Review by John Brown
Rated 5 out of 5
by John Brown, 3 years agoBeen using nightTab for well over a year now; first on Chrome and now I'm on Firefox.
I'm super fickle about the look of my workspace, be that physical or digital, and this makes nightTab invaluable for me.
Compared to the alternatives I've tried:
1):
The bookmarking functionality is similar. I have seen other "new tab" extensions require you bookmark a tab using the browser's bookmark system. nightTab does NOT go this route; instead, you just enter the URL into the bookmark upon creation. I'm a liberal "book-marker" so, I find this to be lovely. There's no mucking up my library of bookmarks.
2):
The UI functionality? It's like nothing I've seen elsewhere, and I love it. This is what really sets nightTab apart in my opinion. There are layout options; bookmark groups; styling options for the page, and everything on it; clock, date, and search bar options; background images/videos.
There is always a balance to be had between customization and accessibility. I think nightTab strikes a good balance; there are plenty of options for customization but, the interface isn't forcing you to learn CSS.
3):
The ability to save your layout as a .json makes replication a breeze. I haven't seen any other extensions deploy this solution but, it's genius; simple and effective. (You do not need to understand what a .json is to use this feature; do not let its mention worry you.)
The json file allows you to easily replicate your layout on different machines; simply download the file and upload it to the browser you'd like to format the same way. This also allows you to have a backup file; store it in a cloud base service and you'll never have to set it up twice.
User Experience):
Looking at nightTabs performance: It just works... I have, literally, never had any unexpected behavior from nightTab. It's relatively easy to set up; it is wholly portable; looks wonderful; and has good documentation if something does confuse you.
My ONLY complaint, which is minor:
The color picking options weren't super intuitive to follow (at least for me; I'm color ignorant). For example: The accent color gives you all three systems for picking color options (hex, RGB, and HSL). The other, "primary color," option only gives you three parameters though. For this value, you can set the value of "primary color", saturation, and contrast range. I am assuming, these correspond respectively, with HSL's hue, saturation, and lightness attributes. But, being that I haven't investigated all that thoroughly, I'm still not too sure. I think if the dev(s) were to clarify, and potentially allow hex/RGB to be used, it would be amazing. All of that said though, I'm nitpicking to an annoying degree; and with that much nitpicking, the only complaint I have is color clarity... for a single option.
Looking at nightTab in its entirety, I couldn't recommend it enough; I am incredibly sensitive to any bits of perceived disorder and nightTab gives me clarity.
Kudos to the dev(s), for real. I love this extension. It's dope, and it keeps me sane.
I'm super fickle about the look of my workspace, be that physical or digital, and this makes nightTab invaluable for me.
Compared to the alternatives I've tried:
1):
The bookmarking functionality is similar. I have seen other "new tab" extensions require you bookmark a tab using the browser's bookmark system. nightTab does NOT go this route; instead, you just enter the URL into the bookmark upon creation. I'm a liberal "book-marker" so, I find this to be lovely. There's no mucking up my library of bookmarks.
2):
The UI functionality? It's like nothing I've seen elsewhere, and I love it. This is what really sets nightTab apart in my opinion. There are layout options; bookmark groups; styling options for the page, and everything on it; clock, date, and search bar options; background images/videos.
There is always a balance to be had between customization and accessibility. I think nightTab strikes a good balance; there are plenty of options for customization but, the interface isn't forcing you to learn CSS.
3):
The ability to save your layout as a .json makes replication a breeze. I haven't seen any other extensions deploy this solution but, it's genius; simple and effective. (You do not need to understand what a .json is to use this feature; do not let its mention worry you.)
The json file allows you to easily replicate your layout on different machines; simply download the file and upload it to the browser you'd like to format the same way. This also allows you to have a backup file; store it in a cloud base service and you'll never have to set it up twice.
User Experience):
Looking at nightTabs performance: It just works... I have, literally, never had any unexpected behavior from nightTab. It's relatively easy to set up; it is wholly portable; looks wonderful; and has good documentation if something does confuse you.
My ONLY complaint, which is minor:
The color picking options weren't super intuitive to follow (at least for me; I'm color ignorant). For example: The accent color gives you all three systems for picking color options (hex, RGB, and HSL). The other, "primary color," option only gives you three parameters though. For this value, you can set the value of "primary color", saturation, and contrast range. I am assuming, these correspond respectively, with HSL's hue, saturation, and lightness attributes. But, being that I haven't investigated all that thoroughly, I'm still not too sure. I think if the dev(s) were to clarify, and potentially allow hex/RGB to be used, it would be amazing. All of that said though, I'm nitpicking to an annoying degree; and with that much nitpicking, the only complaint I have is color clarity... for a single option.
Looking at nightTab in its entirety, I couldn't recommend it enough; I am incredibly sensitive to any bits of perceived disorder and nightTab gives me clarity.
Kudos to the dev(s), for real. I love this extension. It's dope, and it keeps me sane.
Developer response
posted 3 years agoThank you so much for the very detailed review. I really appreciate it. The project has developed this far because of user feedback and is always evolving. The aim is always to make the user experience better going forward.
I love nitpicking. Here is some context around the colour:
I know what you mean about the colour controls. The primary "Colour" needs to be different as it requires more inputs than all other colours in the app due to the fact this colour is split into 14 shades. These shades are use for everything, like backgrounds, boxe, borders and some text. If you're interested in learning more or would like to discuss details feel free to open discussions on the project repo: https://github.com/zombieFox/nightTab
I love nitpicking. Here is some context around the colour:
I know what you mean about the colour controls. The primary "Colour" needs to be different as it requires more inputs than all other colours in the app due to the fact this colour is split into 14 shades. These shades are use for everything, like backgrounds, boxe, borders and some text. If you're interested in learning more or would like to discuss details feel free to open discussions on the project repo: https://github.com/zombieFox/nightTab