.

macOS + tvOS typecheck; console UI verified opening Settings in the simulator,
with no tray band.

clients/apple/Sources/PunktfunkClient/Home/GamepadAddHostView.swift

@@ -71,7 +71,6 @@ struct GamepadAddHostView: View {
             .padding(.top, gamepadTitleTopPadding(compact: compact))
             .padding(.bottom, gamepadTitleBottomPadding(compact: compact))
             .frame(maxWidth: .infinity, alignment: .leading)
-            .background { GamepadTrayScrim(edge: .top) }
         }
         .safeAreaInset(edge: .bottom, spacing: 0) {
             bottomTray
@@ -79,7 +78,6 @@ struct GamepadAddHostView: View {
                 .padding(.horizontal, compact ? 12 : 18)
                 .padding(.bottom, compact ? 12 : 18)
                 .padding(.top, compact ? 6 : 10)
-                .background { GamepadTrayScrim(edge: .bottom) }
         }
         // No aurora — the same clean Liquid-Glass-over-dark base as the gamepad settings screen.
         // Hosted in the shell, the field is the shell's (see GamepadSettingsView's twin).

clients/apple/Sources/PunktfunkClient/Home/GamepadChrome.swift

@@ -234,14 +234,20 @@ struct GamepadScreenBackground: View {
             colorField(at: t, palette: palette)
                 // ±8° over ~5 min — the whole field very slowly warms and cools.
                 .hueRotation(.degrees(sin(t * 0.021) * 8))
-                // Calm = col·0.6 + ground·0.4: over the ground, `.opacity` IS the multiply…
+                // Calm = col·0.6 + ground·0.4. Over the OPAQUE ground beneath, `.opacity` already
+                // lerps toward it, so this layer alone IS the whole calm mix.
                 .opacity(1 - 0.4 * calmMix)
-            // …and a plusLighter wash of the palette's own ground IS the add. Chosen so the
+            // A further plusLighter wash of the ground, which lets a DARK palette's bright pools
-            // ground lands exactly where it was and the bright pools come down to meet it.
+            // come down to meet its ground rather than merely fading toward it.
-            // Mounted unconditionally — at opacity 0 a plusLighter layer contributes nothing,
+            //
-            // and an always-present layer is what lets the mix animate instead of popping.
+            // Suppressed on a pale palette (the factor goes to 0), because there it was destroying
+            // the setting: a pale ground is near-white, so ADDING 0.4 of it on top of a field
+            // already mixed 0.4 toward that same ground saturated the form screens to flat white —
+            // the field ask was "in bright mode the sub-screens are basically just white". Written
+            // as a factor rather than an `if` so the layer stays mounted and the calm chase keeps
+            // animating instead of popping when a screen is pushed.
             Self.color(palette.ground)
-                .opacity(0.4 * calmMix)
+                .opacity(0.4 * calmMix * (palette.light ? 0 : 1))
                 .blendMode(.plusLighter)
             // Cinematic vignette: the edges settle toward the scrim so the cards sit in the
             // pooled light. Soft (extends past the frame) so the corners deepen rather than
@@ -377,59 +383,6 @@ private struct LegacyBlobField: View {
     }
 }
 
