wTab — Widget Based New Tab Chrome Extension
Try it live at https://wtab-chrome-extension.pages.dev/
wTab is a Chrome new tab extension that brings a touch of the good old iGoogle inspiration to your start page. 10 drop in the widgets you care about—notes, todos, bookmarks, photos, weather, exchange rates, and more—and build a dashboard that meets you where your needs, simplified UI with shortcuts and customization settings with 3 themes.
Highlights
Widget-Driven Layout: Drag, resize, hide frames, and snap widgets to a grid. Widgets now carry a z-index—click any card to bring it to the front.
Layout snapshots: Save named layouts, restore them later, or delete them from Settings → Debug & Maintenance.
Search everywhere: Quick Search supports Google, ChatGPT, and custom providers via a lightweight settings modal—buttons use provider icons for typo-free searches.
Gorgeous backgrounds: Choose random imagery, your own photos, solid colours, or gradient presets—background swaps now respect your selection even if older random fetches finish later, and you can hand-edit the gradient CSS right inside Settings.
Hide-frame polish: Frame-free widgets auto-center their content, keep media controls solid, and add subtle accent glows so floating layouts stay legible on any photo.
Quick theme controls: Switch between Light, Dark, or Glass themes, pick an accent colour, and fine-tune the font.
One-click exports: Download your settings or widget layout, or reset everything from the maintenance tab.
Available Widgets
- Notes – Jot ideas with colour & font tweaks and optional frame hiding.
- Todo List – Track tasks with Todo/Done tabs and quick completion toggles.
- Bookmarks – Theme-aware shortcuts laid out in a clean grid.
- Photo Album – Switch between slideshow and grid modes, add photos inline, click any image to open in full-screen lightbox with next/prev navigation and keyboard shortcuts.
- Media Control – See and control audio/video across audible tabs, jump to the playing tab, or cycle sources with keyboard shortcuts.
- Quick Search – Search across multiple providers (Google, DuckDuckGo, ChatGPT, Bing, YouTube, GitHub) with icon-only buttons and easy provider switching.
- Open Tabs Counter – Displays your open-tab count and exports every URL as JSON.
Exchange Rates – Live dashboard backed by Coinbase with 40+ built-in currencies (fiat + crypto), custom currency support, selectable base, and auto-refresh intervals.
- Weather – Current conditions plus a multi-day forecast using Open-Meteo with automatic or manual locations.
- RSS Reader – Tabbed feeds, per-feed refreshing, and timestamped updates.
Quick Start
npm install
npm run build
Load the generated dist/ folder as an unpacked extension via chrome://extensions and make wTab your new tab page.
Development
npm run dev– Vite dev server with hot reload.npm run build– Production build (used for the extension bundle).
Helpful Gestures & Tips
- Right-click menu: Right-click the canvas to open the Add Widget menu at the cursor and drop widgets where you need them.
- Frame hiding: Use the widget menu to hide the frame—on hover you’ll still see the floating menu button for quick access.
- Keyboard: Many widgets listen for numeric shortcuts—press
1–9(orQfor the 10th slot) inside the Add Widget menu, and use Enter across search and todos so you can fly without a mouse. - Help overlay: Tap the new
?button near the add/settings controls for a quick tour covering UI basics, settings, shortcuts, and widget tips. - Debug: Visit Settings → Debug & Maintenance and toggle Force Outlines to outline each widget and its content while troubleshooting layouts.
Design Philosophy
wTab keeps aims to bring some nostalgia for the iGoogle era, It’s designed to be glanceable, themeable, and easy to tweak without ever leaving the browser.
Licensing
MIT License — feel free to remix wTab into your own perfect start page.
