With Chrome 27, it seems that extensions that override Chrome's New Tab Page can't take focus away from Chrome's Omnibox like they used to in previous versions of Chrome.
Is there a new way to focus an input box in a New Tab Page, or has this functionality been disabled completely? :(
To test this, create an extension folder with three files:
1. manifest.json:
{
"name": "Focus Test",
"version": "0",
"minimum_chrome_version": "27",
"chrome_url_overrides": {
"newtab": "newTab.html"
},
"manifest_version": 2
}
2. focus.js:
document.getElementById('foo').focus();
3. newTab.html:
<html>
<body>
<input id="foo" type="text" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="focus.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
Then, when you load the extension and open a new tab, the input field does not get focused on the new tab page.
I have also tried adding the autofocus attribute to the input field, but no luck either. The extension's new tab page can't take focus away from Chrome's Omnibox.
Any ideas? Is this a bug or a new "feature"?
ManifestV3 update
This answer is adapted from https://stackoverflow.com/a/11348302/1754517.
This has been tested with both Manifest V2 and V3.
Tested in Google Chrome 99.0.4844.51 64-bit (Windows 10).
Replace the content of focus.js with:
if (location.search !== "?x") {
location.search = "?x";
throw new Error; // load everything on the next page;
// stop execution on this page
}
Add the autofocus attribute to the <input>.
Go to the Extensions page in Chrome and click the Load unpacked button. Choose the folder of your extension.
Open your new tab page. You might see a modal dialogue reading Change back to Google?. Click Keep it to keep your custom new tab page.
Inline Javascript - Manifest V2 only
If you're inlining the Javascript in the HTML file, then you'll need to take some extra steps:
After adding your inline Javascript to your HTML file, open DevTools (F12 key) and observe the error output in the Console. Example output you should see:
Refused to execute inline script because it violates the following Content Security Policy directive: "script-src 'self' blob: filesystem:".
Either the 'unsafe-inline' keyword, a hash ('sha256-MK0Gypb4mkZTI11eCOtWT+mGYcJNpN5zccvhfeaRb6E='), or a nonce ('nonce-...') is required to enable inline execution.
Select & copy this hash.
Add a line to manifest.json to allow the JS to run, pasting in the hash you just copied between the single-quotes. E.g.:
"content_security_policy": "script-src 'self' 'sha256-MK0Gypb4mkZTI11eCOtWT+mGYcJNpN5zccvhfeaRb6E='"
Go to the Extensions page again. Remove the extension, then re-add it using the Load unpacked button.
Open your new tab page. Your extension should now autofocus on the <input>.
Note inlining only works with Manifest V2; Manifest V3 returns a failure message when attempting to load the extension (even with a properly formed "content_security_policy" object in manifest.json, to replace the Manifest V2 "content_security_policy" string):
Failed to load extension
File C:\path\to\extension
Error 'content_security_policy.extension_pages': Insecure CSP value "'sha256-...'" in directive 'script-src'.
Could not load manifest.
As per the Chrome Extension Documentation,
Don't rely on the page having the keyboard focus.
The address bar always gets the focus first when the user creates a new tab.
See reference here: Override Pages
Here's the solution for Manifest v3
chrome.tabs.onCreated.addListener((tab) => {
if (tab.pendingUrl === 'chrome://newtab/') {
chrome.tabs.remove(tab.id)
chrome.tabs.create({
url: '/index.html',
})
}
})
I saw a pretty old blog which updates the new tab conditionally. However, simply updating the tab does not steal the focus. I had to close the pending tab and open a new one.
Cons: An ugly chrome-extension://akfdobdepdedlohhjdalbeadhkbelajj/index.html in the URL bar.
I have a cheap work around that allows stealing focus from address bar focus. It's not for everyone. I do actually do use this because I want to control a new tab focus just that bad in my own custom new tab solution:
<script>
alert('Use enter key to cancel this alert and then I will control your focus');
document.getElementById('...AckerAppleIsCrafty...').focus()
</script>
USE CASE: I built my own HTML chrome custom tab that has a search input that custom searches my history and bookmarks the way I like it too.
Cash me focusing outside how bout dat?
Related
Is Chrome blocking access to the webstore url?
