What is the " Run <extension> command" in the omnibox? [closed] - google-chrome-extension

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I have created an extension that integrates with the omnibox. When I have typed in the keyword + space and then the phrase to send to the extension, I can see that the top row in the omnibox says "Run my-extenison-name command:"
What exactly is this? Can I use this somehow to maybe call methods in my extension?
It would be really nice if it was possible, but I can't find any info on this.

Answer 1

"Run <your-extension-name> command" is simply the "Default" default suggestion for your extension's omnibox. It's basically the placeholder for what is currently entered, and should indicate what will happen if the user presses enter at that point ("search my site for 'x'"). To change it, just add this to your background page
chrome.omnibox.setDefaultSuggestion({"description" : "your description here"});
You can use "%s" in there as well as a placeholder for what the user is typing in.
Jason was right in how you can use onInputEntered to react to the user entering something into the omnibox.

Answer 2

When the user selects the command, any listeners you've added to the onInputEntered event will be fired.
See: http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/omnibox.html#event-onInputEntered
So yes, you can have Omnibox commands call methods in your extension, just by adding a listener to that event, like so:
chrome.omnibox.onInputEntered.addListener(function(text) {
console.log('User entered command: ' + text);
};
You can also get notifications of the user's omnibox activity while they're typing, or if they cancel typing, by adding listeners for the other events listed on the page linked above.

Answer 3

I do this for my Chrome extension Lil’ Launch which has no use for the default suggestion (it only searches your bookmarks).
The full source is on Github, but the general idea is this. The callback for chrome.omnibox.onInputEntered gets passed either the content property of your selection or the value of the user input if the suggestion is the default one. So I append a known string to the front of all the content properties and check for that same string when chrome.omnibox.onInputEntered fires. It needs to be something that the use is unlikely to type, otherwise the matching will break.
var resultsList = [], // Accessible from the callback scope
unlikely = "GOSHDARNYOUCHROME"; // Our unlikely to be typed String
chrome.omnibox.onInputChanged.addListener(
function(text, suggest) {
var searchResults = chrome.bookmarks.search(text, function(searchResults) {
resultsList = [];
for (var i = 0; i < searchResults.length; i++) {
resultsList.push({
content: unlikely + item.url, // Prepend our unlikely string to the URL
description: "bar"
});
};
// Chrome adds a completely useless default suggestion in our case
// So set the default and slice it off the suggestions
chrome.omnibox.setDefaultSuggestion({ description: resultsList[0].description });
suggest(resultsList.slice(1, -1));
})
}
);
chrome.omnibox.onInputEntered.addListener(
function(text) {
// If text doesn't have unlikely prepended its the stupid default
if(text.substring(0, unlikely.length) !== unlikely) {
text = resultsList[0].content;
}
text = text.substring(unlikely.length); // Trim the unlikely string
// Do something with text
}
);
Stupid, but effective.