shimmer-tab
# Shimmer Tab
A new tab page for the [Helium](https://helium.computer) browser, built with Helium's own UI kit, [Prism](https://github.com/imputnet/helium-prism).
[](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/acgnlhjcipkagocfggidelbghodlddmm)
[](https://github.com/dmitthedazed/shimmer-tab/releases/latest)
[](LICENSE)
or **[try it in the browser](https://dmitthedazed.github.io/shimmer-tab/)**
Features
- Wallpapers. Prism’s animated shimmer, a starfield with cursor parallax, a live sky that follows your city’s weather and time of day, or your own pictures and GIFs: change them each tab, hourly, daily or never, with a soft fade between them. Blur and dim the picture, or let the page take its colors from it.
- Search with bangs.
!yt lofi,cats !w, with autocomplete from Helium’s own catalog. Start typing anywhere on the page. - Shortcuts with sharp icons. Vector logos for about 600 services, the site’s own app icon for the rest, all optically the same size. Containers, one-colour tint, names on or off, drag to reorder.
- Widgets. Most visited, recently closed, date and time, weather, and quick answers for math and unit conversions in the search bar.
- Greetings for the time of day and a few holidays, from your local clock only.
- Focus mode with just the logo and search.
- Layout centered or along either edge.
- Browser colors from Helium’s theme, expanded into a full Material palette.
- Effects slider. Speed, Balanced or Beauty. If a slow device struggles, Shimmer Tab switches to Speed on its own and tells you.
- Simple and Advanced settings. The basics up front, the rest one tap away.
- Undo for removed pictures, shortcuts and folders, and for a reset.
- Light and dark settings in Prism style, with export and import.
No account, no analytics, no server of its own. See the privacy policy.
Wallpapers that flow into each other |
A live sky for the weather |
Bangs with autocomplete |
Tiles, one color, names |
Left, center or right |
Focus mode |
Your pictures, your colors |
Speed, Balanced or Beauty |
Install
Get it from the Chrome Web Store.
Or without an extension: set https://dmitthedazed.github.io/shimmer-tab/ as your home or new tab page. Settings stay in that browser. Browser colors, most visited and sites’ own icons need the extension.
[!NOTE] For Browser colors, also turn on Allow access to file URLs in the extension’s details. Chromium doesn’t give extensions the theme, so Shimmer Tab reads it from the policy files in
/etc/chromium/policies/.
Build from source
```sh cd helium-newtab pnpm install pnpm build ``` Open `helium://extensions`, turn on **Developer mode**, click **Load unpacked** and pick `helium-newtab/dist`. Other scripts: | Command | | | --- | --- | | `pnpm icons:refresh` | Update the vector logo list from svgl | | `pnpm bangs:refresh` | Update the bundled bang catalog | | `pnpm pages` | Build the web version into `gh-pages` (`--push` to publish) | | `scripts/record-clips.sh` | Record the preview clips with a headless Helium (needs ffmpeg and a GPU) | | `scripts/clips-to-gifs.sh` | Turn the clips into the README GIFs | | `scripts/settings-shots.sh` | Retake the settings picture | Publishing a GitHub release attaches the extension zip and refreshes the web version.How icons work
Best first: 1. Vector logos from [svgl](https://svgl.app) with light and dark variants. 2. The site's own high-res icons: web app manifest, apple-touch-icon, SVG favicon or a sized ``. 3. A colored letter. Each icon is measured on a canvas and scaled by area, so round, square and wide logos look the same size. Reading other sites' icons needs the optional access to all websites.Translations
Every string is in helium-newtab/src/locales/en.json, translated on Crowdin. The page follows the browser’s language.
Credits
- Helium Prism (GPL-3.0) for the UI components
- Starfield after ErrorZeros’ Helium New Tab
- Bang resolver from exsesx/helium-new-tab (MIT)
- Bang catalog by Kagi Search and imput (MIT)
- Logos via svgl, trademarks of their owners
- Weather by Open-Meteo, sky rendered with Atmosphere (MIT)
License texts for the MIT parts are in licenses/.
Not affiliated with imput or the Helium project.
License
GPL-3.0, since the extension bundles Helium Prism.