I created a Safari Web Extension using the script that generates the project from a Chrome extension.
My users are confused by the process of buying the app and then running it which just opens a window that does nothing (they keep asking for refunds saying the app doesn't work). So I want to add some more text into the app window that tells them they have to look for the extension in Safari.
I can see how to add the text in the html file called "Main". But in my Mac app this means that the content no longer fits within the apps window. I'm trying to figure out how to change the size of the app window.
Also, the script generates a Mac app with a help menu but it just says that help is not available. How do I go about adding some help to explain that this App does nothing and that the extension is in Safari?
It seems like the script does a lot of the work for you but you still have to learn a bit about developing an App (rather than an extension) to make it a polished experience.
Related
I'd like to use my chrome extension to create and manage the focus for windows in my Progressive Web App. Focusing windows works well, but whenever I try to create a new window using chrome.windows.create(), the url loads into a new web browser window and not within the PWA. Is there a way to get chrome to recognize that a url within that scope should always load within the PWA?
My app requires allowing the user to micromanage their window focus to keep their workflow fast, and unfortunately vanilla .open() and .focus() have loads of limitations within chrome.
From the command line, or from an application, I want to open a NEW browser instance with a specified size and position, and pointed to a specific URL. I want to open a browser that acts like a dialog box. Ideally, I'd like to be able to disable "decorations" (like tabs, bookmarks, etc.). I do not want to open a new tab or pop-up window from an existing browser instance.
I know Electron or Node Webkit do this, but I just want to open a browser as that acts as a GUI front end for whatever back end I'm building.
I'd be happy if it would work for a specific browser; say, Chrome, or Chromium.
So, for instance, a Python app (or C/C++, Java, etc.) could start it's web server, then open a browser of the proper size, pointed to "localhost:xxxx/whatever.html", and serve up data via AJAX.
Kind of a universal single page app front end...
UPDATE (SOLUTION?)
The answer seems to be in two parts: 1) Opening the browser with command line switches, and 2) Resizing the window in JavaScript.
Using chromium (or Chrome), on the command line:
chromium-browser --new-window --app=http://192.168.1.80:8080/index.html
Then, within your JavaScript:
window.resizeTo(800,500)
This will bring up a new window and resize it.
This is great. Now, I can make an app in any language that allows me to open a web server. The user interface is done in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The browser is opened from within the application using the proper command line switches.
Electron does simply open up one or multiple browser windows, you can set them to any url via BrowserWindow.loadURL(url) this could be https://google.com https://localhost:1337 (Your backend webserver) or a local HTML file. The BrowserWindow can be created with information such as size and position.
The only alternative would be something like Qt HTML5 applications that use Qt WebEngine, but this does basically the same thing since Electron and Qt WebEngine use chromium.
Also, there is no point in a single page app that runs without JavaScript.
I wrote a simple Google Apps script and published it in the Chrome Web Store as an app (I guess "hosted" app. You can find the link here: http://bit.ly/1JTiKLC). I followed the instructions mentioned here:
https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/distribute-web-app
I specified all the required items in the checklist, AFAIK, including icons of the required size. The item is listed and I can download it. However, when it is added in the Chrome desktop launcher, it has the default "apps script" blue icon:
I want to change this but can't find any way to do so. The link above specifies that there is a way to do this for a new tab page (sec. Updating a web app's icon on the New Tab Page). First of all, I cannot see any link that says "specify an alternative image" anywhere as they say. Could someone elaborate on this. Secondly, is there a similar way to change the launcher icon for apps script webapps?
Ok, I found it. Here's the info for someone else who may have the same question: The link appears in the window just after you click "Publish>Register in Chrome Web Store..." in the apps script editor itself. It's not there in the developer dashboard. You can host the image publicly on any site which provides direct links, like imgur.
This will change the icon in the Chrome new page tab (or in "chrome://apps/") as well as the desktop launcher. Cheers :)
I'm diving into the world of Chrome Extension development, primarily because there is a very small feature that is missing in Chrome that I miss dearly. The context-menu option to "Set as background/wallpaper" like that found in Firefox. Sounds trivial, but it's convenient.
I have most of the "basic" stuff worked out with the manifest file, am able to install it, even managed to get it to show up as a context menu item.
The problem obviously is that I am wanting to mess with a user's OS-level settings which is extremely difficult because of security issues (fully understand this).
I found an extension that allowed this in older versions of Chrome, and it looked like the developer used some type of .dll and C++ to accomplish this.
I'm not really sure how to make this work.
Since that Chrome doesn't allow these kind of manipulations (such as your PC's settings), you will need to create a native application that will run beside your extension. When the user chooses the image from your extension and selects "use as wallpaper", you will use the native messaging API to send a message to your desktop application, that will set the wallpaper (and do whatever else you can't do within a chrome extension) for you.
You can use the chrome.wallpaper app api to set the wallpaper after using the messaging api to send the image from your extension.
When launching the Chrome Extension Google-Hangouts, a panel initially appears that lists members and a link/button to create a new Hangout.
This panel is initially pinned to the bottom right of the browser window. When pinned like this, it remains always on top as a browser navigation session continues: users can go to different URLs, change tabs, etc. and that panel stays at the bottom right and stays on top of all other windows (or at least on top of the main browser window).
Once it's unpinned, you can drag it around the window, but it no longer stays always on top.
My question is, how was that achieved - what code, or what functions, do i need to call to create that window/panel so that it stays initially pinned and always on top? Is there some binding to some native code that's involved? Some other approach?
If anyone know and can show or explain, i would be hugely grateful as this feature is key to an extension i'm trying to build.
Thanks a lot!
This may not be an answer but to get a clue of what is happening I extracted the crx file to view its content there are a few OS specific files : ace.dll , libace.so and ace. After researching a bit i found this. This is a plugin. Hangouts extension is using ace plugin which is actually running on your desktop(i'm not sure about this). You can check this article
I found this related post: How to build an chrome extension like Google Hangouts
ACE is actually not what makes the window, Chrome has that capability built in, apparently. Even if you don't enable panels, extensions from Google can still make them, provided your OS is capable.