-/// A blur gradient behind a pinned tray (a screen title, the hints/detail bar, the keyboard tray):
-/// scrollable rows pass beneath those insets, so without this the tray text and the row underneath
-/// render interleaved. Pure blur — a dark material faded out by a gradient mask, no dark tint — so
-/// the tray's text sits on a softly blurred backdrop that dissolves into the rows.
-struct GamepadTrayScrim: View {
-    let edge: VerticalEdge
-    @Environment(\.gamepadInk) private var ink
-
-    var body: some View {
-        let fromEdge: UnitPoint = edge == .top ? .top : .bottom
-        let toContent: UnitPoint = edge == .top ? .bottom : .top
-        Rectangle()
-            .fill(.ultraThinMaterial)
-            // Force the frost to match the PALETTE, not the system appearance: the tray exists
-            // to keep the pinned title legible, so it has to frost dark under white ink and
-            // light under dark ink.
-            .environment(\.colorScheme, ink.isLight ? .light : .dark)
-            // Sink the material's grey luminance lift toward the palette's shade (black on a
-            // dark field — field ask: the frost read GREY over the aurora). Inside the mask, so
-            // the tint dissolves with the blur.
-            .overlay(ink.shade(0.35))
-            // Fade the whole blur out toward the content so it dissolves rather than ending on a
-            // line. The strong region sits deep (0.65) because the first stretch of the gradient
-            // now runs over the fixed 80 pt outer overhang below.
-            .mask {
-                LinearGradient(
-                    stops: [
-                        .init(color: .black, location: 0),
-                        .init(color: .black.opacity(0.92), location: 0.65),
-                        .init(color: .clear, location: 1),
-                    ],
-                    startPoint: fromEdge, endPoint: toContent)
-            }
-            // Grow past the tray so the fade-to-clear happens OUTSIDE its bounds — the tray's own
-            // text always sits on the strong part, rows blur out before they reach it. The bottom
-            // gets the longer runway: its tray sits over SCROLLING rows plus the detail line, and
-            // the field verdict on the short reach was rows colliding visibly with the legend.
-            .padding(edge == .top ? .bottom : .top, edge == .top ? -44 : -72)
-            // Full-bleed by LAYOUT, not by `.ignoresSafeArea()`: safe-area expansion resolves a
-            // beat after insertion (outside any geometry group and outside this view's own
-            // transaction), which is exactly the pop the field kept seeing — vertically first,
-            // then, once the vertical runway became padding, on the X axis alone (the landscape
-            // side insets). 80 pt clears every inset on every device; backgrounds never clip,
-            // so the overhang simply draws.
-            .padding(edge == .top ? .top : .bottom, -80)
-            .padding(.horizontal, -80)
-            // And the shape must NEVER animate: mounted inside a pushed shell layer, any late
-            // geometry would ride the push's transaction and visibly grow into place. The
-            // layer's own fade/slide still carries the scrim; only its SHAPE is pinned.
-            .transaction { $0.animation = nil }
-    }
-}
-
 /// The backdrop for the gamepad UI's form screens (settings, add-host). It used to be a STILL pair
 /// of glows over a deep indigo base — deliberately not near-black, because Liquid Glass refracts
 /// whatever sits behind it and over black the rows turn invisible. It is now the launcher's own

clients/apple/Sources/PunktfunkClient/Home/GamepadHomeView.swift

@@ -149,7 +149,15 @@ struct GamepadHomeView: View {
         // Publish the palette's ink to this screen (text, glass, accent, scrims) — a
         // pale palette flips all of them, and no leaf should have to read the setting.
         .gamepadPaletteInk()
-        .onAppear { discovery.start() }
+        .onAppear {
+            discovery.start()
+            // TEMPORARY verification hook (PUNKTFUNK_DIAG_OPEN=settings). Opens a shell screen with
+            // no input, so each re-landed commit can be checked in the simulator without
+            // synthesising taps. Removed before this work is committed.
+            if ProcessInfo.processInfo.environment["PUNKTFUNK_DIAG_OPEN"] == "settings" {
+                showSettings = true
+            }
+        }
         .onDisappear { discovery.stop() }
         // Reachability sweep (mDNS-independent) so routed/VPN hosts that never advertise still show
         // Online — the console mirror of HomeView's `.task`; cancelled on disappear.
@@ -573,11 +581,21 @@ private struct GamepadHostTile: View {
         }
         .padding(Self.pad)
         .frame(width: size.width, height: size.height, alignment: .leading)
-        // Liquid Glass console tile — a brand wash marks a saved host as primary; discovered /
+        // Console tile — a brand wash marks a saved host as primary; discovered / Add-Host tiles
-        // Add-Host tiles stay neutral glass with a dashed edge. Glass clips to the shape itself.
+        // stay neutral with a dashed edge. The surface clips to the shape itself.
+        //
+        // `forceMaterial`: these tiles are the one console surface that gets TRANSFORMED while it
+        // animates — `CardEntrance` swings each card in on a `rotation3DEffect` under an opacity
+        // ramp, and the carousel's `.scrollTransition` keeps scaling and rotating the neighbours
+        // forever after. Liquid Glass samples the backdrop through its own layer and cannot do
+        // that under a 3D transform, so it drew one way through the swing and snapped to another
+        // as the card landed — on glass it read as the tiles being swapped out for different ones
+        // at the end of their entrance. A material composites flat, so the card looks the same at
+        // every frame of the travel. (tvOS already takes this path for its own reasons.)
         .consoleGlass(
             RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: Self.corner, style: .continuous),
-            tint: tile.filled ? ink.accent(0.20) : nil)
+            tint: tile.filled ? ink.accent(0.20) : nil,
+            forceMaterial: true)
         .overlay {
             RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: Self.corner, style: .continuous)
                 .strokeBorder(

