I've been using chrome.webNavigation.onCommitted and onCompleted listeners successfully to detect page changes, but now there are some websites that loads new pages entirely with just URL hash part changed.
And those changes don't fire these two listeners.
Is there any way to instruct chrome.webNavigation API to listen to these changes in URL as well? Or is there any other method in Chrome extension to do it?
chrome.tabs.onUpdated - for all URL changes, needs "permissions": ["tabs"] in manifest
chrome.tabs.onUpdated.addListener(function(tabId, changeInfo, tab) {
if (changeInfo.url) {
console.log('Tab %d got new URL: %s', tabId, changeInfo.url);
}
});
chrome.webNavigation.onHistoryStateUpdated - for changes made via History API
See also: JS methods of detecting page changes available in a content script.
Related
Our extension uses tabCapture to record the sound of a tab. In MV3, chrome.tabCapture is only available in foreground pages (like popups), which makes the API useless for recording anything in the tab since it can't be kept open.
There's the current hack which opens an extension page in a new Tab while recording, to satisfy both the keep-alive and foreground constraints in the API, but that is less than ideal as it requires tabs pop-in and pop-out of existence without user interaction so it makes for a terrible user experience.
Then there's the new chrome.offscreen API which had this capturing use case as one of its main highlighted use cases in the initial draft request by Devlin Cronin here. Now, the offscreen API is enabled in 109 beta ready to be deployed in production on Jan 10th 2023 and this use case appears ignored. chrome.tabCapture is not exposed to the offscreen document.
In the extension service worker:
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(function(message, sender, sendResponse) {
chrome.offscreen.hasDocument().then(function(has) {
if (!has) {
chrome.offscreen.createDocument({
justification: 'record audio',
reasons: [chrome.offscreen.Reason.USER_MEDIA],
url: chrome.runtime.getURL('record.html'),
});
}
});
});
In the offscreen document's JS script:
window.addEventListener("load", () => {
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(function(message, sender, sendResponse) {
console.log(chrome.tabCapture); // **this is always undefined**
});
});
So now the question. Is there another way to record the current tab audio that isn't listed above? Not talking about recording the user's mic with getUserMedia and not involving desktopCapture which brings up the nasty popup. The ideal solution would still involve tabCapture. But how?
In our browser extension background-script we have a code that injects content-script to all tabs matching specific URL. It is used to activate extension after it is installed without need to reload matching page(s):
chrome.tabs.query({
status: 'complete',
url: 'https://*.example.com/*'
}, function (tabs) {
tabs.forEach(function (tab) {
chrome.tabs.executeScript(tab.id, {
file: 'content-script.js',
runAt: 'document_idle'
});
});
});
Is there a way to inject content-script also to all frames matching this URL? Eg. if somebody has our webapp (app.example.com) embedded in his page (www.acme.com). We need to do it without any additional extension permissions (now they are desktopCapture and https://*.example.com/) or without mentioning www.acme.com anywhere in our extension. Otherwise we would use webNavigation API.
I am trying to write an extension that adds functionality to the Chrome devtools.
According to the devtools documentation, it says that the pages in devtools support very limited apis. Any API that is not supported can be access by accessing it through the background page, just as what contentscripts does.
Here is the relevant documentation snippet:
The tabId property provides the tab identifier that you can use with the chrome.tabs.* API calls. However, please note that chrome.tabs.* API is not exposed to the Developer Tools extension pages due to security considerations — you will need to pass the tab ID to the background page and invoke the chrome.tabs.* API functions from there.
Here is the source url: http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/devtools.inspectedWindow.html
However, when I try to do that, I get the following error in the console:
uncaught Error: "getBackgroundPage" can only be used in extension processes. See the content scripts documentation for more details.
Here is my code in my devtools.js script:
chrome.extension.getBackgroundPage().getLocation();
What am I doing wrong?
EDIT
I should describe my scenario first, and show how I am implementing it.
