New Tab (the King) for Firefox blog

Check it out – Looking forward to your feedback as usual!

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10828/versions/5.0.3

Features:
+ Thumbnails mode is immediately shown after initial clean install
+ Thumbnails view: allow dragging and pinning of thumbnails
+ Auto-refresh of thumbnails mode on the NTK screen
+ Removed Analytics view
+ Changed action links in Classic view to icon buttons
+ History is calculated only once a day to reduce overhead on every screen change
+ Default empty colored space when there’s no thumbnails
+ Changed thumbnails image fetching timeout to minimal
+ Actions in thumbnails view: remove/refresh/pin (moved top caption favicon + site name to bottom)

Defaults changes:
+ Bubbles background
+ Don’t show sites you love
+ Don’t show web shortcuts
+ Support FF up to version 4.0b9pre

Style
+ Replaced setting cog icon
+ Sidebbar widths are not consistent
+ Details action link in Classic view wasn’t working…
+ Feedback link on web shortcuts was broken…
+ Bubbles are not in the middle of the screen on wide screen
+ Thumbnails view: move stuff 5px to the left
+ Bottom buttons in thumbnails view is cut when there are only 18 most used sites
+ Thumbnails favicon + site title line: (i) reduce height by 2px AND (ii) reduce max number of chars by 2. utilize max screen width
+ Sidebar width is not utilizing on wide screen
+ No spacing on sidebar between recently closed and app shortcuts
+ Theme4: sidebar collapse/expand section is not really visible!
+ Theme1: title fonts are hard to read!
+ Thumbnails should have more resolution (and no black border)

Q: I have installed New Tab King but when I hit CTRL+T all I get is a blank page
A: Most likely you are running a conflicting Firefox Add-on.  Try to disable them one after the other and remember it’s hard to run two new tab extensions together (hint: speeddial)

Q: If I accidentally remove a site from the new tabs page, is there any way to restore it?
A: Definitely, just go the New Tab King settings and choose the Most used sites tab.  Locate the site you previously marked and remove it

Q: How does New Tab King gather the most used sites?
A: New Tab King uses the local Firefox history database to analyze what sites you use the most

Q: How can I uninstall New Tab King
A: First of, we’re sorry to see you leaving – let us know how we can improve.  Simply go to the Firefox Tools menu and select add-ons.  Look for the New Tab King add-on and remove it

Q: I still cannot remove New Tab King from the Firefox add-on manager
A: It’s most likely a bug in the add-on manager of Firefox. The way to resolve it is to hunt for the following directory under the extensions directory of Firefox and *delete* it: {FC5BAC7D-D696-4ba6-B913-CF8F000C33DF}. Then restart Firefox and install NTK again.
On a Win7/Vista it should be something like: C:\Users\[...]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[...].default\extensions and on an XP: C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\Profile\extensions

Anything else you would like to know?  Give our Tour page a try

Hard to believe but the next version of the Fox is just around the corner. Our latest Beta version (5.0.2b) is ready for you guys for download: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10828/versions/5.0.2b

Funny how these settings turned out to be really big over time. NTK 4.0.9 is sorting out so they are more self explanatory – your feedback appreciated if these are not

Background settings


General settings


Search shortcuts settings


Application shortcuts settings


Web shortcuts settings


Most used sites settings


Recently closed tabs settings

Misc settings

In previous posts we stressed how important we see NTK in becoming the fastest route to your requested sites. In version 2.1.2, which became public a few days ago we added two features to quicken your accessibility to your destination:

1. Typing in the site’s ranking

Note that we’ve numbered the sites you visit most by order from most visited and down (1 to 25 by default). This numeration stands for something we thought would be practical, which is getting you your desired site by simply typing its number and then hitting ‘enter’.

For example, in this case clicking 5 (which stands for the #5 site on my list – Facebook) and then hitting the ‘enter’ key will get me straight to www.facebook.com

Note that this saves me getting to Google’s results page and then selecting the 1^st result there. This also saves me the burden of moving my mouse and enables me a full “keyboard navigation” experience when attempting to reach a website.
2. Popular Domains’ shortcuts

Some sites are so popular that it’s almost a drag to type in their address each time we want to get there.

So, in order to quicken your way to your route we’ve put in some of the most popular domain with their abbreviation. For example, instead of typing www.youtube.com or just youtube (that would get you to Google’s result page and then you’d need to select the first result…) we offer the site after just typing ‘yo’. Again – clicking ‘enter’ at this point would simply launch youtube.com, skipping the redundant result page.

Note, that youtube (using this example) doesn’t need to be on your main list. We’ll offer it to you anyway.

If you feel like removing or adding you own site shortcuts – that is also possible. Simply click New Tab King’s option menu and have fun with the “Search Shortcuts” tab.

Hope you find these features useful!

