What NavShelf is
NavShelf is a free, no-signup start page that runs in your browser. A nested folder tree on the left, link cards on the right: you put the dozen sites you actually use into your own categories and see them the moment you open a new tab — no feed, no pop-ups to dismiss. It ships in English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, with light and dark themes and a tools column of browser-based utilities (Base64, JSON formatting, timestamps). Folders, links and search settings live in your browser; nothing is uploaded, and there is no account.
Two settings you touch once and benefit from daily
A start page is one of the few pages you open dozens of times a day. That makes two settings disproportionately valuable: how it looks in the light you are actually sitting in, and which language its interface speaks.
Both live in the toolbar and both are remembered. Neither one touches your actual bookmarks.
Switching the theme
Click the theme button in the toolbar and the interface flips between day and night. That is the whole interaction: one button, no settings page.
- Day is the default. White cards on a light grey field, hairline borders, a single blue accent.
- The choice is stored with your data, so the next time you open the page it is already the way you left it.
Night mode is not an inverted screenshot
Flipping a light interface to dark by inverting colours produces the washed-out grey-on-grey look everyone recognises as an afterthought. NavShelf’s night theme is a separate set of colours:
| Part of the UI | Day | Night |
|---|---|---|
| Background and cards | light grey field, white cards | near-black field, dark grey cards |
| Accent (active folder, links, focus) | deep blue | a lighter blue that stays readable on dark |
| Built-in Tools column | amber marking for system content | amber re-tuned for a dark background |
| Ad slots | light paper strip | dark strip with the same amber label |
The practical effect is that contrast stays high in a dark room without the page glowing at you.
One honest note: the theme does not follow your operating system. There is no automatic switch at sunset — it is a manual toggle, and it remembers what you chose. If you want it dark at night, click it once; it stays dark until you change it.
Three interface languages
The language selector next to the theme button switches the whole interface between English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. It applies immediately, with no reload.
On the very first visit the interface is English, regardless of what your browser reports. That is deliberate: it means your collection looks the same on every device you open it on, instead of one machine showing Chinese and another English because of a browser setting. Change it once and your choice is remembered.
What the language setting does translate
- Every control in the toolbar, the search overlay, the context menus and the dialogs.
- Empty states, notices and error messages — including “Maximum of 5 folder levels reached.”
- The built-in Tools column: every folder name and link description is written in all three languages, so switching languages switches that content too.
- The Blog button: it opens the blog in the language you are currently using, rather than dumping you into the English site.
What it does not translate
Your own bookmarks. Titles, URLs and descriptions are exactly what you typed, in whatever language you typed them — the interface language is a preference, not a translator. Folder structure, ordering and search engines are equally untouched.
Where these settings live
Theme and language are stored inside the same local JSON as your folders and links, in the settings part of that object. Two consequences worth knowing:
- They travel with an export. Export your data and import it on a new device, and your theme and language come along with the bookmarks.
- They are covered by “no cloud” the same way everything else is: nothing is synced, and clearing site data resets the interface to English and day mode, because the preference was part of that data. See Your Data Stays in Your Browser.
FAQ
Does the theme follow my system dark mode? Not currently. It is a manual toggle with memory, which also means one thing less to fight with when the system and the app disagree.
If I switch to Traditional Chinese, do my bookmarks get translated? No. Only the interface and the built-in Tools column change.
Why is the default English if I am not an English speaker? Consistency on first contact. The default is configured at build time, and your own choice overrides it permanently afterwards.
Does the blog switch language too?
The Blog button follows your interface language. The blog itself lives at /en/, /zh-cn/ and /zh-tw/, so you can always link to any edition directly.
Does this work on a phone? Yes — the theme button and the language selector are both in the mobile toolbar, and the settings are the same ones.
I changed devices and my interface is back to English. The preference lives in local browser data, so a new browser starts fresh. Import your JSON and it comes back with everything else.
Small settings, daily payoff
Neither of these is a headline feature. They are the kind of thing you set on day one and then stop thinking about — which is exactly what you want from the page you open every morning.
Open NavShelf, pick your light and your language, and they will be waiting the next time you do.