MorrowTab User Manual

What MorrowTab does

MorrowTab is a browser extension that takes over the new tab page. Instead of a blank page or a grid of most-visited thumbnails, every new tab opens a board: a set of columns, each holding links you put there yourself, with a search box across the top and — unless you turn it off — a quote of the day at the bottom.

You can keep as many boards as you need, up to thirty. Each board owns its own columns, links, extra search engines and their ordering, so a work board and a private board never share a screen. The browser tab title follows the board you are on, reading Board name — MorrowTab.

The three surfaces

• The new tab page. Boards, columns, links, the search box, the layout lock and the Settings dialog all live here.
• The toolbar popup. Clicking the MorrowTab button on any website opens Save to MorrowTab, which files the page you are looking at into a board and column without leaving the tab. See Quick Save from the toolbar.
• The welcome page. Shown once, on a genuine first install. It is an introduction, not a release-notes page, and it does not reappear after an update.

What it is not

MorrowTab has no account or server holding your synced board graph. Your boards travel through the extension sync your browser already runs for the profile you are signed into. There is no bookmark import, no tags, no widgets, no to-do list and no AI features — a link carries a title, an address, an optional one-line description, an optional Opens in override, and a count of how often you have opened it.

Installing MorrowTab

What installing involves

Install MorrowTab from the Chrome Web Store or Microsoft Edge Add-ons using your browser’s standard store installation. Nothing needs to be downloaded by hand, unpacked, or configured first. After the install completes:

1. The new tab is taken over. MorrowTab's manifest overrides the new tab page, so every new tab opens MorrowTab once the extension is enabled, subject to whatever confirmation your browser shows for an extension that changes that page.
2. A welcome page opens once. It is a short introduction to Quick Save, boards and search, unlocking the layout, the quote modes, and the boundary between what syncs and what stays on that computer. It appears only on a true first install, never after an update or a browser restart, and it cannot be reopened from inside the extension.
3. Choose how to begin. Select Start with sample board if this is your first MorrowTab setup. If you already use MorrowTab elsewhere, select Use my synced boards so the sample is not published while Browser Sync loads your existing data — see Your first board.

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Requirements

• Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge on Chromium 114 or newer. That floor is declared in the extension itself.
• Chromium 114 is the minimum because MorrowTab's menus, search autocomplete and toasts use the Popover API, and the rest of the app relies on Web Locks, CSS :has() and CSS color-mix().
• There is no Firefox or Safari build, and no mobile version. Chrome and Edge on the desktop are the supported browsers.

You do not need sync to use MorrowTab — it works on a single computer as it is. Sync is only what carries your boards to a second computer, and it is your browser's own, so there is no MorrowTab account to create for it. See How syncing works.

Your first board

Starting a new sample setup opens a board called Popular websites. It holds exactly 50 links in five columns of ten: News, Streaming, Social media, Everyday tools and Shopping. No search engines are configured on it — Browser default covers search without putting any provider into your synced data.

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Choose a new setup or your existing synced boards

An empty result from Browser Sync is ambiguous. This may be your first MorrowTab installation, or a new or long-offline computer may still be waiting for your existing records. MorrowTab therefore reads Popular websites from its bundled file and shows it as a read-only preview. Edits, passive usage counts and Quick Save cannot publish the sample board; Settings, Export and editing menus are unavailable until your boards arrive or you complete setup.

The one-time welcome page asks first. Start with sample board initializes a genuinely new setup before the new-tab page is shown, so a new user arrives at a normal editable board instead of a permanent warning. Use my synced boards opens MorrowTab without publishing sample data. If the new-tab page still has only the empty-Sync preview, a required Choose how to begin chooser explains why some controls are unavailable. New to MorrowTab appears first, followed by the choices for existing users. Existing boards and a successfully started sample setup skip the chooser.

• Use sample board asks for confirmation before starting a genuinely new setup. It is the first and only highlighted primary action. If you already use MorrowTab on another computer, wait for Sync instead.
• Check Sync checks again for your boards. If nothing has arrived or the check fails, the chooser stays open and explains the result. It never starts a sample setup.
• Import backup… opens the existing import flow for an optional backup. This and Check Sync use the same neutral button style as Settings utilities.

You must complete setup or wait for your synced boards before using the page. The chooser has no close X, and neither Escape nor a click outside it dismisses it. Keyboard focus starts on Use sample board and stays inside the chooser, rather than focusing the heading or search input. No sample data is saved merely because it is shown.

Import and sample setup temporarily close the chooser before the file picker or confirmation appears. Cancelling the picker or a setup/import confirmation returns to the chooser while no setup exists. Unreadable files, malformed JSON or a single-column export return immediately with an explanation. If readable backup JSON fails validation after you press Replace, the confirmation stays open for retry; Cancel returns to the chooser. It closes when setup or import succeeds, real Sync data arrives, or the separate recovery view takes over. Recovery still keeps its own editing safeguards.

Both new-user routes take the same Sync lock and check one last time immediately before writing. Any schema marker, actor checkpoint, legacy record or incomplete checkpoint cancels initialization and the page refreshes. Only a still-empty store receives an actor-owned schema-2 checkpoint containing the exact starter; its 5 columns and 50 links then become ordinary synced data and count towards your totals. The browser provides no signal that cloud delivery is definitely complete, which is why this decision is explicit. Anything already visible in Sync blocks the starter. Data can still arrive immediately after that local check; schema 2 keeps those records rather than replacing their device checkpoint, but sample items and default settings may merge. This is why neither an install event nor a timer starts setup automatically.

Making it yours

• Delete what you do not want. Deleting a link, column or board leaves a six-second Undo button in the toast.
• Rename a column in place from its ⋯ menu.
• Add links with the large + button at the foot of a column card.
• If you empty a board completely you get the prompt "Build this board your way" and a Create the first column button.