What I want to do is to display extra data in a devtools panel related to a webpage. In order to get that data, I will need to send a HTTP request in the same session as the page being debugged, because it requires authentication.
Use Case:
User browses to a particular URL. He is authenticated to the site. He then invokes devtools. The devtools panel opens up and a new panel shows up that has extra data related to the page.
Implementation:
1) DevTools script finds out the url of the page being inspected. If the url matches the site base hostname, then it opens a panel. In the callback of the panel creation, it sends a message to a background page, asking it to download a JSON payload from a debug endpoint on the same site, and then sends it to the devtools extension, wh ich then displays it.
Problems:
1) The background page gets the request, and downloads the URL. However the download is not using the same session as the user, so the download request fails.
2) From devtools window, I got the tabId of the inspected window. I send this tabId to the background page so that it can parse some stuff out of the url. However, chrome.tabs.get(tabId) does not return the tab.
To summarize, I need to
1) Get the background page to download data in the same session as the user's tab that is being debugged.
2) I need to have the background page be able to get access to the user's tab.
The APIs available to extension pages within the Developer Tools window include all devtools modules listed above and chrome.extension API. Other extension APIs are not available to the Developer Tools pages, but you may invoke them by sending a request to the background page of your extension, similarly to how it's done in the content scripts.
I guess the documentation is little ambiguous, By chrome.extension API they mean the Supported API's for content scripts.
So, you can use long lived communication for communication between inspected page and background page
Demonstration:
The following code illustrate scenario where a devtools page need some information from background page, it uses messages for communication.
manifest.json
Ensured permissions are all available in manifest file
{
"name":"Inspected Windows Demo",
"description":"This demonstrates Inspected window API",
"devtools_page":"devtools.html",
"manifest_version":2,
"version":"2",
"permissions":["experimental"],
"background":{
"scripts" : ["background.js"]
}
}
devtools.html
A trivial HTML File
<html>
<head>
<script src="devtools.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
devtools.js
Used Long lived Communication API's
var port = chrome.extension.connect({
name: "Sample Communication"
});
port.postMessage("Request Tab Data");
port.onMessage.addListener(function (msg) {
console.log("Tab Data recieved is " + msg);
});
background.js
Responded to communication request and passed trivial information using tab API()'s
chrome.extension.onConnect.addListener(function (port) {
port.onMessage.addListener(function (message) {
chrome.tabs.query({
"status": "complete",
"currentWindow": true,
"active": true
}, function (tabs) {
port.postMessage(tabs[0].id);
});
console.log("Message recived is "+message);
});
});
Sample Output received for trivial devtools.js here
Let me know if you need more information
EDIT 1)
For your question 1)
Can you make you call(s) from browser extension HTML Page\Content Script so same session is shared, i have tried both the ways in a sample and it is working form me, instead of code in background page- make the code in content script or browser action HTML Page.
Let me know if you are still facing problems.
For your question 2)
The following code always fetches current window user is browsing
manifest.json
Ensure you have tabs permission in your manifest.
{
"name":"Inspected Windows Demo",
"description":"This demonstrates Inspected window API",
"manifest_version":2,
"version":"2",
"permissions":["tabs"],
"background":{
"scripts" : ["background.js"]
}
}
background.js
chrome.tabs.query({
"status": "complete", // Window load is completed
"currentWindow": true, // It is in current window
"active": true //Window user is browsing
}, function (tabs) {
for (tab in tabs) { // It returns array so used a loop to iterate over items
console.log(tabs[tab].id); // Catch tab id
}
});
Let me know if you are still unable to get tab id of current window.
I am trying to create an extension that will (simply) access every url the user views, the larger scope of the project is browser history across multiple computers/browsers for easier browsing history search but that is irrelevant here. My current code will read the url Sometimes, but not every page:
chrome.tabs.onUpdated.addListener(function(tabId, changeInfo, tab) {
if(changeInfo.status == "loading"){
//process url
}
});
How can I get this code to read every single url in multiple tabs? I am doing this in a background page.
