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Quick TAB Launcher by Bonn

A Firefox extension that adds a Spotlight-style command palette for searching open tabs, bookmarks, and browsing history from a single keyboard shortcut.

Type Ctrl+Shift+Space (or click the toolbar icon) to open an overlay panel. Start typing to filter across tabs, bookmarks, and history simultaneously. Results are grouped by source, deduplicated, and navigable with keyboard or mouse.

Install

Install directly from the Firefox Add-ons store.

Tech stack

• Vanilla JavaScript (ES2020+), no build step
• Pure CSS with light/dark mode via prefers-color-scheme
• WebExtension Manifest V2 (Firefox 91+)
• Vitest + jsdom for testing
• ESLint (flat config) for linting
• GitHub Actions CI (lint, test, coverage)

Architecture

flowchart LR
    subgraph content ["Content Script"]
        launcher["launcher.js<br/>Shadow DOM UI"]
        css["launcher.css"]
    end

    subgraph background ["Background Script"]
        bg["background.js<br/>WebExtension API bridge"]
    end

    subgraph shared ["Shared"]
        utils["search-utils.js<br/>Pure functions"]
    end

    subgraph firefox ["Firefox APIs"]
        tabs["browser.tabs"]
        bookmarks["browser.bookmarks"]
        history["browser.history"]
    end

    launcher -- "runtime.sendMessage" --> bg
    bg -- "tabs/bookmarks/history" --> firefox
    bg -- "sendResponse" --> launcher
    launcher --> css
    utils -.-> launcher
    utils -.-> bg

Loading

The content script injects a closed Shadow DOM overlay into the active page. User input triggers a debounced message to the background script, which queries Firefox APIs in parallel and returns deduplicated results. search-utils.js is loaded by both contexts and contains pure functions (escaping, highlighting, URL normalization) with zero browser dependencies.

Repository structure

quick-tab-launcher__firefox/
├── background/
│   └── background.js        # WebExtension API calls (tabs, bookmarks, history)
├── content/
│   ├── launcher.js           # Shadow DOM overlay UI (IIFE, closed mode)
│   └── launcher.css          # Styles with light/dark theme support
├── src/
│   ├── search-utils.js       # Pure shared logic (escaping, dedup, formatting)
│   └── config-storage.js     # Config read/write via browser.storage.local
├── options/
│   ├── options.html          # Settings page UI
│   ├── options.js            # Settings load/save/reset logic
│   └── options.css           # Settings page styles (light/dark)
├── popup/
│   ├── popup.html            # Compact popup fallback for privileged pages
│   ├── popup.js              # Popup interaction logic
│   └── popup.css             # Popup styles (light/dark)
├── icons/                    # SVG icons (16/32/48/96)
├── tests/
│   ├── search-utils.test.js  # Pure function tests, no mocks
│   ├── config-storage.test.js # Config merge and storage tests
│   ├── options.test.js       # Settings page tests
│   ├── background.test.js    # browser.* API mocks via globalThis
│   └── launcher.test.js      # jsdom + Shadow DOM (forced open for inspection)
├── .github/workflows/
│   └── ci.yml                # Lint + test + coverage on push/PR
├── manifest.json             # Extension manifest (MV2)
├── eslint.config.mjs         # ESLint flat config
└── vitest.config.mjs         # Vitest + jsdom + v8 coverage

Development setup

Prerequisites: Firefox 91+, Node.js 20+.

1. Clone the repository
2. Install development dependencies:

   npm install

3. Open Firefox and navigate to about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox
4. Click "Load Temporary Add-on" and select the manifest.json file from the project root

Usage

Action	Shortcut / Input
Open/close the launcher	Ctrl+Shift+Space or toolbar icon
Navigate results	Arrow Up / Arrow Down / Tab
Open selected result	Enter
Open in new tab	Ctrl+Enter
Close a tab from results	Click the X button on tab results
Dismiss the launcher	Escape or click the backdrop

The keyboard shortcut opens the full-screen overlay on regular pages. On privileged pages (about:, moz-extension:, file:), clicking the toolbar icon opens a compact popup fallback with identical functionality.

Type > to access the command palette: sort tabs, close duplicates, mute/unmute, pin, and more.

Bookmarks and history search activate after 2+ characters. Results are capped at 5 per category and deduplicated across sources (tabs take priority over bookmarks, bookmarks over history).

Tab search spans all open windows. Tabs from other windows display a badge to distinguish them from the current window.

Configuration

Right-click the extension icon and select "Options" (or go to about:addons and click the extension's preferences). Available settings:

Setting	Default	Description
Max tab results	5	Maximum number of open tabs shown
Max bookmark results	5	Maximum number of bookmarks shown
Max history results	5	Maximum number of history entries shown
Search debounce (ms)	80	Delay before triggering search while typing
History days	30	How many days of browsing history to search
Min query length	2	Minimum characters to search bookmarks/history
Loading threshold (ms)	300	Delay before showing the loading indicator
Full-text search	off	Search within page content of open tabs (slower with many tabs)

Settings are persisted in browser.storage.local and applied in real-time without reloading the extension.

When full-text search is enabled, tabs whose page content matches the query are included in results with a content badge. Title/URL matches always appear first. Content extraction is skipped for privileged pages where script injection is not allowed.

Testing

Tests run with Vitest in a jsdom environment:

npm test              # Run all tests
npm run test:coverage # Run with v8 coverage report
npm run lint          # ESLint check
npm run lint:fix      # ESLint auto-fix

Test files mirror the source structure under tests/. search-utils.test.js tests pure functions without mocks. background.test.js and launcher.test.js mock browser.* APIs via globalThis.

CI/CD

GitHub Actions runs on every push and pull request to main (.github/workflows/ci.yml):

1. Checkout + Node.js 20 setup with npm cache
2. npm ci (clean install)
3. Lint (npm run lint)
4. Test (npm test)
5. Coverage report (npm run test:coverage)

Security

The extension runs entirely client-side within Firefox's WebExtension sandbox. Input displayed in the overlay is escaped via escapeHtml() to prevent XSS. The UI is isolated from the host page through a closed Shadow DOM.

The manifest declares the <all_urls> permission because the content script (the overlay UI) must be injectable on any page the user visits. This is the standard pattern for Spotlight-style extensions; without it, the launcher would only work on a pre-defined set of domains.

To report a vulnerability, see SECURITY.md.

License

Released under the Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE.

Support the project

If you found this extension useful, consider giving it a star on GitHub.

Quick TAB Launcher is free to use. If it helps you and you want to give something back, you can leave a tip via PayPal. The amount is up to you and it is entirely optional.