Which board opens

The board you last selected is remembered on that computer only, not through sync. A laptop and a desktop signed into the same profile share every board, but each can sit on a different one.

Managing boards

The picker at the top left switches boards. Its last entry, Manage boards…, opens the dialog where boards are created, renamed, reordered and deleted.

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Creating and managing

Add board opens a dialog titled New board with a Board name field (placeholder "For example, Cyber security") and a Board type choice: Links, the usual columns of saved links, or Calendar, a read-only agenda from calendars you subscribe to (see Calendar boards). The button reads Create board.

Each row's Manage board button opens the same dialog titled Manage board, with the name field and the button Save changes. A calendar board adds two choices there: Time format — Automatic (your browser's language decides), 12-hour or 24-hour — and Use the full width in Week and Month, on by default; the agenda keeps its narrower reading width either way. The type is chosen once and managing never converts a board.

A new board starts empty. It reuses any search engines you marked as visible on all boards, but MorrowTab never invents a search provider for it.

Reordering

Drag a board's handle, or focus the handle and press Alt + ↑ / Alt + ↓. The order matters beyond appearance: Alt + 1–9 jump to the first nine boards in exactly this order. Boards past the ninth have no shortcut.

Deleting

Deleting asks first, spelling out what goes with it: "This removes the board, its n columns, n links, and n board-only search engines. Search engines visible on all boards remain." The dialog closes itself so the six-second Undo in the toast is not stranded behind it.

You can never end up with zero boards. On the last remaining board the delete button is disabled, with the tooltip "At least one board is required".

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What is per board and what is shared

• Per board: its type, columns, links, subscribed calendars, which extra engines appear, and their order.
• Shared across every board: the background color, spacing, board layout, the daily quote mode, the background mode, usage ordering, and both "open in a new tab" settings.
• Per computer: which board is currently selected.

Calendar boards

A calendar board shows the next two weeks from your Google and Outlook calendars on the new tab, read-only. It keeps the search bar and the board's search engines, and shows an agenda where a links board would show columns. Nothing you do in MorrowTab changes a calendar, and nothing is sent to Google, Microsoft or FixQuotes: the extension simply downloads each calendar's private feed and reads it on your computer.

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Creating one

Open Manage boards…, choose Add board, give it a name and pick Calendar under Board type. The new board opens with an Add calendar button. A calendar board holds up to ten calendars.

Finding a calendar's address

The empty calendar board and the calendar editor both offer Copy the address from shortcuts that open the right settings page in a new tab: Google Calendar, Outlook (work or school) and Outlook.com. If Outlook opens with the wrong account, switch accounts there first. Then:

• Google Calendar: open Google Calendar's settings, choose the calendar in the left list, and under Integrate calendar copy the Secret address in iCal format. Each calendar has its own; repeat for every calendar you want, even when they belong to the same account.
• Outlook (Microsoft 365 or Outlook.com): open Settings → Calendar → Shared calendars, and under Publish a calendar choose the calendar and Can view all details, then copy the ICS link. Some organizations disable publishing; if the option is missing, ask your administrator. Repeat in each account.

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Paste the address into iCal address. Both https:// and webcal:// addresses work; MorrowTab stores the https:// form. Give the calendar a name and one of the eight colors, or no color, then save. Your browser asks whether MorrowTab may read that site; allow it, and the events appear within a few seconds. If you decline, the calendar is still saved and its chip on the board offers Allow access to ask again.

The address is a secret: anyone who has it can read that calendar. It syncs with the board so your other computers show the same calendars (each computer asks for site access once), and it appears in a backup file. Treat both like a password. To revoke an address, reset it in Google Calendar or unpublish it in Outlook; removing the calendar from MorrowTab only stops MorrowTab from using it.

Reading the agenda

The board lists Today and Tomorrow always, then only the later days that have something on, up to fourteen days ahead; otherwise it says "Nothing else in the next 14 days". Each event shows its start and end in your local time (or "09:00 →" when it ends on another day), its title, its location, and the calendar it comes from when the board has more than one. All-day events read All day and appear on every day they cover, counted as "2 of 3" while they span days. Events that have finished today fade; the one happening now is outlined. Hover an event to read its description.

Events from a Google calendar are links: click one, in any layout, and it opens in Google Calendar's editor in a new tab, signed in as you are there. That includes meetings you were invited to from Outlook or Exchange, which Google keeps under the invitation's own id. Outlook's published feeds do not include what such a link needs, so those events are not clickable; use the ↗ on the calendar's chip to open Outlook instead.

Above the agenda, one chip per calendar shows its color and name; its dot spins while the calendar downloads. The small ↗ at the end of a chip opens that calendar in a new tab, where you create and edit events. If a download fails, the chip gains a warning sign and a line beneath the chips names the calendar and the reason, while the previously downloaded events stay on screen. The line beside Refresh tells you when the calendars were last updated.

Layouts and hiding a calendar

The switch beneath the chips chooses Agenda, Week or Month. Week shows the current week as seven columns, starting on your locale's first weekday, with today marked and the week number in its heading; Month shows whole weeks with the week number at the left of each row, days outside the month dimmed and at most four events per day, then "+n more" (hover it for the rest). Week numbers follow your browser language's week rules — ISO 8601 for European languages. Both grids have Previous, Today and Next; the page position resets when you open a new tab.

Click a calendar's chip to hide that calendar; its name is struck through and its events disappear from every layout until you click it again. Hidden calendars are still refreshed, so showing one again is instant. The layout and the hidden calendars are remembered on this computer only, and other MorrowTab tabs on it follow along.

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How current it is

MorrowTab downloads a calendar again when a calendar board opens and its copy is older than 30 minutes, once a minute while the board stays on screen if it has gone stale, and whenever you press Refresh. Google and Outlook, however, regenerate these private addresses only every few hours, so an event you have just added or moved can take that long to show up. Use the board to see what the day holds, not as a meeting alarm.

