Offers the ability to save tabs as Internet shortcut files.
NOTE: If you're experiencing a problem, please submit a support request, NOT a review, or email me.
-Description-
Personally, I've always used Internet shortcut files for a variety of reasons. For example:
1. To passively share links to content via shared folders.
2. To supersede the temporary use of pinned tabs and bookmarks.
3. As portable links.
4. To accompany resources (installers with links to the websites, projects with links to assets, etc).
However, I always found them so awkward to create, hence me creating this extension.
-FAQ-
Q: Can I get prompted for where to save each file?
A: Yes but you have to go to chrome://settings/downloads then enable the option "Ask where to save each file before downloading".
Q: Are you aware of X issue?
A: I'm not currently aware of any issues so please let me know via a support request if you've found one.
Q: Can this extension be updated to do X?
A: I'm open to ideas so feel free to contact me.
Q: Can I test upcoming features and fixes?
A: Yes, there is a beta version available here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/save-as-shortcut-beta/kmemfmaclfmhaddkneldhbcmlpoanbmg
Q: Does this extension have any tracking or collect any personal information?
A: Nope. Simple as that. In fact, multiple third parties have offered to pay me relatively large sums of money per month to inject their code into my app and I have always refused because I hate it when other developers do that so I don't want to be that person.
-Version history-
• 3.61: 2020/10/28 (published to beta first):
- Modified replacing of invalid characters so that quotation marks are replaced with properly opened and closed Unicode versions.
• 3.60: 2020/10/10:
- Fixed initialization of option "Remove prefixed or suffixed site name".
- Modified option "Work around Windows' restricted characters" changing from recommended and enabled by default to disabled by default as it's personal preference and still experimental.
- Modified option "Remove notification indicators" fixing the code to initialize as enabled by default to match the UI.
- Modified option "File name mode" so that it's automatically set to "Custom" if the user previously set a filename suffix.
• 3.59.1694: 2020/10/03 (published to beta only):
- Bolded tooltips that are both default and recommended to make them stand out more.
- Fixed unequal width of name and URL fields.
• 3.59.*: 2020/10/02 (published to beta only):
- Prevented newlines from being entered into the name textarea via Enter / Return.
- Modified options section "File name pattern variables" making it hidden by default with the option to show and hide it (not saved / remembered).
- Modified option "Work around Windows' restricted characters" so that it applied to macOS and Linux shortcut types too and updated tooltip to state this.
- Added option to trigger button "Save All" via Enter / Return when it's focused on.
- Refactored code for minor efficiency / de-duplication improvements.
- Modified option "File name mode" adding missing "Default" tooltip.
• 3.58.*: 2020/09/30 (published to beta only):
- Changed save field "Name" from a text input to an auto-sized textarea so that the entire content can be seen.
- Fixed bug that would cause %host% and %URI% to be all the same and wrong for each shortcut in an archive.
- Modified option "Remove site name" (1) adding support for delimiter "–" (U+2013 EN DASH) used on sites like Dropbox, (2) adding tooltip explaining when it's particularly useful, and (3) renaming to "Remove prefixed or suffixed site name" as it doesn't do so when the title is only the site name.
- Extended outline colouring to save buttons (<a> elements).
• 3.57.*: 2020/09/29 (published to beta only):
- Modified option "Remove suffixed site name" removing recommendation as it's down to personal preference.
- Added option "Remove notification indicators" which is recommended and enabled by default.
- Fixed bug that would cause changing the option "Remove suffixed site name" and "Remove notification indicators" from Enabled to Disabled to have no effect on the current page.
- Modified option "Remove suffixed site name" renaming to "Remove site name" and re-designing the code to dynamically detect and remove the site name wherever it appears in the title.
- Modified options where the first step is clicking on a link prefixing "In the new tab, " to step two.
• 3.56.*: 2020/09/28 (published to beta only):
- Added migration of old append string / filename suffix value.
- Added variable %tabs% (total number) for archive file names.
- Added automatic selecting of entire variable when it's clicked on.
- Added option "Remove suffixed site name".
• 3.55.*: 2020/09/24 to 2020/09/26 (published to beta only):
- Fundamentally rewrote code to fully support customisable names for both the individual shortcut and archive files, including variables in any position.
- Removed option "Single file name suffix" as it's now redundant.
- Added variables %title%, %host%, %URL%, and %URI%.
- Modified option "Shortcut type" renaming to "Shortcut file type".
