Add customizable homepage #2648

Chickaboo · 2025-10-20T02:38:14Z

Introduces a new customizable new tab page with clock, greeting, and search bar. Adds settings for enabling/disabling the homepage, choosing between default or custom URL, toggling clock and greeting, and selecting time format. Implements new internal protocols for 'min://newtab' and 'min://blank', updates localization, and refines related CSS and JS for the new tab and settings pages.

Updated the new tab page to use the currently selected search engine instead of a hardcoded DuckDuckGo URL. Added the searchEngine utility script to index.html and modified performSearch to construct the search URL dynamically.

PalmerAL · 2025-11-09T20:08:31Z

Thanks for the PR!

I think it makes sense to have a setting to set a custom new tab URL. I'm less convinced that we should have a built-in page. My impression is that there are a lot of potential designs for a new tab page, and people tend to have strong opinions about which design is the best for them; designing something that makes most people happy would require a ton of different customization options and add a lot of complexity.

How would you feel about keeping just the setting to set a custom URL, and putting any specific page designs in an external repository?

Also, it would be good to figure out a better interaction between the NTP and the searchbar. When I open a new tab, I don't actually see the NTP, because the searchbar is covering it:

I think this should probably work like this (what do you think?):

When you open a new tab, the searchbar is active and focused, but if a custom NTP is configured, no suggestions are shown underneath.
The NTP is immediately visible.
If you start typing in the searchbar, we start showing the searchbar suggestions and blur the NTP.

PalmerAL · 2025-11-09T20:11:01Z

Also, I should point out, we already have an option to set a custom image background on the new tab page:

We should ensure any changes are compatible with that.

Chickaboo · 2025-11-10T23:46:45Z

That sounds good to me. I'll remove the new tab page and make it so that in the settings, you can choose either the NTP or a custom URL. A better implemetion of the NTP and the search bar interaction is something I will look into. I think the outline you gave will work well. I'll try to work on this sometime soon, but it might be a week or two.

1. Removed custom homepage 2. Moved new tab custom URL to Additional settings 3. Added the NTP Functionality to the preferences as well as maintaining it on the new tab widget 4. Improved new-tab design and visibility of NTP

This reverts commit 826ddae, reversing changes made to 8021bfb.

This reverts commit 08bf957.

Removed legacy homepage and new tab page code, including blank and custom homepage files and settings. Added new settings for new tab page: blank, custom URL, or background image, with UI and logic updates throughout the app. Updated CSS and JS to support new background image and custom URL options, and removed unused homepage-related code and translations.

Chickaboo · 2025-11-26T19:48:27Z

Everything should be done. I moved the Custom URL into the Additional Settings. There is now a dropdown menu which has three options one for Blank, Custom URL, and NTP. I made sure that both the NTP widget and the preferences functionality are in sync. The changes to the new tab design have been made as well. I think the outline you gave worked great. Let me know if there are any changes or tweaks needed—its looking pretty good to me though. 9b59089

PalmerAL

This looks pretty good! I left some comments on the code, but I think the functionality is working well.

PalmerAL · 2025-12-07T22:26:39Z

css/newTabPage.css

+
+.ntp-blur #ntp-background {
+    filter: blur(12px);
+    transform: scale(1.1);


This makes sense to eliminate the white edges around the blur, but I think the motion is distracting. What if we:

Reduce the magnitude to scale(1.03) - it looks like this is still enough to eliminate the white edges

Apply the scale to the image all the time, so that there's no motion when the blur is applied?

PalmerAL · 2025-12-07T22:29:25Z

js/browserUI.js

  */

  if (!options.openInBackground && !tabs.get(tabs.getSelected()).url && ((!tabs.get(tabs.getSelected()).private && tabs.get(tabId).private) || tabs.get(tabId).url)) {
    destroyTab(tabs.getSelected())


I think there should be a case added to this if statement to destroy the current tab if it equals the NTP URL. Currently, if I close all my tabs, I get a single tab with the NTP; then if I create a new private tab, I get two tabs: one with the NTP, and a second with the private tab. I'd expect that the NTP would close when I create the new tab.