Managing calendars

Calendars… opens Manage calendars, which lists the board's calendars in the order you added them and shows only the site and last part of each address. Edit changes the name, address or color; Remove asks first and then offers a six-second Undo. Deleting the whole board removes its calendars with it, and the confirmation says how many.

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A calendar board has no columns, so it is never offered as a place to save a link: Quick Save, the link editor, Move to board… and column import list links boards only. Pasting an address while a calendar board is open does nothing.

Columns

A column is a card with a heading and a list of links. Columns wrap onto new rows when another readable card no longer fits — MorrowTab never turns the board into a horizontal strip you have to scroll sideways.

Creating a column

On an empty board, use the Create the first column button. Otherwise use the + button in a column card's header. Either way you get a dialog titled New column with the field Column heading, the placeholder "For example, Current projects", and a Create column button.

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The column menu

Its entries, in order:

• Open all links (n) — opens every link in the column as background tabs. Disabled when the column is empty. At eight links or more it asks first: "This opens every link in column in its own background tab." with an Open all button. Fewer than eight open straight away.
• Rename column — closes the menu and turns the heading into a focused input. Enter saves and returns focus to the options button; Esc cancels; clicking away also saves. An empty name is refused with "Column name cannot be empty."
• Move to board… — swaps the menu for a second page headed "Move column to" with a Back item and one entry per other board. It is disabled when only one board exists, and a destination already holding 40 columns is shown disabled. The move carries all the column's links in one save, with Undo.
• Export column — downloads that one column and its links as a JSON file named after the column. See Backup, export and import.
• Color — a row of swatches: No color plus blue, purple, yellow, amber, green, teal, red and gray. Each swatch is announced by its own name — "blue accent", "teal accent", and so on — and No color is announced as "No color". Applying one confirms with "Column color saved"; No color gives "Column color cleared".
• Delete column… — confirms with "This removes the column and its n saved links from Sync." and leaves a six-second Undo.

The menu is fully navigable with ↑ and ↓, swatches included.

Empty columns and long columns

An empty column shows "No links yet" — or "Drop links here" while the layout is unlocked. Once a column holds six or more links it switches automatically to a denser row style with smaller icons, so a long list stays readable. A column holds up to 200 links, and you can have 40 columns on a board and 120 across all boards.

Adding and editing links

The large + button at the foot of a column card adds a link there; its label and tooltip name the column. Hovering or focusing an existing link reveals a pencil button that opens the same dialog in edit mode.

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The fields

• Web address — placeholder https://example.com. Only http and https addresses can be saved, up to 2,048 characters. If you leave the scheme out, MorrowTab prepends https:// before validating.
• Name (optional) — placeholder "A friendly name". Left empty, the link falls back to the address's hostname.
• Description (optional · 200 characters) — a single-line text field with the placeholder "A short note shown beside the link name". It appears as a second line on the card.
• Column — with more than one board, this select groups every board's columns with the current board first, so a link can be moved to another board from the editor. Its click count, Opens in choice and inactivity timeout travel with it.
• Opens in — Follow the shared setting, New tab, or Current tab. This is the per-link override of the Settings toggle Open saved links in a new tab.
• Auto-close — choose Off (default), After 5 minutes inactive, After 10 minutes inactive, After 15 minutes inactive, After 30 minutes inactive, After 60 minutes inactive, or After 120 minutes inactive. The explanation beneath this field remains hidden while Off (default) is selected and appears after you choose a timeout. Choosing a timeout also chooses New tab; changing Opens in away from New tab switches the timeout back off.

This option applies only to tabs MorrowTab itself opens from that saved link, including Open all links. A tab opened in the background starts its countdown at once; one opened in front starts when you leave it. Returning resets the timer, so the next time you leave it receives the full interval again. Navigating within the original hostname keeps the protection available, while navigating to another hostname disables automatic closing for that tab permanently. MorrowTab also refuses to close a tab that is active, pinned, playing audio, still loading, or no longer on the original hostname. Tabs opened from the browser's context menu, or with Shift or Alt, remain ordinary untracked tabs.

Deleting a link is only available inside the Edit link dialog. It confirms with "This link will be removed from the current board." and leaves a six-second Undo.

Duplicates are warned about, not blocked

Saving an address the destination board already holds shows an inline warning naming the column and title it is already in, and ending "Choose Add link again to keep both." Pressing the button a second time keeps both copies. The second press only counts after a short delay, so a double-click or a held Enter cannot skip past the warning.

Other inline messages

You may also see "Enter a valid http or https address.", "Choose a destination column. Create a column first if none exists.", a column-full message naming its 200-link ceiling, "No more than 250 links can be synced.", or "This link changed on another synced device. Close the editor and try again."

Two faster ways in

• Drag from outside. Drag a link from your bookmarks bar, another tab or the address bar onto a column card and it is added there, with an Undo in the toast. Dropped files are ignored, and anything that is not an http(s) address is refused with "Only http(s) addresses can be dropped here." The title comes from the dragged link's own text, or from the hostname with a leading www. removed.
• Paste. Paste an http or https address anywhere on the page — not into a field — and the Add link dialog opens with the address already filled in and the caret in Name.

Fetching page titles

Settings has a toggle Fetch page titles when adding links, described as "Off by default. When enabled, MorrowTab asks for access to each entered site and uses its page title only when Name is empty." Two separate opt-ins are needed: the setting itself, and Chrome's own permission prompt for that one site the first time you commit an address in the field. Decline and you simply see "Allow site access to fetch the page title." and type the name yourself. Title fetching never runs while you are editing an existing link, and never overwrites a name you typed.