New Tab King main search bar – aka NTK SmartBar(tm) offers a few advanced featured.  Have you used all of these:

1. Top Destinations: by typing a number + ENTER you have a fast navigation to the Nth most popular site.  You can see the ranking on the left side of the most used histograms
2. Search Shortcuts: we know people are in a hurry and want to go to their destination the fastest way.  Take a look at the Settings… you’ll see a bunch of pre-configured shortcuts like ‘fb’ for Facebook.com or ‘go’ for Google.com
3. Web Search: enter any search phrase and Google will shout the answer
4. History Search: similarily to the built-in Firefox awesomebar support for history, we also project the last time you visited the site and the total viists

A few days ago we were fortunate enough to get the best commentary on New Tab King by Jeff Almond, a Technology Reporter from Israel.  Jeff was kind to allow us to publish it here so before we blush again, here it is:

Incidentally just two days after Google Chrome stunned us with decorative themes Firefox released this afternoon one of its most promising add-ons: New Tab King (version 2.1.2).

I’ve been watching Google Chrome closely since its release last year and I’m able to spot some seismic action in the past month alone around the display of Chrome’s default homepage or new tab.

Google are on to something (yet again), but are they alone? A default homepage is indeed the gateway to one’s browser, and although users tend to set the homepage to their own selected web address, an appealing new homepage is a great way to make a first impression. But what about the browser’s new tab display? Could this be the next uncharted ground? Sure. Here’s an opportunity for Google to dazzle us with features like Speed Dial sites, recently closed tabs, history, and yes – a never ending themes collection for us to play with.

It’s no secret that Google are running their full burners for making Chrome a serious player in the browser market, and quite frankly – I think they’ll get there. Moreover, I wouldn’t be surprised if the existing Chrome user-base is no other than the classic Firefox user, early adopter in 2005 to Internet Explorer new rival, and now sinking into Google’s product. If so – Mozilla will be the ones to get the first blow from Google, and Microsoft will keep the old schoolers, well – as long as Windows is the dominant OS.

But has Firefox said its last word? Here’s the real surprise… someone at Mozilla, or rather some Mozilla extension developer has crunched up a worthy contestant to the big G (Google or Goliath – you decide), at least in the “new tab” ring. New Tab King, a rather new extension is ranked in the top 3 add-ons in 3 of Mozilla’s 14 categories’ rating systems. I’ve checked – no other add-on has such a consensus on its quality, which kind of makes it Firefox’s most appreciated add-on, at least by Firefox reviewers.

What does it do? The same as Chrome’s approach to new tab, only better. Instead of the big speed dial boxes in Chrome, NTK displays a histogram of most used sites, enabling the user to get a broader view of his visited sites and there’s a touch of analytics on one’s browsing trends. On top of that, there’s a big, no really, BIG search bar, functioning very similar to Firefox’s awesome bar (auto-completion wise). And that’s just a start – this extension let’s you customize just about everything concerning the new tab experience: background (down-to-earth) themes, keyboard navigation shortcuts, suggested sites, blacklisted sites, closed tabs, even desktop applications’ shortcuts. A true geek’s dreams coming true. There’s a touch of mischief in New Tab King that I can’t put my finger on precisely and yet – it’s still within the limits of being a reasonable quality tool. It is short of perfect, but all in all – thumbs up to Firefox for this add-on.

Again, I see Firefox losing the market to Google in the future, but until that happens – New Tab King could be an interesting reason for Firefox fans to stick around.

- Jeff almond

A couple of folks approached us and asked how to turn off the New Tab King toolbar icon we added in the latest version (2.1.2).  It’s basically in the Settings of the add-on (see screeshot here) – adding quick and detailed instructions here:

New Tab King options: toolbar button

1. From the top right of the add-on screen click on “Options…”
2. Select the “General” tab at the top of the settings dialog
3. Uncheck the checkbox labeled as: “Check for the New Tab King toolbar button on every Firefox restart“
4. Right click on the toolbar and choose Customize - remove the little NTK button from your toolbar
5. Restart!

Our latest version went officially public yesterday at the Mozilla Add-on portal.  We’re super excited about this and hope existing and new folks would enjoy it – keep us posted with feedback as always – we promise a quick response.

One of the key features of the recent release is the 7 built-in themes with New Tab King.  We hope one of these themes is a good fit with you but also feel like advanced folks would rather have their own personal touch.  Here’s a quick recipe for that:

1. go to your themes directory (just replace with your Windows user name where in bold): C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\tuf7wn2a.default\extensions\{FC5BAC7D-D696-4ba6-B913-CF8F000C33DF}\chrome\content\themes
2. Open one of the newtabking-theme-x.css files
3. Change the very few CSS attributes according to your taste!  here’s an example from the built-in Beautiful Eyes theme:

Hopefully this is not too complex for the brave design-savvy out there.  Let me know if you need some help.
–eddie

We’re super excited about launching our latest themed-based release (2.1.0)

Screenshots attached here – which one is YOU?