There are lots of ways to customize the new tab experience. Some like using custom CSS or display a blank page, others rely on extensions like Group Speed Dial or Tabliss.
Want something that's user-friendly, customizable, and minimalistic? The add-on nightTab might be just the thing you need.
Install the extension and open a new tab to access nightTab's interface. It has a dark theme, and a bunch of pre-configured bookmark tiles, aka speed dials. All the elements you see on the tab are customizable.
The search bar at the top of the tiles can be used to search in your bookmarks, or to perform an online search in Google. NightTab displays a clock and the date to the left of the search box. Let's see how to manage the speed dials.
Click on the Edit button next to the search box, or the Add button in nightTab's screen to create a new group or bookmark. This brings up several buttons for each shortcut. Use the left and right arrows to move a speed-dial right or left. You may reorder the tiles by clicking on the three-line icon and dragging it elsewhere, even onto another group.
The x button deletes a speed dial, while the pencil icon is used to customize a tile. You can edit the appearance of the dial from the Visual Element settings. The letter option in nightTab uses a cool font, which you can use to name your bookmarks. Or you can pick from many icons that the extension comes preloaded with; these are part of the Font-Awesome collection. You can paste a URL of a custom image that you want to use for the tile.
If you assigned an icon or a picture, you may want to add a label to the speed dial, and that's what the name field is for. Paste the URL of the page that the speed dial is for in the Address field and hit the save button, and your new tile is ready. NightTab allows you to customize the appearance of the tiles further, change the size of the letter, icon, image, shadow and name. Set the position of the element in the tile, rotate it, pick the accent color, theme color, opacity from the advanced options. You can even use an image or a video as the background for the speed dial.
Each set of bookmarks is a group and it has a title to categorize it. You can change the name of the group, reorder its position, or delete it. Tiles can be moved between bookmarks with a drag and drop, or from the editor.
Click on the "color" button to pick a custom background color from the palette. The Accent button similarly allows you to use a different color for the letters, icons and names.
The gear icon in the top right corner has even more settings. You can adjust the scaling size, width and alignment, padding of the layout. Enable the Greeting option if you like to see "Good morning, Hello, Hi", followed by your name.
Transitional words places shows the words "The time and date is" or "It's" before the clock.
Speaking of which, the clock can be customized too. Switch from number-based to a word-based clock, enable seconds, change the separators, toggle 24-hour clock, enable AM/PM. The Date settings are modifiable as well and has options to switch the format, word style, size, etc.
Next is the Search settings which aside from a couple of visual options lets you choose from the following search engines: Google, DuckDuckGo, YouTube, Giphy, Bing, or a custom search provider. Dislike having the Edit, Add, Color and Accent buttons in the new tab? Disable them from the options.
Bored with the colors? nightTab has plenty of themes to choose from, of course you can create your own easily. The extension allows you to use Google Fonts for the text and numbers. Why restrict yourself to a colorful background? Use an image or a video, nightTab supports both local and online media, go nuts.
No one likes to see their settings reset to default. It may be a good idea to use the add-on's built-in backup and restore option to preserve your customized preferences. I tried importing my backup from Firefox to Chrome, and it worked like a charm.
Download nightTab for Firefox and Chrome. The extension is open source.
NightTab is an excellent new tab replacement with a ridiculous number of settings, yet somehow it manages to keep things user-friendly.
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