newtab

A start page for your browser: your links on one screen, filtered as you type, with optional status from an uptime monitor, weather, exchange rates and Proxmox load.

Run it

go build ./cmd/newtab
./newtab demo                        # the page above, with made-up data

cp config.example.yaml config.yaml   # your links go here
./newtab validate config.yaml
./newtab run config.yaml

run downloads each site's icon into icon_dir in the background and serves it from disk after that. Sites without an icon get a globe. A file you put in icon_dir yourself is used instead of the downloaded one.

Config

sections:
  - name: Read
    style: list
    links:
      - name: Hacker News
        url: https://news.ycombinator.com/
        alias: [hn]          # also matches when you type this
        pin: true            # first in its section

search:
  engine: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s

Enter opens the highlighted link; if none matches, it searches with the configured engine.

style: list is for bookmarks. style: live is for services, and their rows can show status from a monitor. Full example: config.example.yaml.

Looks

Colours, type size, columns and a background image are config:

columns: 4
theme:
  background: "#141312"     # any of these can be left out
  ink: "#e8e4da"
  muted: "#8a8478"
  font_size: 17
  image: /var/lib/newtab/hills.jpg
  image_dim: 0.75           # validate measures the picture and says if this is too low

newtab demo -config yours.yaml renders your config with made-up status, so you can see the background and a row that is down.

Rates

rates:
  base: USD
  fiat: [EUR, GBP]     # one USD in each
  crypto: [BTC, ETH]   # priced in USD
  every: 30m

Shown next to the search field as EUR 0.86 · BTC 78k. Currencies come from open.er-api.com, crypto from Coinbase's public spot price. No accounts needed.

Weather

weather:
  latitude: 59.9386
  longitude: 30.3141
  every: 15m

Temperature and an icon next to the search field, from Open-Meteo. No account or key needed.

Making it your start page

• Chrome and Edge: Settings → On startup, and Appearance → Show home button.
• Firefox: Settings → Home → Homepage and new windows → Custom URLs.
• Android and iPhone: Add to Home screen from the browser menu. Chrome on Android also accepts the address under Settings → Homepage.

Desktop browsers cannot point the new tab page at a URL. For that, use the extension below.

As a new tab

Chrome and Firefox only let an extension replace the new tab page, so newtab writes one:

./newtab extension config.yaml ./ext

This writes a folder with the page, its icons and a manifest. Load it unpacked (chrome://extensions → Developer mode → Load unpacked, or about:debugging in Firefox). It is a static copy, so rebuild it when your links change. Every release includes one built from the example config.

For a live new tab backed by your running server, use ./newtab extension -url https://newtab.example.com config.yaml ./ext or the live extension archive in a release. The live extension redirects each new tab to the server page.

State from a monitor

Rows can show status from lookout, an uptime monitor. Other monitors work through a small script that serves the same JSON (below), for example in front of Uptime Kuma or Gatus.

status:
  url: http://monitor.example/api/status
  every: 30s
  tail: problems

A row is matched to a check by host, or by check: on the link. A down row shows how long it has been down. A healthy row shows what tail selects:

tail	a healthy row shows
problems (default)	nothing, until the last day was less than perfect — then 99.8% 24h
latency	the last probe, 23 ms
uptime24h, uptime7d	that figure, always
never	nothing, ever

The fields newtab reads:

{"version": 1, "checks": [
  {"name": "Photos", "url": "https://photos.example.com/", "status": "up",
   "muted": false, "last_probe": {"duration_ms": 21},
   "uptime_24h": {"ratio": 0.9982}, "incident": null}
]}

newtab only reads this endpoint and polls it on its own schedule.

Numbers from Proxmox

proxmox:
  url: https://hypervisor.example.com:8006
  token_env: NEWTAB_PROXMOX_TOKEN   # user@realm!id=secret, from the environment
  attach: Hypervisor                # the link whose row shows them
  insecure: true                    # it answers with its own certificate

The row shows 16 · 29% · 51%: running guests, CPU and memory, with labels on hover. The token needs the PVEAuditor role and is read from the environment, not from the config.

On a server

Every release has binaries for linux/amd64 and arm64, the browser extension and SHA256SUMS. Go is only needed to build from source.

In config.yaml, set icon_dir: /var/lib/newtab. That directory is the Docker volume and the systemd state directory.

Docker. The image is 23 MB, has no shell and runs as nobody. Also set listen: 0.0.0.0:5669 in the config, put contrib/compose.yaml next to it and run:

docker compose up -d

systemd.

install -m 0755 newtab-linux-amd64 /usr/bin/newtab
useradd --system --home /var/lib/newtab --shell /usr/sbin/nologin newtab
install -m 0644 contrib/systemd/newtab.service /etc/systemd/system/
install -d /etc/newtab && cp config.yaml /etc/newtab/
systemctl enable --now newtab

Put a reverse proxy in front of it, or open the port to your LAN.

contrib/newtab-update updates to the latest release: it checks SHA256SUMS, makes sure the new binary loads your config, and restores the old one if the service does not respond after the restart. Its timer is in contrib/systemd/.

Notes

The page sends no referrer and loads nothing from other servers. The only state is the config and the icon directory.

License

MIT