Keyboard Workspace Manager

A production-oriented Manifest V3 Chrome extension for keyboard-driven pinned-tab workspaces on Windows.

What It Does

• Ctrl+Shift+1: focus or create Gmail.
• Ctrl+Shift+2: focus or create Google Calendar.
• Ctrl+Shift+3: focus or create Google Messages.
• Ctrl+Shift+4: focus or create ChatGPT as a pinned tab.
• Shortcuts 5-10: assign shortcuts manually in Chrome's extension shortcuts page.
• Toolbar command palette: search and launch unlimited extra workspace entries without adding more slot shortcuts.
• Web-search fallback from the final command palette result.
• Optional bookmark search in the command palette, disabled by default.
• Light, dark, system-following, Chrome Graphite, Catppuccin, GitHub, Nord, or Tokyo Night themes for the options page and command palette.

When a service tab already exists, the extension focuses its window and activates the tab. Depending on the slot mode, it can keep the tab pinned and ordered, leave it as a regular tab, or focus a matching floating window. When no matching tab exists, it creates one using the same mode.

Screenshots

Options

Command Palette

Command Palette - Launcher Options

Floating Window

Install

1. Open Chrome and go to chrome://extensions.
2. Enable Developer mode.
3. Click Load unpacked.
4. Select the browser-workspace-manager folder.
5. Open chrome://extensions/shortcuts and confirm the keyboard shortcuts.

Chrome allows many extension commands, but only four commands may include default suggested shortcuts in manifest.json. This extension ships defaults for slots 1-4. To enable slots 5-10, open chrome://extensions/shortcuts, find Keyboard Workspace Manager, and assign keys to Focus Shortcut 5 through Focus Shortcut 10.

The toolbar command palette can also be assigned manually from the same page using Open Command Palette. Chrome 127 or newer is required for extensions to open their own action popup from a command. Set this shortcut to Global; Chrome may not dispatch browser-scoped action-popup commands consistently. The command focuses a normal Chrome window before opening the popup because Chrome action popups are attached to browser toolbar windows.

Chrome does not allow extension command shortcuts that include Ctrl+Alt, because that can conflict with AltGr keyboards. This is why Ctrl+Alt+Shift+1 cannot be used directly in manifest.json. If you want Logitech Options+ buttons or AutoHotkey to use Ctrl+Alt+Shift muscle memory, bind those tools to send the Chrome-valid shortcut instead, such as Ctrl+Shift+1.

Chrome may also refuse a shortcut if another extension, Windows, the browser, Logitech Options+, or AutoHotkey already owns it. If that happens, set the shortcut manually at chrome://extensions/shortcuts, or bind your Logitech button to a less crowded shortcut such as Ctrl+Shift+F13 and assign that shortcut in Chrome.

Configuration

Open the extension options page from chrome://extensions. You can choose light mode, dark mode, follow your Windows theme, or pick from Chrome Graphite, Catppuccin, GitHub, Nord, and Tokyo Night theme variants. You can also toggle debug logging, adjust pinned order healing, optionally enable bookmark search, configure shortcut slots 1-10, and tune any slot that opens as a floating window.

Each numbered shortcut slot has:

• Name shown in extension logs and options.
• Optional unique alias for external launch URLs.
• URL opened when the tab does not already exist.
• Automatic host/path matching derived from the URL.
• Launch mode: pinned tab, regular tab, or floating window.
• Optional floating-window size and position.

Blank URLs are treated as disabled slots. Disabled slots do nothing when their command is pressed.

Pinned tab ordering is compressed across enabled pinned-tab slots only. For example, if slot 3 is configured as a floating window, then slot 4 becomes the third managed pinned tab rather than leaving an empty gap in the pinned tab strip.

Chrome does not let extensions change command names dynamically in chrome://extensions/shortcuts, so that page shows generic names such as Focus Shortcut 1. The extension options page is the source of truth for your real slot names, such as Gmail, Linear, Notion, or Banking. The manifest command ids are focus-slot-01 through focus-slot-10 so Chrome sorts them in slot order.

Configuring a slot in the options page does not automatically create its Chrome keyboard shortcut. Chrome keeps shortcut assignment in chrome://extensions/shortcuts, so use the options page to define what each slot opens and Chrome's shortcuts page to define which key triggers it.

Drag a slot row onto another slot row to reorder workspace configurations. The Chrome shortcut commands stay fixed as slots 1-10; drag-and-drop moves the configured website, mode, and window settings to the new slot and shifts the slots between them.

The options page includes a Chrome shortcuts button. Chrome may block direct navigation to internal chrome:// pages from extension pages; when that happens, the extension copies chrome://extensions/shortcuts so you can paste it into the address bar.

Use Export and Import on the options page to back up or move your settings. Use each slot's reset button to restore one slot, or Reset Defaults to restore the full configuration.

Launcher Entries

Keyboard slots are fixed because Chrome extension commands must be declared ahead of time in manifest.json. For anything beyond slots 1-10, use Launcher Entries.

Launcher Entries are unlimited, configurable workspaces available from the extension toolbar command palette. They can open as regular tabs or floating popup windows, and they are searchable by name, URL, and tags. They do not need Chrome keyboard shortcut assignments.

In the toolbar popup, Launcher Entries and Keyboard Slots appear in one result list, with Launcher Entries ranked first. Type to filter entries and press Enter to launch the highlighted match. Open Chrome tabs also appear when they match the typed title or URL text. If bookmark search is enabled in Settings, matching bookmarks appear after open tabs and open in a new tab. When you type a query, the final result searches the web using Chrome's default search engine.

External Alias Launching

Slots and Launcher Entries can have an optional unique alias such as my_workspace, gmail, or homelab. Aliases are case-insensitive and must be unique across all slots and launcher entries.

