Shortcuts, side panel & menu
You don't have to open the popup for everything. Refresh Pilot also listens to keyboard shortcuts, can live in Chrome's side panel next to the page, and adds two handy items to the right-click menu.
Keyboard shortcuts
Four commands are available. Two come with a key combination already set; two are unassigned until you give them one.
| Command | Default keys | Tier | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toggle refresh | Alt+Shift+R | FREE | Start auto-refresh on the current tab — or stop it if it's already running. Uses your last-used settings (or the defaults). |
| Kill alarm | Alt+Shift+K | FREE | Silence every alert sound at once — the panic button when an alarm is looping. |
| Start random | none — assignable | PRO | Start a random-interval refresh on the current tab. On the free plan it shows a notification instead of starting. |
| Start countdown | none — assignable | PRO | Arm a countdown start using your last countdown duration (falls back to 60 seconds if you've never set one). |
Alt+Shift+R starts or stops refreshing; Alt+Shift+K silences all alarms.
Changing the keys
Shortcuts are managed by Chrome itself, not inside Refresh Pilot:
- Type
chrome://extensions/shortcutsinto the address bar and press Enter. - Find Refresh Pilot in the list — all four commands appear there.
- Click the pencil next to a command and press the key combination you want. That's also where you give Start random and Start countdown their first keys.
chrome://extensions/shortcuts so you can paste it into a new tab and
customize the keys there.
The side panel
The whole popup — all four tabs — can run as a side panel: a column docked to the side of the browser window that stays open while you browse. To open it, click the panel toggle button in the popup's header — it opens the side panel for that tab and closes the popup. In the panel, the same header button reads "Close side panel" and does exactly that.
The right-click menu
Refresh Pilot adds two context-menu items:
- Monitor "<your selection>" with Refresh Pilot — appears when you have text selected on a page. Select something like in stock, right-click, choose the item, and a monitor job starts on that tab immediately, watching for that exact text ("found" mode). The selection can be up to 200 characters. It's the fastest way to start watching a page — no typing at all.
- Kill alarm sound — appears when you right-click the Refresh Pilot toolbar icon. Stops all alert audio, same as Alt+Shift+K.
Select the words you care about, right-click, and pick the Monitor item — the watch starts instantly.