Link icons

Each link shows a badge. A working brand icon bundled inside the extension comes first and needs no download. For other links, MorrowTab uses a previously downloaded icon when available, or the browser's native icon or initials while a missing icon is retrieved. This lets another computer acquire icons even if you have never opened those sites there; a generic browser globe does not prevent a download attempt.

Download website icons in Settings is on by default and applies only to this computer. Eligible lookups send just the exact hostname, including its subdomain or www, to the FixQuotes API. They do not send the link's path, query, title or credentials. FixQuotes fetches public website artwork directly, without a third-party favicon service, and returns a verified small PNG. The icon cache holds up to 128 entries within 256 KiB; successful icons are fresh for seven days and usable stale for at most 30 days, while explicit no-icon or blocked results wait 24 hours before retrying. Transport failures start with a five-minute retry delay that increases to at most 24 hours, with a shared cooldown. Neither the cache nor the setting syncs or appears in a backup.

Switching downloads off stops new requests but keeps the reusable cache. Obvious internal or reserved names and private IP literals are excluded; a public-looking intranet hostname cannot always be recognized. Turn the setting off before showing sensitive internal links if you do not want their hostnames disclosed to FixQuotes. Some private, login-only or unavailable sites may still show a native globe or initials. Links remain usable if the icon service is unavailable.

Searching from the new tab

The search field takes focus when a new tab opens, so you can start typing straight away, unless the required first-run chooser is open. Complete setup or wait for your synced boards before searching. Press Enter or the Search button to submit.

Browser default

The engine picker between the field and the button always lists Browser default first, and every fresh page starts on it. It hands your text to Chrome or Edge, which runs it through the provider that browser profile is already configured with. MorrowTab does not set, replace or hijack your default search engine, and it never sees your query on a server of its own. Browser default cannot be renamed, reordered or deleted, and it is not stored as a synced record.

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Reading the placeholder

The placeholder tells you which engine is armed: "Search with browser default" for the built-in option, "Search with name" for one of your own, and "Chat with name" when the template points at chatgpt.com or one of its subdomains. If no engine can be resolved at all it reads "Search unavailable".

Where results open

Results replace the current tab by default. Turn on Open searches in a new tab in Settings and they open beside it instead — the board stays on screen and your query is re-selected in the field, so the next search types straight over it.

Keyboard

• / focuses the field and selects what is in it — but only when the caret is not already in a text field.
• Ctrl + K (Cmd + K on a Mac keyboard) does the same and works even while you are typing somewhere else on the page.
• With focus in the field, Alt + ↑ and Alt + ↓ cycle through that board's engines, wrapping around.

The field's own tooltip says the same thing: "Press / to focus search. Alt + up or down arrow switches the search engine."

Adding your own search engines

Beyond Browser default, each board can carry its own engines — a documentation site, an internal wiki, a package index, whatever that board is for. Open the engine picker and choose Manage search engines…, or reach the same dialog from the picker at any time.

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Adding one

Press Add search engine and fill in two fields:

• Name — what the picker shows, for example VirusTotal. The field accepts up to 60 characters; the stored limit is 80.
• Search URL template — the engine's own search address with {query} where your typed text should go, for example https://example.com/search?q={query}. The help text under the field reads "Use {query} or <input> where the typed search should go." The older <input> placeholder is accepted and quietly rewritten to {query} when the engine is saved.

The template must be a valid http or https address of at most 2,048 characters. Anything else is refused inline with "Use a valid http or https URL containing {query} or <input>." Your typed text is percent-encoded before it is inserted, and the search is an ordinary navigation to that address — it does not pass through anything of MorrowTab's.

One board or all of them

The Visible on all boards toggle decides scope. Its own help line puts it plainly: "Turn this off to keep the search engine only on the current board." An engine marked for all boards is one record referenced everywhere, but each board still keeps its own ordering, so the same engine can sit second on one board and fifth on another.

Reordering, editing and deleting

Drag an engine's handle to reorder it, or focus the handle and press Alt + ↑ / Alt + ↓. Deleting asks first, and the wording depends on scope: "This search engine will disappear from every board." for a shared engine, or "…from the current board." for a board-only one. You can delete the last additional engine — Browser default is always there.

Saved search suggestions

Searches you have actually run come back as suggestions the next time you type. They are your own past queries and nothing else — MorrowTab does not fetch completions from Google, Bing or any other provider, and it never sends what you are typing anywhere to build the list.

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How the list behaves

• Nothing appears until you have typed five characters. Below that the screen-reader status says how many more are needed.
• It matches anywhere inside a saved query, not just at the start.
• At most eight suggestions are shown at a time.
• Each search engine keeps its own history of up to 50 queries, newest first, de-duplicated without regard to capitalization.
• Queries are stored up to 512 characters; whitespace is collapsed and control characters are stripped before saving.
• When you delete a search engine, its saved queries are dropped on the next load.

Keyboard

↓ and ↑ move through the list and wrap around, opening it if it was closed. Enter accepts the highlighted suggestion into the field without submitting, so you can edit it first. Esc closes the list and leaves your typing alone, and Tab closes it as you move on.

Turning it off and clearing it

Settings has a toggle labeled Save search suggestions, described as "Queries you submit are stored only on this computer and never synced. Turning this off keeps existing suggestions but stops saving new ones." It is on unless you turn it off.

While saving is on, the Clear saved suggestions button beneath it asks "Clear saved search suggestions?" and warns that this "permanently removes all saved search suggestions from this computer. It does not change whether future searches are saved." The button is hidden when saving is off and disabled when there is nothing stored.

Quick Save from the toolbar

The MorrowTab toolbar button — tooltip Save to MorrowTab — files the page you are currently on into a board and column without leaving it. It works on any website, whether or not you use the new tab page.