I would like to make an extension that displays a like button beside the +1 button, but it looks like that content scripts are not working on https://chrome.google.com/webstore/*
Is that true?
TL;DR The webstore cannot be scripted by extensions, and the flag that previously allowed you to do that (--allow-scripting-gallery) has been removed in Chrome 35.
Chrome extensions cannot execute Content scripts / insert CSS the Chrome Web Store. This is explicitly defined in the source code, at function IsScriptableURL (click on the previous link to see the full logic).
// The gallery is special-cased as a restricted URL for scripting to prevent
// access to special JS bindings we expose to the gallery (and avoid things
// like extensions removing the "report abuse" link).
// TODO(erikkay): This seems like the wrong test. Shouldn't we we testing
// against the store app extent?
GURL store_url(extension_urls::GetWebstoreLaunchURL());
if (url.host() == store_url.host()) {
if (error)
*error = manifest_errors::kCannotScriptGallery;
return false;
}
manifest_errors::kCannotScriptGallery is defined here:
const char kCannotScriptGallery[] =
"The extensions gallery cannot be scripted.";
The error can be viewed in the background page's console when you use chrome.tabs.executeScript to inject a script in a Web Store tab. For instance, open https://chrome.google.com/webstore/, then execute the following script in the background page of an extension (via the console, for live debugging):
chrome.tabs.query({url:'https://chrome.google.com/webstore/*'}, function(result) {
if (result.length) chrome.tabs.executeScript(result[0].id, {code:'alert(0)'});
});
I have an application by mean-stack that hosts a website and an Excel add-in. html5 is enabled, and it has
<script src="https://appsforoffice.microsoft.com/lib/1/hosted/office.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/devote/HTML5-History-API/master/history.js"></script>
In the Excel add-in, I have a button that opens a page in the website by Dialog API:
$scope.openDialog = function () {
Office.context.ui.displayDialogAsync("https://localhost:3000/preview/tmp/6wr-4PqdBrYQwjp3AAAD", {}, function () {})
}
When I click on this button in Excel Online in Chrome, it opens a dialog box with the following url (note that # and several %2F are systematically appended), but it does not prevent from well displaying the page.
https://localhost:3000/preview/tmp/6wr-4PqdBrYQwjp3AAAD?_host_Info=excel|web|16.00|en-us|b6f37f78-e519-7d03-0069-b9c4317a362c|isDialog#%2Fpreview%2Ftmp%2F6wr-4PqdBrYQwjp3AAAD%3F_host_Info=excel%7Cweb%7C16.00%7Cen-us%7Cb6f37f78-e519-7d03-0069-b9c4317a362c%7CisDialog
However, when I click on this button in Excel Online in Firefox, the url changes quickly to the following url, which turns out to display the homepage of the website:
https://localhost:3000/home#%2Fpreview%2Ftmp%2F6wr-4PqdBrYQwjp3AAAD%3F_host_Info=excel%7Cweb%7C16.00%7Cen-gb%7C919fff78-e51f-dc20-0c3c-871b7d0ec25d%7CisDialog
So my questions are:
1) Why does Office.context.ui.displayDialogAsync add systematically # and %2F to the url of my website? Is it possible to prevent this from happening?
2) Is it possible to make a url (regardless of # and %2F) that Firefox accept?
Edit 1: It seems that if I don't use html5-history-api, it will work. So does not know how to disable html5-history-api for that displayDialogAsync? (The reason why I have to use html5-history-api after office.js is here.)
It is not displayDialogAsync that is doing this. It is a frequent issue with Angular routing and Angular location strategy. Search for "angular app is adding hash to my urls" and you will find a lot of information about it and solutions.
I have a Chrome extension, and a Chrome app. I need inline install for both of them on the same domain.
As per Googles instructions (for one inline install) I add the header link tag:
<link rel="chrome-webstore-item" href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/itemID">
Then add the onclick function in the body:
<button onclick="chrome.webstore.install()" id="install-button">Add to Chrome</button>
<script>
if (chrome.app.isInstalled) {
document.getElementById('install-button').style.display = 'none';
}
</script>
What I need to know is how to add two instances. One for the extension, and one for the app. Do I add two link tags in the header, then edit the onclick function?
