Chrome: open a custom input interface on click - google-chrome

Is it possible to register the selection (may it be via a click or other ways) of a text field (of any kind) with my extension and open up a separate input interface?

You can use a prompt...
<script>
function disp_prompt() {
var fname=prompt("What is your name?");
alert("Your name is " + fname);
}
</script>
<body onload=disp_prompt()>
If you want to have this popup onclick, You need to utilize a background page
chrome.browserAction.onClicked.addListener(function(tab){
http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/browserAction.html#event-onClicked

Yes. You can capture the user interaction with JavaScript in a content script. And if by “separate input interface”, you’re referring to something within the browser, you can also inject UI or open a new page with a content script. If you’re referring to another app, you can launch one with native code in an NPAPI plugin.

Related

How to show the upload file dialog on page load

Using PF10 (in a JoinFaces project), I'd like the Upload File dialog for choosing a file to show up when the page loads (i.e., without waiting for the user to click on the Choose button of <p:fileUpload/>). How can I do that?
You could use client side API show() function for this. But it seems more and more browsers are blocking triggering a click by script on an input type="file". See https://github.com/primefaces/primefaces/issues/7772
You could take your chances and try to hijack a mouse move event to trigger a click on the upload input, which is answered on this question: In JavaScript can I make a "click" event fire programmatically for a file input element? But I don't really like that hack.

Background scripts vs Content Scripts

I am trying to develop a chrome extension which saves the url of webpages opened in all tabs and then load them whenever needed. Now I know content scripts, background scripts and popup.js. Content scripts mainly deal with the content of the loaded webpage and they have less chrome api interactions, background scripts are executed in an isolated environment and we can use all chrome api methods, popup.js is simply javascript that runs in context of popup.html.
Now here is my problem, I have a button in popup.html named "save" and on click of that button I want to save all the webpage urls opened in multiple tabs under one window. How can I do that?
Should I write a content or a background script?
Sorry for my noobish question. I am new to chrome api. Any help/suggestions?
Neither content script or background page is needed. You could do that just in popup.js, since popup page actually runs in the same context with extension.
In your popup.js, just call chrome.tabs.query to get tab info, including url (you would need to declare tabs permissions in manifest.json). If you want to specify window id, either use WINDOW_ID_CURRENT or retrieve it through other ways (depends on your logic)
chrome.tabs.query({ windowId: YOUR_WINDOW_ID }, (tabs) => {
tabs.forEach((tab) => console.log(tab.url));
});

Open Help web page from Google script HTMLservice interface

I want to put a Help button on an HTMLservice interface. I have tried it directly on the button and also by calling the function below
function helpClicked() {
document.getElementById('payment').value = "Help Clicked...";
window.open("www.google.com")
}
This changes the payment field to validate that the button was clicked but does not open a new browser window with the url. Is there any way to make this happen?
Use a link (a tag) directly with the correct URL instead of a button and use css to make it look like a button (if you need one). You can still hook triggers to the link, but you won't need to do the window.open yourself, therefore avoiding this problem/limitation.

How can I open my extension's pop-up with JavaScript?

I am trying to write a JavaScript function that will open my extension like when the extension icon is clicked. I know how to open my extension in a new tab:
var url = "chrome-extension://kelodmiboakdjlbcdfoceeiafckgojel/login.html";
window.open(url);
But I want to open a pop-up in the upper right corner of the browser, like when the extension icon is clicked.
The Chromium dev team has explicitly said they will not enable this functionality. See Feature request: open extension popup bubble programmatically :
The philosophy for browser and page action popups is that they must be triggered by user action. Our suggestion is to use the new html notifications feature...
Desktop notifications can be used progammatically to present the user with a small HTML page much like your popup. It's not a perfect substitution, but it might provide the type of functionality you need.
Chrome team did create a method to open the popup programmatically, but it's only enabled as a private API, and plans to make it generally available have stalled due to security concerns.
So, as of March 2018 as of now, you still can't do it.
Short answer is that you cannot open browserAction programmatically. But you can create a dialog with your content script which emulates your browserAction and display that isntead (programmatically). However you won't be able to access your extension's background page from this popup directly as you can from your popup.html. You will have to pass message instead to your extension.
As mentioned there is no public API for this.
One workaround I have come up with is launching the extension as an iframe inside a content script with a button click. Whereby the background script emits the extension URL to the content script to be set as the iframe's src, something like below.
background.js
browser.runtime.onMessage.addListener((request) => {
if (request.open) {
return new Promise(resolve => {
chrome.browserAction.getPopup({}, (popup) => {
return resolve(popup)
})
})
}
})
content-scipt.js
const i = document.createElement('iframe')
const b = document.createElement('button')
const p = document.getElementById('some-id')
b.innerHTML = 'Open'
b.addEventListener('click', (evt) => {
evt.preventDefault()
chrome.runtime.sendMessage({ open: true }, (response) => {
i.src = response
p.appendChild(i)
})
})
p.appendChild(b)
This opens the extension in the DOM of the page the script is running on. You will also need to add the below to the manifest.
manifest.json
....
"web_accessible_resources": [
"popup.html"
]
....
You could emulate the popup by displaying a fixed html element on the page in the same location the popup would be and style it to look like the popup.
I had the same requirement: When the user clicks on the extension icon a small popup should open. In my case, I was writing an extension which will give updates on selective stocks whenever the icon is clicked. This is how my popup looked.
If you were having the same requirement then please read the answer below.
This is how my manifest.json file looked.
All the heavy lifting was handled by manifest.json file only. There is a section browser_action inside which there is a key called default_popup, just put the name of the HTML file that you want the popup to display.
I wanted my extension to work on all the pages that's why I added the attribute matches under content_scripts. I really didn't need to put the jquery file jquery-3.2.1.js inside the js array but the extension manager was not allowing me to keep that array empty.
Hope this helps, do comment if you have any doubt regarding the answer.

How do I focus an existing tab in a window? (web page, not extension)

I'm trying to focus an existing tab when the content reloads. The usual window methods don't seem to work.
Here's whats happening: On page_1 I have a link like...
Go to my other page
If the tab doesn't exist, when the link is clicked it opens a new tab and takes focus. (Perfect)
If you then go back to page_1 and click the link again, it reloads the content in the existing tab (perfect) but doesn't focus (crap). I've tried the usual window.focus, $(window).focus methods on load with page_2 without luck.
Any recommendations?
It is impossible.
The following appears to work in IE8 and FF13:
<script type="text/javascript">
// Stupid script to force focus to an existing tab when the link is clicked.
// And yes, we do need to open it twice.
function openHelp(a) {
var tab = window.open(a.href, a.target);
tab.close();
tab = window.open(a.href, a.target);
return false;
}
</script>
Help
There is a workaround to this. Use javascript to open a window in a new tab, store a reference to that tab, and when you want to focus it; close it first and then re-open it.
if (window.existingWindow != null)
try { window.existingWindow.close(); } catch (e) { };
window.existingWindow = window.open("/your/url", "yourTabName");
We use a similar approach to opening the preview pane of the current page you're working on in our service called Handcraft where the above works as expected (we wanted the new window to always focus).
Without using a framework you can put a script block at the bottom of your page that will run once the page loads. Because it is after your HTML you can be assured that the HTML is refers to is actually available.
The script can set the focus to the element you want.