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What the popup shows

1. The heading Save to MorrowTab.
2. A Current tab preview: the page title on one line and the address beneath it.
3. The hint "Choose a destination, then save."
4. Board and Column selects, a Title field prefilled from the page, a status line, and the Save current tab button.
5. An Open MorrowTab button underneath, which opens the new tab page.

Quick Save stores exactly four things: the board, the column, the title you leave in the field, and the page's address. There are no notes, tags, highlights or page captures.

Where it saves by default

The destination you used last is remembered on that computer and preselected next time, as long as that board still exists — otherwise the popup falls back to the board the new tab page is currently on. The remembered column is only reused when it is still part of the chosen board; otherwise the first column is selected. Because this preference is local, it does not follow you to another computer.

The New “Saved” column option

The Column list always ends with an entry that creates a new column called Saved on that board. Choosing it creates the column and saves the link in one write, so you can file something into a board that has nowhere obvious to put it.

Duplicates

Saving an address the destination board already holds shows "Already saved on this board in column. Save again to keep both." Pressing Save current tab a second time keeps both copies. As in the full editor, the second press is only accepted after a short delay, and the warning resets if you change the board.

What can and cannot be saved

Only http and https pages. On a chrome:// page, a file:// page or another extension's page the Save button stays disabled and the popup explains why: "Only http(s) pages can be saved." An address that is too long or otherwise invalid gives "This page's address is too long or invalid to save."

On success the status line reads "Saved to MorrowTab ✓" and the popup closes itself a moment later. If your synced data changed while the popup was open, or a limit is in the way, you get plain-language messages instead — "Synced data changed — pick a destination and try again.", "Synced storage is full. Open MorrowTab to tidy up, then try again.", or "That board or column is full. Open MorrowTab to tidy up, then try again."

Rearranging things

Every new tab starts with the layout locked, so a stray drag can never rearrange a board you were only reading. The padlock button beside Settings unlocks it: its accessible name switches between "Enable drag and drop" and "Disable drag and drop", and its tooltip between "Unlock layout" and "Lock layout".

Unlocking shows the toast "Drag and drop enabled — drag a handle or press Alt + arrow keys"; locking again shows "Layout locked". The unlocked state belongs to that one page: it is never saved, never synced, does not affect another open tab, and is back to locked after a reload.

With the mouse, a finger or a pen

• Drag a column card's handle sideways. It drops before or after the card you are over depending on which side of its midpoint you release.
• Drag a link's handle within its column or into another one. Dropping on empty space in a list appends to the end.
• Dragging near the top or bottom edge of the board area scrolls it automatically.
• Touch and pen dragging work through their own path, for columns, links, boards and search engines alike.

From the keyboard

Every drag handle is focusable and advertises its own shortcuts:

• Column: Alt + ← / Alt + → moves it one position. Focus stays on the handle.
• Link: Alt + ↑ / Alt + ↓ moves it inside its column; Alt + ← / Alt + → moves it to the previous or next column, appended at the end. Focus follows the link.
• Boards and search engines in their managers: Alt + ↑ / Alt + ↓.

Each move is announced for screen readers in the form "Moved name to position 3 of 5", and confirmed with a toast such as "Columns reordered" or "Link moved".

Undo

Undo is a button inside a six-second toast, not a Ctrl + Z history. It is offered for exactly six operations: deleting a board, deleting a column, deleting a link, moving a column to another board, importing a column file, and adding a link by dragging it in from outside. Renames, edits, reorders, color changes, settings changes and full backup imports are not undone this way.

Undo also refuses to fire if your synced data changed in the meantime, reporting "Could not restore — the surrounding data changed after deletion." That is deliberate: it can never overwrite newer work from another computer.

Ordering links by how often you use them

MorrowTab keeps a plain counter on each link. Opening a link with a normal click or a middle-click adds one; clicking its edit button does not. The counter holds no dates, no times and no sequence — just a number.

The setting

Order links by most used in Settings is described as "Each column sorts by how often you open its links. Manual link reordering is paused while this is on." Turning it on sorts every column by those counts, using a stable sort so links with equal counts keep the order you gave them.

Resetting

While usage ordering is on, Reset usage asks "Reset link usage?" and explains that "This clears the stored click counts for every link on every board." The action is hidden when usage ordering is off. Its confirmation button reads Reset and success shows "Link usage reset". If there is nothing to clear you get "No link usage is stored yet."; if another computer already cleared it, "No link usage is stored anymore."

Appearance and layout

The gear button at the top right opens Settings. On a wide screen it puts Background color and Backup on one side and the taller Layout and links column opposite; in a short or narrow window the sections stack and only the area under the fixed header scrolls.

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Background color

The help text reads "Choose the background used across every board. Auto follows the system appearance; the other choices use gradients." There are nine swatches, in this order: Auto, Purple, Blue, Green, Pink, Dark, Teal, Red and Violet.

Auto is the default color theme and the only flat one: when no background photo is shown, it gives a plain white page when your system is in light mode, and a dark gray surface when it is in dark mode, switching live as the system does. The other eight are gradients. There is no separate light/dark switch — Dark is simply one of the nine choices, and everything else follows the operating system.

The swatches behave as a radio group: ← → ↑ ↓ move between them, Home and End jump to the ends, and each keypress applies and saves that background immediately.

The background is a single shared setting used on every board, not a per-board choice. Modal dialogs deliberately do not take the tint: they use one dedicated light or dark palette chosen by your system setting, so text in a form never has to fight a gradient.

Column spacing

Two options, Comfortable (the default) and Compact. Compact tightens the padding so more fits on screen.

Board layout

Also two options, worded in Settings as:

• Capped cards — readable columns wrap into centered rows. The default. Cards share each row up to a readable maximum, and an incomplete final row is centered.
• Fill each row — columns expand across the available width. The same wrapping behavior, but cards stretch to use the whole row.

