I’ve used Brave for ~5 years now and the one thing that’s always annoyed me is the New Tab Page.
Maybe I’m too much of a minimalist or just love hotkey support everywhere, but the addition of a hotkey to expand the search widget at the bottom of the brave dashboard for a cleaner and nicer searching experience wouldn’t go amiss.
I know.. the url bar and that search bar at the bottom both do the same functionality as pressing Ctrl + K; Ctrl + E; Ctrl + L (which basically do the same thing and highlight the url bar)
but purely for aesthetics and a smoother experience, a key to activate the dashboard search widget would be much appreciated, or a way to already implement this would be lovely.
I’ve not actually used nightly before, purely for the fact that dev branches can have some negative side-effects that I’m not so fond of, similar to windows beta/dev releases etc.
I’d be willing to give it a go otherwise. The stable version already has the distraction-removal functionality when you click the search widget
I just wanted to look for a way that I could press Ctrl + T (new tab) and then follow it with a simple hotkey to bring that search bar front and centre with it focused so I can use it as a traditional search, even though it technically just does the same as if you press Ctrl + L on any page and it highlights the main url bar.
Just a QoL thing that would be nice, maybe it’s just my personal preference but I just like the way it dims the screen and makes it look nicer.
I’ve been focusing on moving away from Google products and this implementation would stop me from muscle-memory clicking my Google bookmark lmao
If I press Ctrl + T it opens up the tab and it already has the cursor up top, so all I have to do it type. No extra keybinds or anything to press. Just to confirm, are you saying it doesn’t work that way for you?
To be clear, I get you’re asking for something different and I’m not diminishing from that. The only thing I’m wondering is if the request might be very minimal in its usefulness. I’d open the tab and it would be in the search bar there. I could type out my search there. And I can use my search engine shortcut prompts, such as :g for Google, to switch which of the search engines will be used when I hit Enter.
To rephrase
If I’m seeing it right, you are requesting they code a different behavior so the search engine widget/bar on the Dashboard (New Tab Page) can be made much larger when targeted. And you want a keyboard shortcut that will allow you to directly jump to that search engine widget rather than to use the search bar on top.
Just asking to make sure I fully understand it. And know it would be useful to get clarification for the devs if they were to consider.
You’re exactly right. The Ctrl + T (new tab keybind) does work as always intended, i.e. it places the cursor and readies the url box ready for typing, but this suggestion was coming from a purely aesthetics perspective.
I did state that I thought it could just be me that thinks this would be beneficial or is just something i’d personally enjoy as a small QoL feature, but the dashboard search widget doesn’t house much usefulness or prompt to be used when it’s overran by the top url bar doing everything functionality wise.
Like I said, purely from my own perspective, design wise. I’d like to see the lower search widget on the dashboard gain some more attention or even just be given the same functionality that the top url bar gets when opening a new tab, because in my eyes it provides a nicer/cleaner animation when being used.
Kinda the same as if you’re using Microsoft Powertoys/Command Palette and similar things that Linux and MacOS appearances wise.
I do understand if this suggestion gets disregarded in the end, as I was opening this purely on a ‘it might be a nice cleaner edition’ basis to see it utilized as it just improves the minimalism factor is all, even if it’s an additional optional keybind like opening a new tab (Ctrl + T) and then pressing something like Ctrl + Space to bring it up
TL;DR (sorry, I tend to yap):
Yes. The option to have a keybind to specifically target the search widget on the dashboard would be nice and provide a bit of a cleaner experience if it was given the same functionality as the main top address bar.
but I just like the way it dims the screen and makes it look nicer.