changelog

This release improves onboarding privacy by making the browsing history permission optional, and introduces a complete dashboard-style redesign for the extension popup.

What's new

🧠 Optional History Permission (Onboarding & Privacy)

• Moved the history permission from mandatory to optional. This removes the "Read and change your browsing history" warning when installing the extension from the Chrome Web Store.
• Designed and implemented a themed permission request screen inside the History Sidebar. Users can easily grant the history permission with a single click if they wish to use history logs, search, and analytics widgets.
• Retained the tabs permission under permissions to keep Enhanced Mode tab auto-reloads functioning seamlessly.

⚙️ Popup Dashboard Redesign

• Redesigned the extension popup into a wide 3-column horizontal layout (660px x 350px) to match the premium retro-cinematic monochrome aesthetic of the DinoDash landing page.
• Columns are divided into: Controls (toggles for game audio, particles, messages), Widget Manager (expanded tag-list settings), and Profile (scores, theme settings, support buttons).
• Decoupled the popup theme from runtime tab updates, securing the high-contrast retro-cinematic look.

📁 Storage Migration & System Optimization

• Migrated data layers for favourite links, game stats, pinned history, and widget preferences to chrome.storage.local with automatic migration from localStorage on load and fallback support outside of the extension sandbox.
• Scaled and updated all brand PNG icons (16x16, 24x24, 32x32, 48x48, 128x128) from the updated logo-dark.webp asset.

The first stable release. DinoDash launches as a complete new-tab experience built around the classic Dino runner, with widgets, themes, smart history, and analytics.

What's new

🎮 Game

• A polished take on the classic Dino runner, with smoother movement, particle effects, and a high-score that sticks
• Crouch and jump support, with the world speeding up the further you run

🎨 Themes

• Two starter themes — Dark Valley and Mystic Forest
• Switch themes anywhere — the new tab, panels, sidebars, and tooltips all update together
• No reload needed

🧩 Widgets

• A widget manager with a tag-style picker for turning features on or off
• Five widgets included out of the box: Today's Run, Statistics, Enhanced Mode, Favourite Links, and History Sidebar

✅ Today's Run

• Quick daily checkpoints in the top-right corner
• Add or remove your own, tick them off as you go
• Resets every day, collapses out of the way when you don't need it

⭐ Favourite Links

• A foldered shortcut hub for the sites you reach for every session
• Drag and drop to reorder, rename folders, and delete with a confirmation

🧠 History Sidebar

• A sliding panel for browsing your recent history
• Live search by title or URL
• Pin important pages to keep them surfaced across sessions
• Pages grouped by Today, Yesterday, Past 7 Days, and Older
• A category tag filter to narrow by type — Coding, Research, Design, Social, Entertainment, Shopping, and more

📊 Analytics

• A Category Distribution bar chart that shows where your attention goes
• Smart Insights that read your habits in plain language and update with your actual numbers
• Suggestions that respond to your patterns — focus tips, anchor-site nudges, time-of-day reminders, weekend trends, and more

🏆 Game Stats

• Track your high score, last score, games played, average score, total distance, and total play time

⚙️ Popup

• Toggle the experience on or off in one click
• Switch themes, mute audio, hide particles, and show an FPS counter
• See your high score at a glance and open a fresh DinoDash tab anytime

🔊 Audio

• Subtle sound effects that react to gameplay, with an easy mute switch

💬 Tooltips

• Themed hover hints across every interactive surface so the UI explains itself without getting in the way

Privacy

• Everything stays on your device
• No accounts, no tracking, no telemetry

Future versions will be listed here as they ship.