In both, cards size themselves to their contents, long titles are shortened with an ellipsis rather than wrapping, and columns wrap onto new rows instead of scrolling sideways.

Board picker

Two options for the top-left board picker:

• Dropdown — one compact menu in the toolbar. The default, described under Managing boards.
• Buttons — every board as a button, side by side. One button per board in your board order, the current one filled in, and a Manage boards… button at the end of the group. With many boards the group wraps onto another line; on a narrow window it shares the top row with the lock and Settings buttons as the dropdown does.

The choice syncs with your other settings. Keyboard shortcuts, the tab title and the board manager behave the same either way.

Column accents

Color is set per column from its own menu rather than in Settings — eight accents plus No color. See Columns.

Where links and searches open

• Open saved links in a new tab — "Individual links can override this in their editor." Off by default.
• Open searches in a new tab — "The current tab keeps showing this board."

Open full size

The daily quote

MorrowTab shows a FixQuotes Quote of the Day. The Settings control is a select labeled Daily quote, described as "Show the FixQuotes quote as text at the bottom, or as a picture above or below your cards."

The four modes

• Text — the default. A compact strip fixed to the bottom of the page, with a fade so it never sits hard against your links, and a little extra scroll room so the last row can clear it.
• Picture (bottom) — the same placement, with the quote's image.
• Picture (top) — the quote moves into normal flow between the search toolbar and your cards. No fixed strip, no fade, no extra scroll room.
• Off — the quote is hidden entirely, any bottom reserve and fade are removed, an in-flight load is aborted, and no request is made to FixQuotes.

If a picture mode has no usable image, or the image fails to load, MorrowTab shows the text in that mode's chosen position instead — without changing your setting. The mode itself is a shared setting that syncs with the rest.

When the network is not there

A catalog of 150 quotes ships inside the extension, so a quote is shown immediately at startup and is still shown with no network at all — the day's entry is picked from your local date, so it is the same quote all day. If a request fails, MorrowTab keeps the last quote it had rather than blanking the strip. Cached quotes are re-checked against the same rules every time they are read, and anything that no longer validates is discarded.

The quote itself renders as the text, an em dash, the author, and a FixQuotes source link; the picture modes swap in a linked image.

Nature photos and your own image

Two background-image choices sit below Background color in Settings. Their shared help line reads: "Daily nature downloads one curated, high-resolution Pexels photo through FixQuotes and caches it only on this computer. An uploaded image takes priority; the theme still colors buttons and accents."

Daily Pexels nature

The checkbox Daily Pexels nature starts checked for a new sample setup. The read-only sample preview also enables it, so both may contact the public FixQuotes API and Pexels image host. Existing synced or imported background choices are unchanged: an absent preference or a theme-only choice stays off. When enabled, MorrowTab asks the FixQuotes public API for one manually curated daily photograph, downloads it from Pexels' own image host, verifies it, and caches a compact copy on that computer. The status line then reads "Today's curated Pexels nature photo is cached on this computer."

A credit chip reading Photo by photographer on Pexels is shown at the bottom left whenever the photo is displayed, with both names linked. It is required and it stays.

You cannot search Pexels or choose the photo — the collection is curated on the FixQuotes side, and the extension holds no Pexels key. A verified cache prevents repeated downloads; once it is a day old it stays on screen while the next photo is fetched, and it is kept if the fetch fails. Turning the switch off stops work in progress and removes the photo and its credit.

Your own image

Upload background image… takes an image file from your computer. MorrowTab scales it to at most 2,560 pixels on its longest side, re-encodes it as WebP to fit local storage, and confirms with "Background image saved on this computer". A picture that is still too large after compression is refused with "That image is too large even after compression."

Remove image appears once an image is set and takes you back to the plain background. An uploaded image always wins over the daily nature photo — while one is set, the nature background will not even fetch, and its status says "Your uploaded background is taking priority on this computer."

Backup, export and import

The Backup section of Settings introduces itself as "Save synced MorrowTab data to a plaintext file on this computer, or restore a saved backup." It holds three buttons and one live readout. Schema 2 handles ordinary online and long-offline computers automatically, so users do not need to make or import backups as part of normal syncing. A backup remains useful for optional disaster recovery or a deliberate point-in-time copy.

Export backup

Export backup writes morrowtab-backup-YYYY-MM-DD.json to your downloads and confirms with "Backup exported". The file contains four fields — the application name, a schema version, the time it was exported, and the recovered logical data MorrowTab is showing: settings and board order, boards, columns, links (with their click counts and any configured inactivity timeout) and search engines. It does not contain actor IDs, causal clocks, competing register values, checkpoint envelopes, compressed bytes or chunks.

It is a plain, readable JSON file. It is not encrypted and not password-protected, so store it the way you would store a document listing the sites you use.

What a backup does not contain

Everything device-local is excluded by design, and none of it is restored from a file:

• Saved search suggestions and the "Save search suggestions" preference
• An uploaded background image and the cached nature photo
• The cached daily quote
• Which board is currently selected
• The remembered Quick Save destination
• Both local safety copies described below
• This computer's random schema-2 actor identity
• The managed-tab safety marker and auto-close permission-prompt marker
• Downloaded website icons, their hostname metadata, and the icon-download preference
• Currently managed tab IDs, hostnames and live auto-close countdowns

Import backup…

Importing a full backup replaces everything currently synced. It asks first, under the title "Replace synced data?", naming how many boards and links the file holds, and adding either that a copy of the current data stays on this computer, or that the action cannot be undone. The confirm button reads Replace; success shows "Backup imported".

The file is validated first: it must carry a complete logical graph and must not claim a newer schema than the current release understands. A strictly valid schema-1 MorrowTab backup is sanitized, upgraded to schema 2 and published as a fresh local-actor checkpoint; invalid or incomplete legacy files change nothing. Every storage limit is checked before anything is written. If the browser reports that publication itself failed, MorrowTab stays fail-closed; later cleanup never touches another actor's data and never undoes a checkpoint that already verified as committed.