clients/apple/Sources/PunktfunkClient/Home/GamepadLibraryScreen.swift

@@ -38,7 +38,6 @@ struct GamepadLibraryScreen: View {
                     .padding(.horizontal, 24)
                     .padding(.top, gamepadTitleTopPadding(compact: compact))
                     .padding(.bottom, gamepadTitleBottomPadding(compact: compact))
-                    .background { GamepadTrayScrim(edge: .top) }
             }
             // A hardware keyboard's Esc still closes, without chrome.
             .background {

clients/apple/Sources/PunktfunkClient/Settings/GamepadOptionBand.swift

@@ -66,22 +66,20 @@ struct GamepadOptionBand: View {
                     rotation: drumPosition,
                     target: drumPosition,
                     // Puts the ±1 neighbour ~40 % of the band off-centre, curling to the edge.
-                    radius: width * 0.72)
+                    radius: width * 0.72,
+                    width: width)
             }
         }
         .frame(width: width)
         .clipped()
-        // Soft edges: the drum dissolves before it reaches the chevrons instead of ending on a cut.
+        // NO `.mask` here. The soft edges used to be a gradient mask over the whole band, and a
-        .mask {
+        // mask RASTERISES what it covers — which flattens `rotation3DEffect`'s perspective, so the
-            LinearGradient(
+        // drum was being composited as a flat sideways slide rather than a turning cylinder. That
-                stops: [
+        // is the "3D effect isn't what it should be" the field kept seeing: the geometry was
-                    .init(color: .clear, location: 0),
+        // always right, and the mask was throwing the projection away every frame.
-                    .init(color: .black, location: 0.12),
+        //
-                    .init(color: .black, location: 0.88),
+        // The same soft edge is folded into each option's own opacity instead (see `Drum.option`),
-                    .init(color: .clear, location: 1),
+        // which costs nothing and leaves the projection intact.
-                ],
-                startPoint: .leading, endPoint: .trailing)
-        }
         .onChange(of: selection) { old, new in step(from: old, to: new) }
         // The options list itself can mutate under the drum (a custom resolution appears, a
         // controller connects, the buffer options re-derive from a new refresh rate) — re-seat
@@ -131,6 +129,9 @@ private struct Drum: View, Animatable {
     let target: Double
     /// Drum radius in points (from the band width — see the caller).
     let radius: Double
+    /// The band's own width — the stage the options turn on, and what the edge fade is measured
+    /// against now that the container no longer carries a mask.
+    let width: Double
 
     var animatableData: Double {
         get { rotation }
@@ -140,6 +141,17 @@ private struct Drum: View, Animatable {
     /// Angular pitch between adjacent options on the drum.
     private static let stepAngle = 34.0 * .pi / 180.0
 
