I have a Chrome extension that uses the chrome.management API to get a list of installed Chrome extensions and apps. The problem starts because I also want to use the chrome.syncFileSystem API which only seems to be available to Chrome apps.
If I switch the extension to an app, I can no longer use the chrome.management API. I haven't been able to find an API to access the installed extensions from an app. Any tips?
I don't think you can, not without having both an extension and an app.
Google has a private API to do that, but for public API, they want apps to be as independent as possible from the browser.
Related
I found the api in chrome extension docs which reads the api is deprecated chrome app platform. Does this mean the api is accessible for chrome extension now? However, it seems something goes wrong when I take it as an extension api.
There is a currently experimental API. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/USB
We have chrome and FF extensions which works with a native messaging app. Recently we developed edge extension and a UWP app which works in the same way. Now the user has to install two separate native messaging apps if they want use any chrome/FF/Edge browsers.
My question is, is it possible for Chrome/FF extension talk to windows UWP app?
Unfortunately no. On Windows, both Chrome and Firefox use the registry to locate the native applications manifest, and Windows Store apps are forbidden from writing to the registry. (ref: Prepare to package an app (Desktop Bridge)
If something changes (Store apps gain the ability to alter the registry, or Chrome and Firefox introduce an alternative way to locate the manifest), then it might be possible. Though likely not via the UWP app directly. UWP apps appear to support standard input and output, but the way they are run prevents access to it. It might however be possible to create an intermediary Win32 app that can communicate with the UWP app via the AppService and the browser extension via stdio.
Afterthought: Enpass Password Manager (win32) was ported to the Windows Store reportedly because of API issues, and has a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox. Might be worth asking them how they pulled it off. I did some more digging, and figured it out. localhost loopback, a custom url scheme, web sockets, and browser verifications is how they are doing it. Not an ideal solution, but it seems to work.
Lets say i have an app and i want it to be executable standalone. I've found that you can do that with normal webpages, webapps, using https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit.
But if its chrome packaged app how do you do that.
I know it's possible as you can see in slides it uses webkit.
https://speakerdeck.com/u/zcbenz/p/node-webkit-app-runtime-based-on-chromium-and-node-dot-js
Theoretically it is possible but you will have to implement by hand all of the chrome apis you use in your chrome app
I'm writing an extension.
A part of this extension contains an html page.
I'd call that page, also as a Google Apps,
inserting an icon between applications of chrome.
It's possible create a manifest file to integrate the chrome app with chrome extension?
No. You'd create both an app an an extension, then encourage the user to install both if you detected that one wasn't installed.
There is an outstanding feature request to allow bundled installations of multiple apps/extensions.
I'm really confused. I want to make a Chrome Extension that can update a user's Google Calendar, what kind of program should I register under Google API?
Is it Web App? But I don't plan to have a server to host anything because Chrome Extensions are in the browser itself.
I really don't think it's a service account, but if it is, somebody enlighten me!
So that leaves installed applications?
Well, Google Extensions and Google API are very different in nature, and they don't have a special way to comunicate themselves.
Chrome Extensions are javascript code running in the browser allowed by a Chrome user, with more rights than a normal page; while Google API is accessed by server code, just as Google Apps Scripts (javascript code running in a Google server with some Google user's right).