Restore pre-import copy…

Before any full replacement, MorrowTab copies what you had onto that computer. The button Restore pre-import copy… then appears in Settings, with a tooltip showing when the copy was taken. Restoring is itself a full replace, so the copies rotate and the operation stays reversible. Success shows "Pre-import copy restored".

Single columns

A column's own menu has Export column, which writes just that column and its links. Feeding that file back through the same Import backup… picker is recognized automatically and behaves quite differently: it is additive. The column is appended to the board you are on with fresh identifiers, nothing is replaced, no confirmation is asked, and the toast offers Undo. The toast also reports anything skipped, for example "Imported “Research” (12 links, 3 skipped)". A file that is not readable gives "That file is not a readable MorrowTab column export."; one that would not fit gives "The imported column does not fit within the board or link limits."

The usage readout

Under the buttons sits a live line in the form Synced data: 9 of 100 KB · 50 of 250 links, computed with exactly the same byte arithmetic a save uses, so it can never disagree with what MorrowTab will accept. It changes to a warning style once either figure passes 85%.

How much MorrowTab can hold

Browser extension sync is a small, shared budget rather than open storage, so MorrowTab enforces its own ceilings safely inside it. Every limit below is checked against the complete projected data before anything is written, and a save that would break one is refused with a message naming it — nothing is half-written.

Some input fields stop you a little earlier than the stored limit — the board-name box and the search-engine name box accept 60 characters, the column heading 80 in the dialog (the full 100 when renaming in place), and the link name 100. Descriptions and addresses use the same number in both places.

Every stored string is also cleaned before it is saved: control characters become spaces, runs of whitespace collapse to one, the value is trimmed, and anything left empty falls back to a sensible default such as "Untitled board" or the link's own hostname.

How syncing works

MorrowTab has no account, no login and no server of its own. Your boards are written to the extension sync storage that Chrome or Edge already runs for the profile you are signed into, and that is what carries them to another computer. FixQuotes receives no copy of the synced graph. Its separate website-icon lookup receives only an eligible link's hostname when downloads are enabled.

Schema 2 gives each browser profile a random actor identity and its own compact CRDT checkpoint. A computer updates only its checkpoint, never another computer's. The checkpoint is canonical data plus causal counters, gzip-compressed, base64-encoded and split into bounded items when needed. Declared sizes and a SHA-256 digest are checked before MorrowTab uses it. Compression saves Sync space; it does not encrypt the contents.

What syncs

• Board names and their order
• Column headings, their order, and any accent color
• Link titles, addresses, optional descriptions, per-link Opens in overrides, configured inactivity timeouts, and click counts
• Search engine names, templates, scope and per-board ordering
• The shared settings: background, spacing, layout, quote mode, background mode, usage ordering and both "open in a new tab" toggles
• Pseudonymous actor IDs, logical counters and causal context needed to merge those changes

What stays on one computer

Thirteen preferences, caches and safety values stay only on one computer and out of backups: the selected board, remembered Quick Save destination, saved search suggestions and their on/off preference, an uploaded background image, cached nature photo, cached daily quote, two safety copies, the favicon cache and its download preference, the managed-tab fail-closed marker, and a Boolean remembering whether auto-close permission has been offered. That last value avoids repeated automatic prompts after a refusal; it contains no tab or browsing history. The separate random actor identity is stored locally too and excluded from backups, but appears as pseudonymous metadata in the checkpoint this profile publishes.

Live auto-close state is more temporary still. Managed tab IDs, original hostnames and current countdowns live only in extension session storage. They are not synced, exported, or restored after the browser session ends, the extension reloads, or an update is installed.

Upgrading existing data

The current release automatically upgrades a strictly valid schema-1 Sync graph. MorrowTab validates the complete graph, preserves accepted boards, settings, columns, links and search engines, changes the logical schema marker to 2, and seeds the first actor checkpoint. Invalid or incomplete legacy data stays read-only and unchanged. A newer-schema marker makes older MorrowTab releases refuse writes, but update every computer before editing.

How a save is made

If Sync returns no complete checkpoint, MorrowTab does not treat that as permission to save. The starter stays read-only until data arrives, you import an optional disaster-recovery backup, or you explicitly confirm a genuinely new setup. The final locked check refuses initialization when it sees any schema marker, actor checkpoint, legacy record, missing chunk set or partial payload.

Every write takes an exclusive lock across all MorrowTab pages in that browser profile, materializes every valid actor checkpoint, and records the change with this actor's next logical counter plus the causal context it observed. The full logical graph and encoded checkpoint are validated before only this actor's payload is published. Its immutable chunks, schema marker and actor-owned pointer are submitted together in one multi-key Sync write, so one logical save consumes one Chrome write operation. Another computer may still receive those keys in stages; it uses the prior complete checkpoint or stays read-only until the new checkpoint verifies. Obsolete chunks owned by this actor are removed after editing has been idle for ten seconds; failed cleanup backs off and never touches another computer's checkpoint.

If the browser cannot provide that locking, MorrowTab refuses to write at all rather than risk corrupting your boards across tabs. And when sync itself is full or rate-limited, the save simply fails with "Browser Sync is full or temporarily rate-limited. No local fallback was used." — MorrowTab does not quietly divert your data into local storage.

Two computers at once

The lock covers pages on one profile; causal merge handles separate computers. Edits to different records or fields both survive. A later value replaces one it had already observed. Concurrent values for the same field resolve deterministically on every device while remaining detectable. A live edit concurrent with a delete is kept; a delete made after seeing an edit wins, and an explicit later recreation wins again.