PalmerAL · 2025-12-07T22:30:56Z

js/browserUI.js


+  // if the tab is a new, blank tab, replace it with the custom new tab page
+  let isCustomUrl = false
+  if (!tabs.get(tabId).url && !tabs.get(tabId).private) {


I think it might be possible for a site to create a popup with no URL (I'm not sure exactly), in which case we shouldn't show the NTP. Perhaps we could solve that by also checking enterEditMode here, and only showing the NTP if it's true.

PalmerAL · 2025-12-07T22:31:21Z

js/browserUI.js

+  // if the tab is a new, blank tab, replace it with the custom new tab page
+  let isCustomUrl = false
+  if (!tabs.get(tabId).url && !tabs.get(tabId).private) {
+    const newTabUrl = settings.get('newTabUrl')


Since this setting isn't a URL, could we rename it to something like newTabType?

PalmerAL · 2025-12-07T22:33:06Z

js/navbar/tabEditor.js

+                      (newTabUrlMode === 'customUrl' && currentURL === settings.get('newTabCustomUrl'))
+
+        if (isNTP) {
+          searchbar.el.classList.add('searchbar-hidden')


I think we could just skip calling searchbar.showResults in this case (perhaps calling searchbar.hide instead if that's necessary), and then we no longer need the hidden class.

PalmerAL · 2025-12-07T22:33:58Z

js/newTabPage.js

  blobInstance: null,
  reloadBackground: function () {
+    const newTabUrl = settings.get('newTabUrl')
+    if (newTabUrl === 'blank') {


If the setting has never been modified, settings.get will return undefined, which this also needs to check for (ie since a blank page is the default value, undefined and "blank" should be treated the same way)

PalmerAL · 2025-12-07T22:35:38Z

localization/languages/en-US.json

+    "settingsNewTabUrlBlank": "Blank Page",
+    "settingsNewTabUrlCustomUrl": "Custom URL",
+    "settingsNewTabUrlBackgroundImage": "Background Image",
+    "settingsNewTabUrlUploadImage": "Upload Image",


It would be useful to also add these as the title attributes of the camera and delete buttons on the new tab page.

PalmerAL · 2025-12-07T22:35:50Z

main/menu.js

            sendIPCToWindow(window, 'zoomOut')
          }
        },
-        // Hidden item to enable shortcut on numpad


This seems like an accidental change, can you revert it?

Chickaboo added 2 commits October 19, 2025 21:30

Use selected search engine for new tab searches

8021bfb

Updated the new tab page to use the currently selected search engine instead of a hardcoded DuckDuckGo URL. Added the searchEngine utility script to index.html and modified performSearch to construct the search URL dynamically.

Chickaboo mentioned this pull request Oct 20, 2025

Requesting for a new feature and reporting bug #2164

Open

Chickaboo added 5 commits November 22, 2025 20:25

Merge branch 'minbrowser:master' into homepage

826ddae

Updates

08bf957

1. Removed custom homepage 2. Moved new tab custom URL to Additional settings 3. Added the NTP Functionality to the preferences as well as maintaining it on the new tab widget 4. Improved new-tab design and visibility of NTP

Revert "Merge branch 'minbrowser:master' into homepage"

b8ef6ea

This reverts commit 826ddae, reversing changes made to 8021bfb.

Revert "Updates"

b2a1484

This reverts commit 08bf957.

PalmerAL reviewed Dec 7, 2025

View reviewed changes

Uh oh!

Add customizable homepage #2648

Are you sure you want to change the base?

Add customizable homepage #2648

Uh oh!

Conversation

Chickaboo commented Oct 20, 2025

Uh oh!

PalmerAL commented Nov 9, 2025

Uh oh!

PalmerAL commented Nov 9, 2025

Uh oh!

Chickaboo commented Nov 10, 2025

Uh oh!

Chickaboo commented Nov 26, 2025

Uh oh!

PalmerAL left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

2 participants