- Fixed bug where only one quotation mark would be replaced.
- Split options into top group of file-related and bottom group of extension-related.
- Refactored elements IDs, variable names, and function names so that they're more consistent to avoid confusion.
- Modified options adding tick / checkmark tooltips for recommended / default settings.
- Renamed and migrated localStorage names so that they're up to date with the options and less confusing.
- Added promo tiles.
- Removed unnecessary icon files from package.
• 2.54.*: 2020/09/23 (published to beta only):
- Modified option "Filename suffix" renaming to "Single file name suffix" and adding support for date and time variables.
• 2.53.*: 2020/09/23 (not published):
- Added banners for app installation and updates.
- Added console logging of app installation, app updates, and Chrome updates.
• 2.52.*: 2020/09/23 (not published):
- Added <code> elements and styling to make direct extracts stand out better.
- Modified option "Download prompting" renaming to "Download folder".
- Modified options "Download folder" and "Keyboard shortcuts" splitting onto separate lines like the others and with instructions.
- Tweaked some styling.
- Modified option "Preserve tab order by numbering files in ZIP file" renaming to "Preserve tab order in ZIP file" and adding a tooltip explaining how. This makes the UI a bit neater.
- Modified option "Windows" → tooltip to bold red as a warning.
- Modified option "Cross-platform" replacing " ← Recommended" with a tooltip as it's been set by default for a while and hopefully the red question mark next to the option "Windows" will warn people off from it.
- Modified styling of tooltips adding padding to tooltip so that they're easier to trigger and setting to colour to the same as links so users are more likely to know that they're interactive.
- Modified tab opening changing active mode from true to false so that users can continue reading the instructions before choosing to close the extension popup.
- Modified option "Download folder" adding explanation for why things currently work the way that they do.
• 2.51.*: 2020/09/22:
- Adjusted options section for diagnostic log and console to account for the fact that Opera and Edge (Chromium) don't display links to the background page.
- Re-ordered function background_Save_Generate() so that the filename suffix also has its invalid characters processed.
• 2.50.*: 2020/09/21 (published to beta only)
- Added tooltip to Windows shortcut type to advise of problems.
- Renamed options and context menus to "Save Current" and "Save All" for UI consistency.
- Added CSS to prevent <sup> elements from affecting line height, thereby making line spacing inconsistent.
- Added console logging for addition of Chrome event listeners.
- Added section at the bottom of the options on how to access the diagnostic log.
- Increased height of spacer elements by 2px as options were starting to look a bit crowded.
- Added tabbing to the button "Save All".
• 2.49.*: 2020/09/19 (published to beta only)
- Fixed a bug where Unicode spaces and forward slashes were still set for the ZIP file name even when the option "Work around Windows' character restrictions" was disabled.
- Refactored code so that:
+ It is more intuitive which will make future changes easier and less error-prone.
+ Options' localStorage values are initialised and centrally.
+ All console logging is done on the background page and is easier to read.
• 2.48.*: 2020/09/17 (published to beta only)
- Aligned radio buttons to labels.
- Changed ZIP file name from "Google Chrome tabs - <date and time>.zip" to "Chrome tabs (<date and time>).zip" as this extension can be used in other, non-Google Chromium browsers such as Microsoft Edge.
- Changed ZIP file name generation to take the option "Work around Windows' restricted characters" into account.
- Removed long-commented-out section "Info".
- Made margins around main sections and labels more space-efficient, especially when collapsed.
- Added option to specify string to be appended to every non-ZIP file name.
- Replaced the hyphen to the left of "Recommended" with a Unicode left arrow.
- Replaced "Context menu" with "Context (right-click) menu".
- Replaced "Current + All" with "Current & All".
- Removed the wrapping of backslashes in Unicode thin spaces (U+2009) as it looked abnormal, for example in Windows paths. This also happened to fix a bug where if the first character was a backslash then an underscore would be prefixed to the filename for some reason.
- Made the options section scrollable to keep the popup inside the maximum 600px height.
- Changed context menu entry names from "Save as Shortcut -" to "Save as Shortcut:"
- Changed extension hovertext ("browser_action" → "default_title") from "Save tabs as Internet shortcut files." to "Save as Shortcut".
- Added handling for undefined tabs which started occurring since adding "chrome.windows.onFocusChanged" for some reason.
- Added logging of activeInfo and changeInfo to the console for tab and window change events.
