Does anyone know of a way to get each separate Chrome Window to run a different background page instance?
Currently, my problem is that I need to open two chrome windows and have each background page be its own separate instance. This "mimics" the act of two separate users using the extension on their own computer. Doing this will allow me to test the extension as two different people yet on one computer. Right now, when I open two Chrome Windows, it uses the one background page instance (as I suppose it should).
I guess any acceptable method would be great, whether that is some form of multiple Chrome sign-ins or installing different instances of chrome. The best solution however would be code based, in the realm of the actual Chrome Extension API, if it allows.
Thanks!
The only way to have two instances of a background page is to enable split incognito behaviour, and open an incognito window (Ctrl + Shift + N).
To enable split incognito mode, add the following to your manifest file:
"split": "incognito"
If you really want to simulate two or more users, use different data directories, by starting Chrome with the --user-data-dir flag. For example:
chromium --user-data-dir=/tmp/whatever/
After some time I solved my problem fairly easily. It requires you to have two Google accounts. So if you do not have two accounts and do not want two accounts, it may be best to use Rob W's answer on this post...
Steps:
Open up a Chrome window.
Click the settings drop down -> then click settings
Under the Users heading, click add new user
You may be prompted to sign in using a Google account, do so
Open up a second window, repeat process and assign the second user to the current window
Now you should have two windows, under two different users. Both use their own settings and their own extensions, along with their own background pages.
Maybe you could instantiate some "background page object" in the one background page for each open window? Put all your functionality in that class and create some array with all the instances in it.
Just some brainstorming, hope it gets you somewhere.
Related
I'm trying to find a way to take a link from one browser and open it in another browser. This could be taking a link from a Firefox tab and opening it in Chrome, or taking a link in a Chrome Incognito window and opening it in a non-incognito Chrome window.
Here's some more detail. I have a webpage that refreshes every second, and uses javascript(via Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey) to search for certain keywords. When a keyword in my list matches one associated with a link on the page, it automatically opens that link in a new tab. If it's possible, I need to take those links to a different browser somehow, automatically.
AFAIK, something like this isn't possible with javascript due to security issues. The only two solutions I can think of are:
1: Using AutoHotKey to make a macro to copy the link, alt-tab, and paste into the other program. This is manual, I want something automatic. EDIT: I realized I can use AHK to monitor a page, but I don't know if it could be done without introducing more latency than I would like. Keeping the total time from the webpage refreshing to opening the link as low as possible is the most important thing.
2: Having some other program handle it for me. I'm not aware of any and wonder how difficult/costly it would be to roll my own or have someone make one. I'm not even sure if I could interface it with my current script.
I'm fairly certain it would be possible with number 2, although I don't know about cost or difficulty... could there be another way to accomplish this?
For reference, this is the relevant section of code that I'm currently working with. It opens any link which matches a list of keywords in a new tab. These are the links I'm trying to figure out a way to open in a different browser. It uses dynamic object names and a dynamic URL, but essentially this is just saying if the checkboxes are checked and a link matches my autoOpenList(keyword list), then open the link in a new tab.
if(jQuery.inArray(autoOpenTemp,autoOpenList) != -1 && window['autoAccept' + autoOpenTemp].checked && autoAccept_input.checked ){
var tempURL = LINK_BASE+obj.acc_link;
window.open(tempURL, '_blank');
}
Use Java's HttpServlet Class to create a web application. You can setup the server by Tomcat. Servlets Quick Guide.
Start CLI by Java and open browser through CLI.
Call the web application by url on your page.
So I decided recently to create a firefox extension I have been thinking about, but do not have any prior experience with it. I read on the official tutorials and figured that the addons sdk seemed to fit me well, but I seem to have hit a hitch using it.
What I want to do is create an options popup dialog, similar to the one you see if you press alt-tools-options. That is, a border with title and close button on the upper part, and a bigger area inside the window where I can define an "intuitive" (default elements with the skin the user is used to) GUI.
The tabs at the top (general, privacy security etc.) is nothing I really need, though would not hurt either.
So the issue is that from my searches, when you use addon sdk, you are not supposed to use XUL which has those elements, but instead you seem to be supposed to create something custom using HTML in a panel. I don't think its possible to create the top-bar akin to the real options-menu when using that, although if I am wrong I would not mind being corrected.
I had a similar issue before, where I wanted a drop-down menu from the toolbar similar to the default ones, which I solved thanks to: How to add a dropdown menu to a firefox addon sdk powered addon toolbar button?.
Might be worth noting that that the button opening the options dialog is one of the menuitems created as described there.
I was considering that it could probably be possible (aka I am not sure) to use something akin to this, but sadly I do not know how I would create a "separate" (drag-able) popup that I could use this on.
If possible, I would prefer there to exist a solution, but if someone knows that it is indeed impossible, please do post that so and I can give up without regrets and just make some sort of custom HTML panel instead :)
tldr:
Is there a way to create a popup dialog similar (in style) to the options window you can open using alt-tools-options in firefox when developing using addon sdk?
Essentially, you aren't supposed to, at least not with the SDK.
But then again, it is still possible, but you need to do a lot of stuff yourself:
You need to register a chrome: package for your add-on, as the resource: URIs the SDK uses internally do not work correctly for XUL windows. Create a Chrome Registration (chrome.manifest file). The SDK supports this since Firefox 24 IIRC.
Create the XUL file. For preferences/options windows, there is already the <prefwindow> binding. Look at other extensions and or the Firefox Options dialog (which is a huge thing with multiple overlays, so better look at other extensions). Place the XUL file in chrome/content/<somefile>.xul. This will then correspond to chrome://<registered_package_from_1>/content/<somefile>.xul.