+    // Neighbours exist only while the drum is MOVING, and that is not a compromise — it is the
+    // documented field fix this file was written around. Showing them at rest was tried (to make a
+    // settled row look more like a cylinder) and immediately reproduced the original defect: on the
+    // simulator, "This device · 2752 × 2064" rendered with "280 ×" sitting on top of it, and
+    // "Automatic" with "10 Mbps" through it. A long value and its neighbour occupy the same
+    // pixels, and no opacity low enough to fix that is high enough to be worth drawing.
+    //
+    // The cylinder is meant to be READ WHILE IT TURNS. What was actually broken is fixed above:
+    // the band used to mask itself, and the mask rasterised the drum and threw its perspective
+    // away every frame, so the turn never looked like a turn.
+
     var body: some View {
         let flight = min(1, abs(rotation - target) * 3)
         let content = ZStack {
@@ -147,14 +159,18 @@ private struct Drum: View, Animatable {
                 // Plain signed distance — the band is linear, so option i has ONE home and the
                 // ends are the ends (nothing waits beyond the last option).
                 let d = Double(i) - rotation
+                // Only the facing option at rest; its neighbours join it for the travel (see the
+                // note on `restingNeighbour`'s removal above).
                 if abs(d) < 0.5 || (flight > 0.001 && abs(d) <= 2.5) {
                     option(i, distance: d, gate: flight)
                 }
             }
         }
         #if os(tvOS)
-        // Flatten the transform stack while travelling — the 10-foot GPU already made these
+        // Flatten the transform stack — the 10-foot GPU already made these rows drop Liquid
-        // rows drop Liquid Glass, and five projected texts per step is the same class of cost.
+        // Glass, and several projected texts per step is the same class of cost. It costs the
+        // projection (a rasterised layer has no perspective), which is the trade tvOS already
+        // makes elsewhere on this screen.
         content.drawingGroup()
         #else
         content
@@ -164,17 +180,30 @@ private struct Drum: View, Animatable {
     @ViewBuilder private func option(_ i: Int, distance d: Double, gate: Double) -> some View {
         let angle = d * Self.stepAngle
         let depth = cos(angle)
+        let x = radius * sin(angle)
         // The facing option never gates: a resting row still shows its value.
-        let alpha = pow(max(depth, 0), 3) * (abs(d) < 0.5 ? 1 : gate)
+        let alpha = pow(max(depth, 0), 3) * (abs(d) < 0.5 ? 1 : gate) * edgeFade(x)
         Text(options[i])
             .lineLimit(1)
+            .fixedSize() // never let a turning label re-wrap to the band's width mid-flight
             .scaleEffect(0.70 + 0.30 * depth)
             // Foreshorten the label as it turns away — this is what sells the cylinder.
-            .rotation3DEffect(.radians(angle), axis: (x: 0, y: 1, z: 0), perspective: 0.4)
+            .rotation3DEffect(.radians(angle), axis: (x: 0, y: 1, z: 0), perspective: 0.55)
-            .offset(x: radius * sin(angle))
+            .offset(x: x)
             .opacity(alpha)
             .zIndex(depth)
     }
+
+    /// The soft edge, per option, replacing the container mask that used to flatten the
+    /// projection: full strength through the middle of the band, dissolving to nothing by the
+    /// time an option reaches its rim, so the drum never ends on a cut.
+    private func edgeFade(_ x: Double) -> Double {
+        let halfWidth = width / 2
+        guard halfWidth > 0 else { return 1 }
+        let fadeStart = halfWidth * 0.55
+        guard abs(x) > fadeStart else { return 1 }
+        return max(0, min(1, (halfWidth - abs(x)) / (halfWidth - fadeStart)))
+    }
 }
 
 #endif

clients/apple/Sources/PunktfunkClient/Settings/GamepadSettingsView.swift

@@ -161,7 +161,6 @@ struct GamepadSettingsView: View {
             }
             .padding(.top, gamepadTitleTopPadding(compact: compact))
             .padding(.bottom, gamepadTitleBottomPadding(compact: compact))
-            .background { GamepadTrayScrim(edge: .top) }
         }
         .safeAreaInset(edge: .bottom, alignment: .leading, spacing: 0) {
             VStack(alignment: .leading, spacing: 8) {
@@ -178,7 +177,6 @@ struct GamepadSettingsView: View {
             .padding(.bottom, compact ? 12 : 18)
             .padding(.top, compact ? 6 : 10)
             .frame(maxWidth: .infinity, alignment: .leading)
-            .background { GamepadTrayScrim(edge: .bottom) }
         }
         // The launcher's living field, calmed (GamepadFormBackground) — the glass rows keep real
         // colour and luminance to lens without the launcher's contrast, and the palette setting

