Modal Dialog in Google Chrome Extension - google-chrome-extension

I need a truly modal dialog to run in Google Chrome in Windows using extension, where the dialog doesn't allow users to click on other tabs etc. The search results so far seem to suggest that showModalDialog() doesn't give a true modal dialog, and the jQuery examples (like SimpleModal) don't seem to be able to stop users from accessing the other tabs or the other parts of the browser.
Alerts seem to be be working, so I was wondering if there is any other solution to this problem? Or do I really need to write a modal dialog from scratch using Javascript?
Using the hidden div methods in the web pages is not an option because I can't modify them.

You can simply use the native javascript function confirm
But I don't like when I can't do what I want without good reasons.
Furthermore, the user will can always switch to another Chrome window.

No sort of in tab HTML modal dialog will prevent a user from switching tabs. Even alert will allow users to switch tabs. You may be able to achieve this through a NPAPI plugin though.

Related

Handling file download popup of chromium browsers using VBA

I'm using Selenium with VBA and Microsoft Edge to collect information, and download some files from a webpage. Everything works great except for the downloading part.
On this example site: https://file-examples.com/index.php/sample-documents-download/sample-doc-download/, Code like
oWebDriver.FindElementByXPath("//a[#href=""https://file-examples-com.github.io/uploads/2017/02/file-sample_100kB.doc""]").Click
will result in a popup like this:
Unfortunately, it is not possible to simply change the browser's preferences in my case, because the macro will be running on a machine with limited authorization and the following setting can not be changed:
The last option can be translated to: "Ask for the storage location with every download" and it is locked.
It seems that the "Save As" popup in the first screenshot can't be accessed, neither with Selenium nor with SendKeys.
So the only option seems to be using the Windows API with VBA to somehow automate this step, however, even so, it seems to be impossible to get a handle on this pesky popup. I tried finding the window with Spy++ and it doesn't seem to show up as a separate window:
The only solution I can now think of is getting the window size of the parent Edge browser window, navigating the mouse to the approximate position of the "Save As" button, and clicking it there using VBA and the Windows API. Obviously, This is not a great solution, as it would be quite frail and can easily break with the smallest misalignment.
Is there any other way to automate this step that doesn't require moving the mouse and automating the "manual" clicking, using only VBA with Selenium?
Selenium only works for browser web page automation. The pop-up is not a part of the wab page so Selenium will not be able to recognize it.
And I think any setting in Selenium including "download.prompt_for_download" won't have effect. The pop-up is controlled by the browser setting, and the browser setting is controlled by your group policy, you can't override it with Selenium settings.
I think the only way is to use some 3rd party UI automation library to click that option along with Selenium, just like what you said in the question.

Tab-specific, non-intrusive notification in a chrome extension

I'm developing a chrome extension. When the user goes to the options page, they might modify a setting which will require them to refresh any tabs they have in which they're using the extension. So if the user changes one of these settings, then goes back to a tab which requires a refresh, I'd like to notify them of this in a non-intrusive way.
Is there a part of the API specifically for doing this sort of thing, or some other recommended way of doing it? I was thinking of maybe a little message that comes down from the top of the page, but can be closed, or a popup coming out of the browser action.
You have many options.. To name a few:
Do not require it. As much as you can, make the (presumably) content script adapt to new settings. It's by far a better UX - in some cases.
Least intrusive would probably be to update a browser action / page action icon if you use one.
Both APIs allow a per-tab change of icon/badge. You could also animate it a little to bring attention.
An in-page notification injected into the DOM. Some sort of toast or <dialog>.
Watch tab changes with chrome.tabs events, and do something on activation of affected tab, such as a chrome.notifications notification.

Chrome Extension popup.html disappears when clicking on the page

I am new to Chrome Extension. I have a popup.html that collects data and displays when mouse over on the current open page/tab. I also send data to popup.html on click on the current open page/tab.
The problem is when i click on the page data gets passed to the popup.html but popup.html disappears/closes. When i click on the extension again the data persists since i am persisting the data on a background page.
How do i avoid popup.html not to close/disappear on click on current open page/tab.
Thanks in advance
It is not possible.
The popup for Browser Actions / Page Actions is designed to close as soon as it loses focus. It is also not possible to programmatically open it.
You did correctly by making the background script handle the data. If you need persistent UI while you're interacting with a page, then your only option seems to be some HTML UI injected by a content script.
You might be interested in this question.
I understood that pop.html does not persist on the screen, hence took up a different route by getting my extension on to the chrome dev tools. They perform the same actions such as an extension the pain is that your dev tools have to be open always.
For my use case keeping the console open does not make much of a difference. This post helped me a lot set this up.
Thanks for your suggestions
I m not sure u can. There is a reason the page is named as popup. Although you can try notifications(https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/notifications) to provide the same functionality.

Interaction between Chrome extension popups and DOM w/o running into CSS conflicts

After many hours of research, I've seen multiple ways to do similar things. But I don't want to pigeonhole myself into approaching this in the wrong way, so I would appreciate any advice on how to achieve the following.
When clicking on my extension icon, I want to load a toolbar onto the current page. This toolbar has a number of links and forms that can:
Interact with the original page (DOM Listeners, changing the DOM)
Create additional extension popups on the original page
Make requests to external resources
From a JS perspective, I think it would be easiest to inject all my own HTML directly on the page and handle functionality via one content script. I abandoned that approach after realizing I'd never be able to account for all CSS conflicts in my popups.
So instead, this is what I have so far. When clicking on my Extension icon, I inject a div into the current page and load up an iframe sourced to a popup.html via chrome.extension.getURL('popup1.html'). This is where I get stuck. By loading my content into an iframe, I have isolated any CSS issues. But say I have text selected on the parent page and I click a button in my popup1.html. Is there then a way to pass the selected text back to the popup1.html or to show that selected text in a new popup2.html?
I hope that once I get the workflow down on how to do this kind of interaction I can move on with development. Thanks for your help!

Chrome extension: Multiple tabs in popup window

I was wondering if there is a way to divide the popup window into more than one tab, when each tab functions as a different web page, using chrome extension APIs. Does somebody know if that's possible?
If I can't do that, I thought I will give up the division into separate web pages and just use tabs on the same web page, like UI tabs for example.
Can you suggest a third way?
Browser\Page Action Windows are Windows of type Popup, you cannot add further tabs to the popup window.
As pointed out using some sort of UI Tabs will solve your problem. Let me know if you need more information.

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