This is what Google says to do for multiple instances, but I don't understand where to edit the onclick function to differentiate between the two.
To actually begin inline installation, the
chrome.webstore.install(url, successCallback, failureCallback)
function must be called. This function can only be called in response
to a user gesture, for example within a click event handler; an
exception will be thrown if it is not. The function can have the
following parameters:
url (optional string) If you have more than one tag on your
page with the chrome-webstore-item relation, you can choose which item
you'd like to install by passing in its URL here. If it is omitted,
then the first (or only) link will be used. An exception will be
thrown if the passed in URL does not exist on the page.
successCallback (optional function) This function is invoked when
inline installation successfully completes (after the dialog is shown
and the user agrees to add the item to Chrome). You may wish to use
this to hide the user interface element that prompted the user to
install the app or extension.
failureCallback (optional function) This
function is invoked when inline installation does not successfully
complete. Possible reasons for this include the user canceling the
dialog, the linked item not being found in the store, or the install
being initiated from a non-verified site. The callback is given a
failure detail string as a parameter. You may wish to inspect or log
that string for debugging purposes, but you should not rely on
specific strings being passed back.
I currently have one link tag in my header for the extension. I need to add another inline installation, on a different page, same domain, but this second onclick code needs to be different so it doesn't refer to the existing link tag in my header.
Many thanks.
<link rel="chrome-webstore-item" href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/itemID1">
<link rel="chrome-webstore-item" href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/itemID2">
<button onclick="chrome.webstore.install('https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/itemID1')" id="install-button-1">Add App to Chrome</button>
<button onclick="chrome.webstore.install('https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/itemID2')" id="install-button-2">Add Extension to Chrome</button>
The very same docs page shows a method for the extensions.
Basically, your extension can inject a <div id="somethingYouExpect"> into the DOM, and the page's script can detect that.
It's a bit clunky though: I was trying to get it to work for test code and didn't manage to do so in a good way, as content scripts are injected either before DOM is constructed at all or after document ready fires. You can bypass that with mutation observers, but meh and your button will be visible for a split second.
You can save yourself some pain, if you're just hiding an element, by injecting a css file hiding it. Or, you can hide the elements from injected code. Either way is somewhat layout-sensitive though.
If you HAVE to be layout-independent and at the same time want something more complex than element hiding, either go the (div inject + mutation observer) route or you can try window.postMessage approach to signal the page to hide the element.
Step by step guide for the extension / CSS variant.
Suppose your extension install UI is contained in an element with id extension-install.
Add a content script to the manifest file:
"content_scripts": [
{
"matches": ["*://yourdomain/*"],
"css": ["iaminstalled.css"],
"run_at": "document_start"
}
],
The CSS:
#extension-install {
display: none !important;
}
So, to recap:
To allow installs of both the app and the extension, you need two <link> tags in the head
To install either you pass the url parameter to chrome.webstore.install
If the app is installed, it will define chrome.app.isInstalled in the page's context. You can check for it from the page to hide the install button.
If the extension is installed, it can inject CSS/JS into page to hide the install button.
I've recently been contributing to the Enhanced Steam extension and I've found that a link fetched with chrome.extension.getURL simply opens about:blank and not the link described.
I do not believe it's actually a problem with the extension, but rather a problem in chrome. The link it supplies is valid (chrome-extension://pimjhgjngccknempdnehdeaihcjbajod/options.html) and navigating directly works correctly.
I tried chrome.tabs.create, but found that I am not allowed to use it due to the script modifying pre-existing content.
Any help or work arounds would be appreciated.
I put all my required files into "web_accessible_resources", it solved my problem. See this in #4 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=310870#c4
It is Chrome's previous problem which is not secure. In build 31.0.1650.57, Chrome fixed this which is to force to put required files in "web_accessible_resources". In Chrome extension, lots of samples don't use "web_accessible_resources", those are the bugs, those samples will have this "chrome-extension:// links open about:blank" problem in build 31.0.1650.57.
Actually my chrome extension MarkView was facing this issue and I had to update its manifest.json to make it work for this Chrome update. By the way, MarkView is tool to read and write Awesome Markdown Files, it provides features including Content Outline, Sortable Tables and code block syntax highlight with line number.