Fields that must agree are normalized together after that choice. A link's selected column supplies its board, and an auto-close timeout is kept only while the merged link explicitly opens in a new tab. Two valid concurrent moves or open-mode edits therefore cannot combine into an impossible link.

Child ownership decides membership, while board, column and link ID arrays are ordering hints. MorrowTab keeps a valid listed order and appends ownership-valid children omitted by a stale array, so an older laptop cannot hide a newer link merely by reconnecting. If an editor is open on something another device just changed, it can still close and ask you to review the merged result before editing again.

When sync goes wrong

Schema 2 normally merges online and long-offline computers automatically. If a checkpoint is incomplete or corrupt, a legacy graph is incomplete, or the merged logical data still fails strict validation, MorrowTab does not guess or publish a repair. It opens a read-only recovery view instead of a broken page.

If no actor checkpoint can be decoded at all, recovery shows no invented board and disables snapshot download and automatic repair. Import backup… remains available, and Restore local copy… or Restore pre-import copy… appears when this computer has that validated safety copy. Those user-confirmed replacements are the only writes offered in that state. The same restore-only screen is used when a checkpoint decodes but contains no usable board.

Recovery uses the same schema-2 materialization rules: a child's declared owner decides where it belongs, while parent arrays decide ordering only. Valid omitted items are appended to their owner instead of being treated as deleted. Concurrent record/field values follow the causal rules described above. Routine convergence does not require a backup; local copies and exported backups remain optional fallbacks if the available checkpoints themselves cannot be validated.

What you see

A banner headed "Synced data needs repair." with a summary in this shape: "Changes from your computers merged inconsistently. Showing a read-only view — n boards and n links are safe; n records would change… This can also resolve by itself while your computers finish syncing."

That last sentence is worth taking seriously. If the other computer is still sending its changes, the state often settles on its own. Waiting is a legitimate first move.

While recovery is active your boards render read-only. The board picker, search and the three recovery buttons keep working; editing and Manage boards… do not.

The three buttons

• Download snapshot — writes morrowtab-snapshot-YYYY-MM-DD.json containing the recovered, validated logical boards/settings/columns/links/search engines shown by recovery. It uses an importable MorrowTab record wrapper, not opaque compressed checkpoint envelopes or chunks. Do this first if you want a portable copy before anything changes.
• Restore local copy… — shown only when this computer holds a usable last-good copy. It asks "Restore this computer's copy?" and states plainly that it "replaces the inconsistent synced data on every computer with the complete copy saved on this computer" and that "Changes made on other computers after that moment are discarded." This is a replacement, not a merge. If sync healed itself while the dialog was open you are told instead that "The synced data already recovered on its own — nothing was replaced."
• Repair… — asks "Repair synced data?" and explains that it keeps everything shown on the boards, lists what would be dropped or corrected, and notes that "The repaired data will be published as a schema-2 checkpoint for every computer." Success shows "Synced data repaired".

Nothing is written until you confirm, and the repair is tied to the exact state you were shown, so it cannot act on data that changed while the dialog sat open. Normal causal merging is automatic; this explicit confirmation applies only to a state that still cannot validate.

The safety copies

MorrowTab keeps a rolling last-good logical copy on each computer after every clean load, and writes a separate pre-replacement copy the moment a full replace runs. Both are local availability copies only — never part of your synced data and never in an exported backup.

Keyboard shortcuts

Everything MorrowTab can do with a pointer it can also do from the keyboard. These are the shortcuts on the new tab page, plus the one browser-level command.

/ is ignored while the caret is in a text field, an input, a select or an editable area — otherwise you could not type a slash. Use Ctrl + K in that situation; it works wherever the caret is. Neither shortcut fires while a dialog or a custom menu is open.

Alt + Shift + S is a suggested default, not a guarantee. Chrome silently declines to assign a suggested shortcut that collides with an existing binding, so it may not be active on your machine. Confirm or change it at chrome://extensions/shortcuts. It opens the popup; you still pick a destination and press Save.

There is no Ctrl + Z undo. Undo is the button in the six-second toast described under Rearranging things.

Accessibility

MorrowTab is built to be used without a mouse and without relying on color, and those expectations are checked before a release rather than left to chance.

Keyboard and focus

• The board picker, engine picker, daily quote select and column menus are custom menus that support arrow keys, Home, End, typeahead, Enter, Space and Esc.
• Closing a dialog returns focus to the control that opened it. If that control was re-rendered away in the meantime, focus goes to the search field rather than nowhere.
• Editors open with focus already in the field you need.
• A dialog can be dismissed by clicking its backdrop, but only when the press both starts and ends on the backdrop — so drag-selecting text inside a field never closes it and throws away what you typed.
• Drag handles publish their own shortcuts through aria-keyshortcuts, so a screen reader can announce them.

Announcements

• Two live regions mirror every toast — one polite, one assertive for errors.
• Reordering is announced as "Moved name to position 3 of 5".
• The suggestion list reports its state: how many more characters are needed, that there are no saved searches for this engine, or how many suggestions are available.
• Toasts render above open dialogs, so an Undo button is never stranded behind a modal.

Display

• At 200% browser zoom the page and the board area must not gain a horizontal scrollbar, and Settings must stay inside the viewport with its content reachable and keyboard focus trapped. This is checked as a release gate.
• In Windows high-contrast (forced-colors) mode, meaning is carried by system colors, explicit borders, selected-state highlighting and visible focus — never by gradients, shadows, translucency or background imagery.
• prefers-reduced-motion is honored throughout.
• Light and dark follow your system setting. Modal dialogs always use a dedicated light or dark palette rather than inheriting the page's gradient, so form text keeps its contrast whichever background you chose.
• The layout is responsive down to 320 pixels wide; below about 1080 pixels the search form moves to its own full-width row so the toolbar controls cannot collide.

Troubleshooting

The most common questions, with what MorrowTab is actually doing in each case.