tabSidian

tabSidian turns the tabs in your current browser window into an Obsidian-friendly Markdown document. The codebase now targets Chromium, Firefox, and Safari browsers from a single shared source tree using a Rollup build system and webextension-polyfill.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Installation
• Usage
• Development Setup
• Build Targets
• Automated Quality Gates
• Signing & Publishing
• Tips & Limitations
• Author

Sample Output

Features

• Popup-based save dialog with template, vault, folder, and filename controls before saving.
• Export focused window tabs to Markdown with frontmatter timestamps.
• Restrict specific URLs (settings pages, mail, etc.) and skip pinned tabs automatically.
• Manage multiple vaults with global default ordering and per-template routing overrides.
• Customize Markdown templates with a sidebar template list and live preview in the options page.
• Import/export types.json for frontmatter property mappings.
• Configure date and time formatting for exported metadata without touching code.
• Filename templates can reference {timestamp}, {date}, and {time} to mirror your formatting.
• Platform-aware sanitiser mirrors Obsidian’s rules for Unicode names and reserved characters.
• Browser-aware download handling: standard downloads on Chromium/Firefox and Share Sheet integration on Safari.
• Deterministic multi-browser builds from a unified codebase via Rollup.

Installation

Get the tabSidian extension from the official directory for your browser:

• Microsoft Edge Add-ons: For Microsoft Edge.
• Chrome Web Store: For Chrome, Brave, Arc, Orion, and other Chromium-based browsers.
• Firefox Add-ons: For Firefox.
• Safari Extensions: For macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. - Coming soon.

Download or install the version for your browser, then pin the tabSidian icon if you want quick access from the toolbar.

Manual installation remains supported for development or side-loading builds:

1. Clone the repository and install dependencies (npm install).
2. Run npm run build:<browser> (see Build Targets).
3. Load the generated dist/<browser> folder as an unpacked extension for your browser (e.g., chrome://extensions, edge://extensions, about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox).

Latest packaged release: tabSidian 2.1.2

📘 Help & Usage Guide

Usage

1. Click the tabSidian toolbar icon.
2. Select a template and optionally adjust vault/folder/filename in the popup dialog.
3. tabSidian reads the active window, filters restricted or pinned tabs, and renders Markdown using the selected template.
4. If a vault is selected, tabSidian routes to Obsidian URI. If no vault is selected, it falls back to download/share behavior.
5. Manage vaults, properties, templates, and restricted URLs from the options page sidebar.

Template customization

The options page now ships with a sandboxed Mustache renderer. Templates can reference:

• All settings auto-save as you edit within the General, Properties, Templates, and Restricted URLs panels; each panel also has its own “Reset” button plus a global reset.

• {{{frontmatter}}}, {{export.iso}}, {{export.filename}}, and {{export.tabCount}} for export metadata.

• Flip the switches in the Properties panel to decide which frontmatter keys ship with each export; turn them all off to drop the frontmatter block entirely.

• Frontmatter keys are configurable in the options UI; the active names are exposed via {{frontmatterFields.title}}, {{frontmatterFields.date}}, {{frontmatterFields.time}}, {{frontmatterFields.exportedAt}}, {{frontmatterFields.tabCount}}, {{frontmatterFields.tags}}, {{frontmatterFields.collections}}, and {{frontmatterFields.windowIncognito}}.

• {{window.title}}, {{window.id}}, {{window.focused}}, and {{window.incognito}} for window context.

• Tabs include group metadata when available: {{groupTitle}}, {{group.color}}, {{group.colorHex}}, etc., and you can iterate groups via {{#groups}}...{{/groups}} on browsers that expose tab group APIs (Chromium and Firefox).

• Inside {{#tabs}}...{{/tabs}}, use {{title}}, {{url}}, {{hostname}}, {{origin}}, {{protocol}}, {{pathname}}, {{search}}, and {{hash}}.

• Each tab exposes booleans such as {{active}}, {{highlighted}}, {{pinned}}, {{audible}}, {{muted}}, {{discarded}}, and {{incognito}}, plus {{favicon}} and positional helpers {{index}} / {{position}}.

