New Tab Random Quote


1 minute read

A Chrome extension and web app lets you replace the default ‘new tab’ screen with your own randomly-selected quotations.

GIF of New Tab Random Quote

This project is an example of tackling an issue brought about by my own desire to collect, record, and then constantly be reminded of helpful advice.

I developed this project as a little side projects — Demo and GitHub.

The Backstory

The Challenge

Let me back up a little bit.

I collect quotations. Interesting quotes, aphorisms, witticisms, even, yes, inspirational sayings. When I find one, I’ll either take a picture of it or jot it down on my phone or computer.

As I started amassing these, I transfer them to a simple spreadsheet.

spreadsheet

Spreadsheet

The challenge arises in wanting not to simply collect and store these items, but to have them pop-up and re-occur to me in a manner that wouldn’t be too intrusive.

Kitty Quote

The Approach

I experimented with creating an app—but it seemed like overkill. I wasn’t ever going to click on it.

I experimented with creating an email reminder of one random quote 1/day—but that was going to clog up email and that left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I experimented with creating a bot that would SMS me every morning—but I do that now with weather, and I feel like it wouldn’t hit me with the right level of attention—I would just find it distracting.

It dawned on me one moment while waiting for a page to load—the ‘new tab’ in my web browser.

New Tab Default Position

New Tab!

It was a really elegant solution, as the quotes would be non-intrusive, and they would be presented to me at a time when I was multi-tasking and changing tracks in my thought process—i.e. a perfect time to moderately distract me.

The Solution

If I had found what I wanted when searching the existing tab replacements, I would have been happy. But the current options either came with ads, were really slow, or used really loopy and overly-dramatic font.

I preferred something as simple as possible and that blended into the background.

I wrote custom CSS that relied on the soft-gray of the Chrome background, and used a contrasting gray for the text color. I centered everything and played with character encodings to ensure that the quotes I used would render properly.

Screenshot 2

Screenshot 3

Et voila!