Chrome extensions cannot register custom chrome:// URLs, but they can expose extension pages. To launch an alias directly from Deckboard, Logitech Options+, AutoHotkey, or another local automation tool, open:

chrome-extension://EXTENSION_ID/launch/launch.html?alias=my_workspace

Find EXTENSION_ID on chrome://extensions with Developer mode enabled. The ID is stable for a Chrome Web Store install. For unpacked development installs, Chrome usually keeps the ID stable for the same extension path, but reinstalling from a different path may change it.

The shorter query key also works:

chrome-extension://EXTENSION_ID/launch/launch.html?a=my_workspace

The launch page resolves the alias locally, asks the extension service worker to focus or create the matching workspace, then closes its own temporary tab. Launch URLs can also include temporary overrides. Invalid values and unknown parameters are ignored.

• mode or m: default, tab, pinned, popup, or window.
• new or n: true or false.
• left or x: popup/window left position in pixels.
• top or y: popup/window top position in pixels.
• width or w: popup/window width in pixels.
• height or h: popup/window height in pixels.

For deeper changes, edit src/config.js. Each service rule supports:

• id
• name
• url
• match.hosts
• match.pathPrefixes
• pinnedIndex
• pinned
• alias
• windowPreference
• optional popup

Permissions

• tabs: required to search, activate, pin, and move tabs.
• windows: required to focus Chrome windows and create popup windows.
• storage: required for the options page and future custom settings.
• search: required for the command palette's final web-search fallback, which uses Chrome's default search engine.
• Optional bookmarks: requested only if you enable bookmark search in Settings. It is used locally to search bookmark titles and URLs from the command palette.

The extension does not request website host permissions, inject content scripts, or read/change page contents. It reads tab URLs locally only so it can match a configured shortcut to an already-open tab. If optional bookmark search is enabled, bookmark titles and URLs are searched locally and are not transmitted. If the web-search fallback is selected, the typed query is passed to Chrome's built-in search API so Chrome can use your default search engine. Disabling bookmark search removes active bookmark access. Chrome may remember that you previously approved the optional permission, so re-enabling bookmark search may not show the permission prompt again.

The extension does not send data anywhere.

See PRIVACY.md and STORE_LISTING.md for Web Store-ready privacy and permissions copy. The public privacy policy is available at https://github.com/codevibr/keyboard-workspace-manager/blob/main/PRIVACY.md.

License

Keyboard Workspace Manager is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE for the full license text.

Floating Window Strategy

The extension uses chrome.windows.create({ type: "popup" }) for slots or launcher entries configured as floating windows. This is the best built-in MV3 option for an app-like floating window. It creates a popup-style Chrome window, reuses an existing matching popup if found, focuses it, and applies configured size/position.

Chrome extension limitations:

• Extensions cannot create truly frameless windows.
• Monitor targeting is coordinate-based, not monitor-aware.
• Chrome may clamp or adjust window coordinates.
• --app=https://chatgpt.com launched outside Chrome often feels more app-like than an extension popup.

For stricter monitor placement, use the companion AutoHotkey v2 script in ahk/ChatGPT-Floating-Panel.ahk.

AutoHotkey v2 Companion

Install AutoHotkey v2, then run:

ahk/ChatGPT-Floating-Panel.ahk

The script binds Ctrl+Alt+Shift+0, focuses an existing ChatGPT Chrome app window when possible, moves it to configured monitor-2 coordinates, or launches:

chrome.exe --app=https://chatgpt.com

You can also bind a Logitech Options+ key directly to that command or to the .ahk script.

Debugging

1. Go to chrome://extensions.
2. Find Keyboard Workspace Manager.
3. Click service worker.
4. Enable debug logging in the options page.
5. Press a command shortcut and watch the logs.

Logs include command received, tab found or missing, tab created, tab moved, and window focus activity.

Troubleshooting

• Shortcut does nothing: check chrome://extensions/shortcuts; Chrome may not have accepted the suggested shortcut.
• Slots 5-10 do nothing: assign those commands manually in chrome://extensions/shortcuts.
• Command palette shortcut only works when set to Global: this appears to be a Chrome command dispatch quirk for chrome.action.openPopup(). If Chrome does not dispatch a Chrome-only command, the extension never receives the shortcut event. Set Open Command Palette to Global. If the active window is not a normal Chrome browser window, the extension focuses a normal Chrome window before opening the palette.
• Wrong tab opens: update the service match.hosts and match.pathPrefixes.
• A shortcut opens example.com: set the real name and URL for that slot in extension options.
• Floating window appears on the wrong monitor: adjust left and top in options, or use the AutoHotkey companion.
• Extension stops responding briefly: MV3 service workers sleep by design. The commands API wakes the worker when a shortcut is pressed.

Future Enhancements

• Startup restore that creates missing pinned tabs automatically when Chrome opens. This is a strong fit for the 0.10.x series because it builds on the existing slot rules and helps recover from Chrome sessions that reopen without pinned tabs.
• Cycling through multiple matching tabs for a slot. For example, pressing the same shortcut repeatedly could move through all matching Gmail or ChatGPT tabs instead of always choosing the highest-ranked match.
• Workspace profiles with different pinned layouts. A profile could define a complete slot layout for a context like Work, Personal, Research, or Streaming, then switch several pinned tabs at once.
• URL aliases per service. This would let one slot recognize multiple related URLs as the same workspace entry, such as mail.google.com, inbox.google.com, and a company SSO redirect for Gmail, without creating duplicate slots.
• Tab group creation and color assignment. This is probably better as a later 1.x feature because it adds a second layer of workspace organization on top of pinned tab position management.