• Timestamp helpers live under {{timestamps.lastAccessed}} (ISO) and {{timestamps.lastAccessedRelative}} (human friendly).

Use sections ({{#favicon}}...{{/favicon}}) to conditionally render details, and inverted sections ({{^timestamps.lastAccessed}}) for fallbacks. Triple mustaches ({{{value}}}) bypass HTML escaping—only use them when you trust the output.

Development Setup

• Requires Node.js 18+ (CI runs on Node 20).
• Install dependencies once: npm install.
• Helpful scripts:
  • npm run build:chrome|firefox|edge|safari – build a specific target into dist/<target>.
  • npm run build:all – build every supported browser.
  • npm run validate:manifests – generate and schema-validate manifests for all targets.
  • npm test – run compatibility tests (Node test runner).
  • npm run ci – convenience aggregator used by CI (build:all, validate:manifests, tests).

Source layout:

• src/background – service worker entry point using runtime/browser shims.
• src/options – options UI, styles, and logic shared across browsers.
• src/platform – shared helpers for defaults, Markdown formatting, download/share flows, and browser detection.
• src/share – Safari Share Sheet bridge with manual fallbacks.
• config/targets.js – per-browser manifest overrides and Rollup replacements.
• scripts/ – build, clean, and manifest validation utilities.
• tests/ – automated compatibility tests.

Build Targets

Running npm run build:<browser> outputs a ready-to-package directory under dist/<browser>:

• dist/chrome – Chrome Web Store package (downloads permission).
• dist/edge – Microsoft Edge Add-ons package with browser_specific_settings.edge metadata.
• dist/firefox – AMO package with browser_specific_settings.gecko metadata and a Manifest V2 background script (Firefox service workers remain optional in stable builds).
• dist/safari – Safari Web Extension bundle using Share Sheet mode (downloads permission moved to optional).

Each build contains compiled scripts (background.js, options.js, share.js), copied assets, and a manifest tailored to the target.

Automated Quality Gates

• The schema at schemas/manifest.v3.base.json enforces manifest structure across targets via npm run validate:manifests.
• Node test suites in tests/ cover manifest overrides, tab filtering logic, and Markdown generation.
• GitHub Actions workflow .github/workflows/ci.yml runs the full build/validate/test pipeline on pushes and pull requests.

Signing & Publishing

Follow the steps below after running the relevant npm run build:<browser> command.

Chrome Web Store

• Zip the dist/chrome directory (zip -r tabsidian-chrome.zip dist/chrome/*).
• Upload through the Chrome Web Store Developer Dashboard.
• Provide release notes and request review; monitor the dashboard for approval status.

Microsoft Edge Add-ons

• Zip the dist/edge directory.
• Submit via the Microsoft Partner Center (Edge Add-ons) portal, reusing Chrome assets when possible.
• Edge can ingest Chrome Web Store items; keep version numbers aligned to simplify parity releases.

Mozilla Add-ons (AMO)

• Zip dist/firefox.
• Submit through https://addons.mozilla.org/developers/, selecting “This add-on is listed” for public releases.
• AMO performs automated validation and manual review. Address flagged issues before resubmitting.

Safari App Extension

• Use dist/safari as the WebExtension payload when creating a Safari Web Extension App in Xcode.
• In Xcode, enable the Share entitlement if you rely on the Share Sheet fallback.
• Increment the Xcode project version alongside the manifest version (2.1.2) before archiving.
• Export a signed .pkg or submit directly to App Store Connect for notarisation and distribution.

Tips & Limitations

• Only the currently focused window is exported; repeat the action for other windows.
• Multiple highlighted tabs export only the selection.
• Safari share integration stores temporary payloads in browser.storage.local until the share flow completes.
• Permissions remain minimal (tabs, storage, tabGroups, downloads (Chromium/Firefox)), with the downloads permission optional on Safari builds.

Author

• Created by Carlos Granier in Miami, FL.
• Original build story: How I built tabSidian from scratch with GPT-4.

Community contributions are welcome via pull requests—see the automatic checks above to match the expected workflow.