You can add a content script that runs on every page and sends a message to the background page with the value of location.href. You can use chrome.extension.sendMessage() for this.
How do you track outbound links for your web site, since the request is logged on the destination server, not yours?
You can add a quick JQuery script to the page that will track external links and can either redirect them to a file on your server that will track the link and then forward to it, or add an ajax request that will submit on click for external links, and track them that way.
See:
http://www.prodevtips.com/2008/08/19/tracking-clicks-with-jquery-and-google-analytics/
https://web.archive.org/web/20090214024330/http://www.justskins.com/development/how-to-track-clicks-on-outgoing-links/132
Method #1: target="_blank", onclick and Google Analytics Events
Format your outgoing links with the following attributes:
outgoing
Define a javascript tracking function (requires google analytics to be loaded already):
function trackOutgoing(el) {
ga('send', 'event', {eventCategory: 'outbound',
eventAction: 'send',
eventLabel: el.getAttribute('href'),
eventValue: 1});
};
Pros:
Does NOT interfere with normal link behavior
Does NOT require redirecting to another url
Cons:
The onclick is not guaranteed to execute (user or browser could terminate the main window)
Method #2: Redirecting with Javascript and Google Analytics Callbacks
Format your outgoing links with the following attributes:
outgoing
Define a javascript tracking function (requires google analytics to be loaded already):
function trackOutgoingAndRedirect(el) {
var url = el.getAttribute('href');
ga('send', 'event', {eventCategory: 'outbound',
eventAction: 'send',
eventLabel: url,
eventValue: 1,
hitCallback: function() { document.location = url; }});
}
Pros:
Does not require target="_blank"
Higher chance of your event being registered with Google Analytics (compared to Method #1)
Cons:
Overrides the default behavior of links with return false;
Cannot open outgoing links in a new window
Method #3: Using a Redirect URL
Format your outgoing links with the following attributes:
outgoing
On your site you will need to implement a redirect script which is beyond the scope of this answer.
Your redirect script would most likely track the outgoing link and then redirect to the provided url.
Pros:
No Javascript required
Does NOT require Google Analytics
Does NOT interfere with the normal link behavior
Cons:
Harder to trigger Google Analytics Events
Links do not link to their original URL. Which may have negative SEO implications.
Add an onclick or onmousedown handler to the anchor tag. You can see many sites doing this, such as Google.
I don't like the redirect as described by Eric Tuttleman, as you unfortunately lose the 'search engine friendliness' of the link.
I handle this on a site I own by adding an onClick to my outgoing links, which fires a function which sends the link URL and a timestamp to my database. I then wrote a backend which retrieves the data, and lets me view it by such categories as 'Most clicked / 24h', 'Most clicked / 1w' etc.
I hope this helps.
On one system I've worked on, we ended up storing redirects in a database table and creating a redirect page that takes an id as an input. On our content pages, we link to the redirect page with an unique id from this table. Once the redirect page looks up the url via the id from the table, it then sends the client a redirect response, sending them to the ending page.
This does give us logging of external links, and as an added bonus, it makes mass changes to external urls a bit easier in some cases.
Some newer options that work without any hacks as explained in https://css-tricks.com/send-an-http-request-on-page-exit/ are Fetch with the keepalive-flag or navigator.sendBeacon.
keepalive is not yet (Aug. 2022) supported by Firefox (Can I Use), but navigator.sendBeacon works in all modern browsers (Can I Use).
// normal fetch, not guaranteed to work
someLink.addEventListener('click', function(event){
fetch('http://www.testing.local/?origin=classic-fetch');
});
// fetch + keep alive (not working in Firefox as of 103, Aug. 2022)
someLink.addEventListener('click', function(event){
fetch('http://www.testing.local/?origin=fetch-keep-alive', {
keepalive: true
});
});
// navigator.sendBeacon (all modern browsers)
someLink.addEventListener('click', function(event){
navigator.sendBeacon('http://www.testing.local/?origin=beacon');
});