• 2.47.*: 2020/09/17:
- Replaced usage of "replaceAll" with "replace" and a global regex to restore functionality in Opera.
• 2.46.*: 2020/09/13 (published to beta first)
- Added handling of switching to the active tab of a different window.
• 2.45.*: 2020/09/12 (published to beta only)
- Made option to work around Windows' restricted characters enabled by default.
- Changed the replacing of normal slashes so that the Unicode slash is wrapped in Unicode thin spaces (U+2009) to make it look more normal.
- Changed the character replacement functions to do so for all instances, not just the first.
- Changed the text input elements' cursor types from pointer to text which is standard.
- Added tooltip link to the right of "Work around Windows' restricted characters" so that users can find out about how it works.
- Split CSS class "subSection" into "subSection" and "subSection_Indented" as it doesn't look right for "Save" but does for "Options".
- Increased the width of divider lines from 80 % to 90 %.
- Moved save buttons onto one line for a more compact, tidier look.
- Fixed missing colour fade to "Save" section when collapsed.
- Altered the collapsing function so that only one section can be open at a time.
- Added 2px border radius to buttons.
• 2.44.*: 2020/09/06 (published to beta only)
- Added option to work around Windows' restricted characters (disabled by default).
• 2.43.*: 2019/10/30
- Updated the cross-platform (.HTML) option to include a clickable link in case JavaScript scripting is disabled on the system
• 2.42.*: 2019/09/28
- Renamed option from "Number files in ZIP file" to "Preserve tab order by numbering files in ZIP file" to make it clearer what it's for
- Added conversion of old context menu preference to fix incorrect preference displaying
• 2.41.*: 2019/09/22
- Split context menu option from disabled and enabled to disabled, save current, and save current + save all
• 2.40.*: 2019/09/13
- Changed tabbing order so that Save button is first
- Fixed saving via pressing Return / Enter on text fields
• 2.39.*: 2019/08/22
- Changed default type to cross-platform.
- Added option for numbering files in ZIP file.
• 2.38.*: 2019/08/16
- Added keyboard shortcut and context menu options for "Save All".
- Changed "Save All" downloading method from individual files to a single ZIP file to work around OS connection limitations.
- Changed "Save All" downloading target from all windows' tabs to current window's tabs.
- Numbered files in ZIP according to their original tab position.
• 2.37.*: 2019/08/15
- Added option to download all tabs as shortcut files.
- Added "Recommended" to cross-platform option.
• 2.36.*: 2019/03/27
- Removed experimental shortcut type "Native" to avoid confusion.
• 2.35.*: 2019/03/27
- Added to options section: shortcut to chrome://settings/downloads.
• 2.34.*: 2019/03/25
- Added to options section: ability to disable context menu and shortcut to chrome://extensions/shortcuts.
- Tidied up code.
• 2.33.*: 2019/03/24
- Fixed a bug where the detected title / name and URL wouldn’t update on certain tab or content changes.
• 2.32.*: 2019/03/24
- Changed the downloading method so that the last download directory is remembered. A side effect of this means that you will have to enable the option "Ask where to save each file before downloading" in chrome://settings/downloads.
• 2.31.*: 2019/03/24
- Fixed type preference remembering bug.
- Tweaked font size and radio button labels so that clicking on them will tick the radio button.
• 2.30.*: 2019/03/23
- Fixed "undefined.undefined" filename error caused by initial installation / update.
• 2.29.*: 2019/03/22
- Added cross-platform (HTML) option.
- Fixed field tabbing.
• 2.28.*: 2019/03/22
- Added keyboard shortcut (set in chrome://extensions/shortcuts).
• 2.27.*: 2019/03/16
- Added context / right-click menu entry.
• 1.26.*: 2018/03/20
- Fixed broken downloading via Enter / Return.
- Fixed broken layout issues.
• 1.25.*: 2018/03/16
- Fixed broken downloading by (1) replacing webkitURL with URL and (2) replacing downloading via HTML (“<a href=”URL” download=”fileName”></a>”) with downloading via Google Chrome (“chrome.downloads.download”).
• 1.24.*: 2015/05/08
- Added ability to save shortcut simply by pressing the Return or Enter keys. Thanks to Matthew Hollander for implementing this on my behalf.
- Fixed font and layout rendering issues.
• 1.22.*: 2013/10/25
- Options for Internet shortcut filetypes.
- Removed library-dependencies.