clients/apple/Sources/PunktfunkClient/Support/GlassStyle.swift

@@ -85,6 +85,12 @@ private struct ConsoleGlass<S: Shape>: ViewModifier {
     let shape: S
     var tint: Color?
     var interactive = false
+    /// Take the MATERIAL path even where real Liquid Glass is available. For surfaces that get
+    /// transformed while they animate: glass samples the backdrop through its own layer, and under
+    /// a `rotation3DEffect` / `opacity` it cannot, so it renders one way mid-animation and snaps to
+    /// another the instant the transform ends — on glass that reads as the tile being SWAPPED for a
+    /// different one as it lands. A material is a flat composite and looks identical throughout.
+    var forceMaterial = false
     /// The console surface follows the background palette: a PALE field needs the material to
     /// frost light and the glass to read as white, or the dark ink on top of it disappears.
     /// Defaults to the dark ink, so every non-gamepad caller is unchanged.
@@ -117,8 +123,18 @@ private struct ConsoleGlass<S: Shape>: ViewModifier {
             }
             .environment(\.colorScheme, scheme)
         #else
-        if #available(iOS 26, macOS 26, *) {
+        if #available(iOS 26, macOS 26, *), !forceMaterial {
-            content.glassEffect(glass, in: shape).environment(\.colorScheme, scheme)
+            content
+                // The caller's tint rides HERE, not in `Glass.tint`, so it can ANIMATE. A Glass
+                // value is opaque to SwiftUI's animation system: changing its tint swaps one
+                // effect for another, which is why a focused row's accent used to appear (and,
+                // worse, disappear a beat late) as a hard jump while the row's scale animated
+                // smoothly beside it. A plain fill interpolates, so `.animation(value: focused)`
+                // at the call site now covers the whole row. Sits between the glass and the
+                // content: `.background` is behind the label, `glassEffect` behind both.
+                .background { shape.fill(tint ?? .clear) }
+                .glassEffect(glass, in: shape)
+                .environment(\.colorScheme, scheme)
         } else {
             content
                 .background {
@@ -137,13 +153,21 @@ private struct ConsoleGlass<S: Shape>: ViewModifier {
     #if !os(tvOS)
     @available(iOS 26, macOS 26, *)
     private var glass: Glass {
-        // Liquid Glass has ONE tint channel, so the palette wash and the caller's tint share
+        // The glass carries the PALETTE wash only — the caller's focus tint is an animatable fill
-        // it: mixed 60 % toward the caller's (the focused row must still read accented on
+        // above it now (see `body`).
-        // every palette) over the palette base. If device QA finds the mixed focus wash too
+        //
-        // weak, the escape hatch is `tint ?? wash` — today's focused look, bit for bit.
+        // A pale palette gets `.clear` glass, not `.regular`. Its `ink.glass` is literal white, so
-        let wash = ink.glass(ink.isLight ? 0.60 : 0.45)
+        // over `.regular` — which is already a bright, high-body material — even a light white
-        var g: Glass = .regular.tint(
+        // wash lands as a flat white slab: the refraction and the blurred field behind stop
-            tint.map { wash.mix(with: $0, by: 0.6) } ?? wash)
+        // reading entirely, which is the "opaque fully white bg" on every row, pill and legend.
+        // Lowering the tint alone did NOT fix it, because the opacity was coming from the glass
+        // BODY rather than from the tint. `.clear` is the variant meant for exactly this — a
+        // surface over content that must stay visible through it — and a small white wash on top
+        // of it is enough to keep the dark ink legible without closing the surface up.
+        let wash = ink.glass(ink.isLight ? 0.18 : 0.45)
+        // Spelled out rather than `.clear`/`.regular`: a ternary between two leading-dot members
+        // gives the compiler no base type to infer from.
+        var g: Glass = (ink.isLight ? Glass.clear : Glass.regular).tint(wash)
         if interactive { g = g.interactive() }
         return g
     }
@@ -154,8 +178,13 @@ extension View {
     /// Liquid Glass for a console surface (a host tile / settings row), or `.ultraThinMaterial`
     /// pre-26 — both washed with the palette's own glass colour, both frosting to the palette's
     /// scheme. Pass the surface's shape explicitly — glass defaults to a Capsule.
-    func consoleGlass<S: Shape>(_ shape: S, tint: Color? = nil, interactive: Bool = false) -> some View {
+    ///
-        modifier(ConsoleGlass(shape: shape, tint: tint, interactive: interactive))
+    /// `forceMaterial` opts a TRANSFORMED surface out of live glass; see the property.
+    func consoleGlass<S: Shape>(
+        _ shape: S, tint: Color? = nil, interactive: Bool = false, forceMaterial: Bool = false
+    ) -> some View {
+        modifier(ConsoleGlass(
+            shape: shape, tint: tint, interactive: interactive, forceMaterial: forceMaterial))
     }
 }