Looks like a bug in Chrome to me. If you don't have too many pages like this to change then could you try using message passing to pass the page you want to open to the background page? Then use either window.open or chrome.tabs.create within the background page. Example code shown below:
//CONTENT SCRIPT
chrome.runtime.sendMessage({greeting: "OpenPage", filename:"somepage.html", querystring:"?aValue="+someVal}, function(response) {});
Then in your Background page
//BACKGROUND PAGE
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(
function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
if (request.greeting == "OpenPage"){
open_page(request.filename, request.querystring)
}
});
function open_page(filename, querystring){
var pageUrl = chrome.extension.getURL(filename)+querystring;
chrome.tabs.create({'url': pageUrl }, function(tab) {
// Tab opened.
});
}
I'd like to make a very simple extensions that slightly alters how the Downloads page looks. Changing the History page might be interesting too, but that's for later.
Is there a way to do that?
I tried making a Content Script extension, with "chrome://downloads" as match in manifest.json. Chrome won't allow that and responds with an error when packaging the extension.
Is there another simple way? It has to be simple, because changes would be simple, because all chrome:// pages are built with HTML, JS and CSS.
edit
After trying with background scripts a little...
I can't get chrome.tabs.executeScript to work! I added in background.html:
chrome.browserAction.onClicked.addListener(function(tab) {
alert(this.document.body.innerHTML);
alert(chrome.tabs.executeScript(null, {
code : "document.body.style.backgroundColor = 'red';"
}));
});
And I added this in manifest.json to add a (invisible) 'browser action button':
,"browser_action": {
/* "popup": "background.html",*/
"name": "Alter page"
}
The onClicked event fires both alerts (first is background.html's body, second is undefined). But the code (a string with document.body.style.backgroundColor = 'red';) doesn't execute! And ofcourse there's no debugging for extensions like this =)
Any tips anyone? I'm trying to get a hold of the tab's window.document (not background.html's window.document!). An injected script (that's what chrome.tabs.executeScript is supposed to do) should do that.
PS
I'm stealing from make_page_red/manifest and make_page_red/background.html
The 'extension' I have so far: http://hotblocks.nl/js/downloads.rar
EDIT
I found out what I want to achieve is possible with just CSS. I don't need to inject javascript. Does that make it easier? Does that make it possible? =)
According to this documentation, chrome:// URLs are an invalid scheme so they won't be matched:
A match pattern is essentially a URL that begins with a permitted scheme (http, https, file, or ftp), and that can contain '*' characters.
I would look into using override pages instead.
As requested, here's my extension that can at least load when chrome://downloads is loaded, although as I said, I don't think you can modify the page even if you know that's the page you're viewing.
manifest.json
{
"name": "Test",
"version": "0.0.1",
"background_page": "background.html",
"permissions": [
"tabs"
]
}
background.html
<script>
chrome.tabs.onUpdated.addListener(function(tabId, changeInfo, tab)
{
if (tab.status == "complete")
{
alert(tab.url);
// should alert 'chrome://downloads' on that page. You can
// check for this url here and then do whatever you want
}
});
</script>
Update: Since Chrome 31 there is an API for extensions that allows access to Chrome's downloads: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/downloads
There's also an API that allows access to list and manage other installed extensions: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/management
(Previous Answer)
Unfortunately, there's not currently an API for Chrome extensions to access information about a user's downloads. It's a widely requested feature, though, and there's some discussion among Chrome developers here: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=12133
Star the issue if it's a feature that you'd like to see, and you'll receive email updates.
As this page shows, there is no API to override the downloads page... However, there is a way to make a file you have made replace the chrome://downloads/ page whenever it is loaded using javascript in your background page...
chrome.tabs.onUpdated.addListener(function(tabId, changeInfo, tab){
if(changeInfo.status === "loading"){
if(tab.url === "chrome://downloads/"){
chrome.tabs.update(tab.id, {url: "REPLACEMENT.html"});
}
}
});
Essentially what this does is - As soon as the page chrome://downloads begins loading (using the tabs.onUpdated API), the page is redirected to REPLACEMENT.html (Using tabs.update API)... There is no visible delay in the tab update
as this script is run before the chrome://downloads page begins loading... You can use a similar code in your file by pressing CTRL + U on the downloads page to view and copy its source code