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.
Related
Background
I've been using the crx-hotreload package to auto-reload my chrome extensions during development because it's annoying to have to click the refresh button on the Extensions page every time you make a change; however, this package doesn't work with MV3 because it uses the chrome.runtime.getPackageDirectoryEntry method, which seems to have been removed from chrome.runtime in MV3. I can't find documentation to confirm that it was removed, but it's not there when I try to use it.
Questions
Does anyone know how to get access to all the files in the extension directory in Chrome Extension Manifest Version 3?
Or generally, is there a better way that I can hot-reload my chrome extensions during development that would work for MV3?
This is one of many things based on DOM capabilities of background pages that are removed from ManifestV3 because service workers don't have DOM. For example, getPackageDirectoryEntry is using the old nonstandard FileSystem API in its returned value.
As to why, apparently the switch to service workers simplifies the internal source code in Chromium, even if it doesn't provide any real improvements for extension authors or users.
At this point all you can do is present a convincing use case and ask Chromium developers via https://crbug.com to implement an alternative API.
I would need the list of currently opened desktop apps (+ files opened in it) from a Chrome Extension, or at least the active application name (With current focus on the desktop).
Use case : Imagine a chrome extension that would get the list of tabs with URLS (I solved it with Chrome.tabs) and in addition would give the name of the current active app when Chrome loose the focus (idle) : exemple => powerpoint.app / documentname.ppt.
I'm looking for any option, ideally without having to implement a Desktop App that would exchange messages with the Extension. But if this is the only way, any example/experience to do so with Electron (http://electron.atom.io/) or Node-WebKit?
This may be possible in an electron app, but I don't think so as Electron is more multiplatform-oriented and this is a platform-oriented feature. You only will have access to methods that the developers chose to expose to you, and I doubt that they exposed a way to have this kind of information. (I have very little knowledge in the tech since I used it only once, so I might be wrong).
The only solution I see is the one you talked about in your question, a real desktop app messaging with the chrome extension.
Is it possible to create system hotkeys/shortcuts for Google Chrome Extension? I mean hotkeys that also works when Chrome doesn't have focus.
Yes, but it won't be trivial. To get truly global hotkeys you will have to use native messaging. You will need to create some application to run in the background and capture keypresses and then you can send those keypresses back to Chrome through stdout. This approach will require you to create an additional installer for your extension to install the native messaging app onto the user's system...before you could bundle your app along with the extension (using NPAPI) but that has recently been phased out. I have seen some discussion in the Chromium group about adding bundling support for native messaging apps, but nothing has been added (yet).
Another much easier option is to use the Chrome commands API which will enable you to use hotkeys across all Chrome windows (but not globally...). Just something to consider if "true" global hotkeys are not an absolute requirement since this approach is (much) less complex.
Global media keys will be added to Chrome soon, however. There is a good discussion about this feature to read here.
It's now part of Chrome: chrome://extensions/shortcuts
I would like to know if it's possible to develop an extension that allows to open a link with another browser : If in Chrome I click on a link that is configured in such extension, it opens FF or IE with this link.
I didn't find any extension (except extension that have a frame in a chrome tab), so does that mean that there is a technical limitation to do that ?
Best regards
I did something for FF what could be modified to do just that.
I have used the ability to execute shell commands from an extension, and configured the call to launch a 3rd party application.
Look for examples on nsIProcess
In chrome you can use the NPAPI plugins: http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/npapi.html
Unfortunately, I think that kms is correct in saying that you cannot execute native code in a Chrome Extension, and must therefore pair your extension with an NPAPI Plugin and have them talk to one another. It was one of the most difficult programming tasks I've ever done, although the NPAPI Plugin was made easier by basing it on FireBreath, so at least I didn't need to write very much C++.
UPDATE: Since 2014 or so, Native Messaging is included in Chrome's Web Extensions API and, mercifully, NPAPI is gone.
I looked into very many Google Chrome extensions and apps in order to find one that matches the following requirements:
runs in a Google Chrome tab
editor for any code, PHP, CSS, HTML
can load and save files (on my computer) and create new ones
works with local files on my computer
Is there any? kodingen, cloud9, shiftedit does not seem to make it on the localhost.
Maybe SourceKit will do?
SourceKit is an extension to your Google Chrome browser which runs in a separate tab. The files are stored in your Dropbox account, so not only can you access the files from your computer - you can access them from anywhere! It uses syntax highlighting like Notepad++ for a limited number of languages (you said php, css, and html - they are all supported). It can load, save, and edit text files locally on your computer if you install the Dropbox Desktop Application. This will also synchronize the files with your online account and thereby make them accessible from anywhere in the world.
That sounded more like a salesman's advertisement than intended.
Both Dropbox and SourceKit are free.
There are four catches as far as I can see:
Dropbox "only" offers 2GB for free, however, you can upgrade at any time if you're willing to pay.
Dropbox Desktop will only synchronize one folder (and all of its contents), but that's really not any different from a web site.
SourceKit will not debug your code, but will it highlight wrong syntax(only for certain languages).
EDIT Does not work offline.
I've tried it out, and it works well.
Sympathy Editor
Sympathy uses the npapi-file-io plugin mentioned in an answer above to allow you to edit local files.
Pros
Allows you to edit local files
Full syntax highlighting
Bookmark local files for easy access
Cons
Uses npapi plugin to read files, which means it has access to all your data
Unavailable on Chrome Webstore
Still under development
Only works on linux/windows as of the moment (not in mac)
If you are interested, you can see the README, or Manual on github.
Disclosure: I'm the primary developer of the extension.
Don't any of these extensions you have mentioned work with the file:/// protocol? They will work for the http:// protocol only if you are going to edit files inside your local webserver.
Instead of writing http://localhost/(...) you write file:///(...), where (...) is the full path.
In UNIX systems it is file:///home/jens/file.txt. In Windows it should be file:///C:\(...).
#Berk Demirkir may be right.
Here are the resources I found that may be of use;
32 Google Chrome Extensions For Smart Designers
Chrome Web Developer Tools No. 7 on the above list
There's no extension for editing local files.
But you can write one!
Acesses to local filesystem cannot be done using Chrome's Extension API.
But you can use HTML5's File API (which is draft) or Local Storage. If none of these storage methods sufficient for you, you can build a NPAPI Plugin. Chrome supports NPAPI Plugins. There's also a project called npapi-file-io in Google Code which aims to access local files from Google Chrome Extension context.
Edit:
Now, there's one usable editor, Symphaty. You can use Capt.Nemo's Symphaty editor.
Edit 2:
NPAPI plugins are phased out from Chrome since version 42. The only alternative would be to use a wrapper native app and communicate using Native Messaging API.
ShiftEdit can be used to work locally, you will need to have XAMPP or equivalent installed.