Implement something that will actually display the window. Normally non-SDK add-ons would just put em:optionsURL into their install.rdf, to have the Add-On Manager automatically create a Preferences button that will open the specified URL, but in the SDK this is generated from package.json and there is no way to put optionsURL in package.json if I'm not mistaken. But you could do other things, like using a simple-prefs type: control button to have a button in your about:addons page, or add it to some browser menu (which would require yet another heap of XUL-modifying, require("chrome") code.). To actually open the dialog, you could use window/utils.openDialog.
Don't forget to close any open windows again when your add-on gets unloaded.
As you can see, not a simple task...
If you're just after preferences in general, consider using simple-prefs.
I am researching the possibility that I might be able to use a Chrome extension to automate browsing and navigation (conditionally). My hope is that the extension can load a remote page (in the background) and inject a javascript to evaluate clickable links and click (by calling the click method) the appropriate (evaluated by some javascript logic) link, then repeat process for the resulting page.
My ability to javascript is not the problem - but I am struggling to discern whether (or not) a chrome extension can load pages in the back and inject script into them (making the DOM accessible).
I would be pleased if anyone could confirm (or deny) the ability to do so - and if so, some helpful pointers on where I should research next.
#Rob W - it seems the experimental features fit the bill perfectly. But my first tests seem to show the features are still very experimental ... ie. no objects get returned from callbacks:
background.html
function getAllosTabs(osTabs){
var x = osTabs;
alert(x.length); // error: osTabs is undefined
}
function createOffScreenTabCallback(offscreenTab){
document.write("offscreen tab created");
chrome.experimental.offscreenTabs.getAll(getAllosTabs);
alert(offscreenTab); // error: offscreenTab is undefined
}
var ostab = chrome.experimental.offscreenTabs.create({"url":"http://www.google.com"}, createOffScreenTabCallback)
alert(ostab); // error: ostab is undefined
Some further digging into the chromium source code on github revealed a limitation creating offscreenTab from background:
Note that you can't create offscreen tabs from background pages, since they
don't have an associated WebContents. The lifetime of offscreen tabs is tied
to their creating tab, so requiring visible tabs as the parent helps prevent
offscreen tab leaking.
So far it seems like it is unlikely that I can create an extension that browses (automatically and conditionally) in the background but I'll still keep trying - perhaps creating it from script in the popup might work. It won't run automatically at computer startup but it will run when the browser is open and the user clicks the browseraction.
Any further suggestions are highly welcome.
Some clarifications:
there's no "background" tabs except extension's background page (with iframes) but pages loaded in iframes can know they are being loaded in frames and can break or break at even the best counter-framebreaker scripts
offscreenTab is still experimental and is very much visible, as its intended use is different from what you need it for
content scripts, and chrome.tabs.update() are the only way handle the automated navigation part; aside being extremely harsh to program, problems and limitations are numerous, including CSP (Content-Security-Policy), their isolated context isolating event data, etc.
Alternatives... not many really. The thing is you're using your user's computer and browser to do your things and regardless of how dirty they are not, chrome's dev team still won't like it and will through many things at you and your extension (like the v2 manifest).
You can use NPAPI to start another instance chrome.exe --load-extension=iMacros.
I would like to make a bookmarklet to open google chrome's settings panel and clear my cache with a single click.
For a while now, Ive had a bookmark that opens chrome's settings panel with the 'clear cache' setting already selected. After clicking the bookmark (normally opening it in a new tab) I have to then opent the tab and submit the form. However, when developing this is a task I have to do quite often and these several repeated steps just seem unnecessary.
This link opens the page to clear one's cache (obviously for Chrome users only): chrome://chrome/settings/clearBrowserData#cache
I recently discovered bookmarklets and thought it would be a good way to accomplish the task of clearing my cache with a single click. However, I've discovered that putting even a basic javascript sample in the address bar when on the settings page (linked above) fails to work.
For example, this works in the address bar on any given page, but not from the chrome settings page:
javascript:alert('hello stackoverflow');
Is there a way to execute javascript from the chrome settings page? Are there other options? Im looking for any route to achieve this goal and would love to learn something along the way, even if it means doing some evil. :)
add a bookmark:
javascript:document.write('<form onsubmit="window.open(\'javascript:\'+js_line.value, \'target\');return false;">javascript:<input type=text name=js_line style="width:90%;"/></form><iframe src="" name="target" style="width:100%;height:90%;"/>');
What you want might not be fully possible through a bookmarklet, but it's certainly possible with a Chrome App. There is an app Clear Cache already. I find it pretty useful.
I am creating a Firefox extension where I need to find out what was the last location visited in another window. Here is an example of what I mean. I present the user with a list of sites from a main interface window. The user clicks on one of the sites and a new window is opened to that site. From there, the user will navigate the site in the new window and will eventually stop browsing or close the window. I need to find out what was the last visited location from that window. Also, the user may be navigating more than one site at a time, so there could be many windows open. I need to know what was the last location for every one of them. So far, the only way that I got it to work is to use a timer and poll the new window every second for document.location.href. There must be a better way.
As far as I know this is not possible in (pure) Javascript due to security/privacy considerations. On the other hand, since you are writing a Firefox plugin you have additional mechanisms you can use.
For instance, you can create a greasemonkey plugin that is applicable to every site. This plugin will record the href using GM_setValue(). The main plugin will read this information via GM_getValue().