Porting WebExtension from Chrome to Firefox? - javascript

I made a working Chrome extension that is not packaged and is just a directory on my computer. I found out that I should be able to port this to Firefox rather easily.
I followed the "Porting a Google Chrome extension" guide on MDN and found that my manifest file is perfect.
I then followed the instructions on how to perform "Temporary Installation in Firefox" of the extension.
However, when I click on any file inside the directory, nothing happens. The extension doesn't load. Any advice? I know the extension works in Chrome fine and loads without error.
manifest.json:
{
"manifest_version": 2,
"name": "ER",
"description": "P",
"version": "1.0",
"browser_action": {
"default_icon": "icon.png",
"default_popup": "popup.html"
},
"background": {
"scripts": [ "background.js" ]
},
"content_scripts": [
{
"matches": [ "SiteIwant" ],
"js": [ "ChromeFormFill.js" ],
"run_at": "document_idle"
}
],
"permissions": [
"*://*/*",
"cookies",
"activeTab",
"tabs",
"https://ajax.googleapis.com/"
],
"externally_connectable": {
"matches": ["SiteIwant"]
}
}
ChromeFormFill.js:
// JavaScript source c
console.log("inside content");
console.log(chrome.runtime.id);
document.getElementById("ID").value = chrome.runtime.id.toString();
Background.js
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(
function (request, sender, sendResponse) {
if (request.data === "info") {
console.log("Recieving Info");
return true;
}
});
chrome.tabs.create(
{
url: 'myUrl'
active: true
}, function (tab) {
chrome.tabs.executeScript(tab.id, { file: 'Run.js', runAt: "document_idle" });
});
Run.js will just alert('hi').
It just won't do anything when I try to load it on Firefox; nothing will happen.

Issues:
In manifest.json:
externally_connectable is not supported:1
Firefox does not support externally_connectable. You can follow bug 1319168 for more information. There is, currently, no expected time when this will be implemented.
You will need to communicate between the code on your site and the WebExtension using a different method. The way to do so is to inject a content script and communicate between the site's code and the content script. The common ways to do this are CustomEvent() or window.postMessage(). My preference is CustomEvent().
Using window.postMessage() is like yelling your message outside and hoping that either nobody else is listening, or that they know that they should ignore the message. Other people's code that is also using window.postMessage() must have been written to ignore your messages. You have to write your code to ignore any potential messages from other code. If either of those were not done, then your code or the other code can malfunction.
Using CustomEvent() is like talking directly to someone in a room. Other people could be listening, but they need to know about the room's existence in order to do so, and specifically choose to be listening to your conversation. Custom events are only received by code that is listening for the event type which you have specified, which could be any valid identifier you choose. This makes it much less likely that interference will happen by mistake. You can also choose to use multiple different event types to mean different things, or just use one event type and have a defined format for your messages that allows discriminating between any possible types of messages you need.
matches value needs to be valid (assumed to be intentionally redacted):
You have two lines (one with a trailing ,, one without; both syntactically correct):
"matches": ["SiteIwant"]
"SiteIwant" needs to be a valid match pattern. I'm assuming that this was changed away from something valid to obfuscate the site that you are working with. I used:
"matches": [ "*://*.mozilla.org/*" ]
In Background.js:
The lines:
url: 'myUrl'
active: true
need to be:
url: 'myUrl',
active: true
[Note the , after 'myUrl'.] In addition, myUrl needs to be a valid URL. I used:
url: 'http://www.mozilla.org/',
A Firefox 48 bug (now long fixed):
Your line:
chrome.tabs.executeScript(tab.id, { file: 'Run.js', runAt: "document_idle" });
In Firefox 48 this line is executed prior to the tab being available. This is a bug. It is fixed in Firefox Developer Edition and Nightly. You will need one of those to test/continue development.
Issues in ChromeFormFill.js:
Another Firefox 48 bug (now long fixed):
chrome.runtime.id is undefined. This is fixed in Developer Edition and Nightly.
Potential content script issue:
I'm going to assume your HTML has an element with an ID = 'ID'. If not, your document.getElementById("ID") will be null. You don't check to see if the returned value is valid.
Running your example code
Once all those errors were resolved, and running under Firefox Nightly, or Developer Edition, it worked fine. However, you didn't have anything that relied on being externally_connectable, which won't function.
agaggi noticed that I had forgotten to include this issue in the original version of my answer.

Related

Cannot run my chrome extension in other broswer/machine except mine : some mismatch in unpacked distribution?

Sorry for my poor English, i hope you can understand the issue.
I'm new to chrome extension development,and for sure in my code there are a lot of
thing to change or optimize;
anyway i've written a simple code that, (seems) works at least from my chrome.
The code clicks a button every X minutes in specific page, then wait and parse the result in page.
I've :
a content script (loaded from manifest.json) which "inject" some button and text Input box in page, so user can sets some "filter params" before click a "start button"; the start button then sendMessage() to background.js to set Alarm Event for the click ;
an eventPage (which is set persistent true in actually ) which handle the request from tabs and set a countdown alarm for each tab; when X min are passed fire a message to the interested tab;
I also have a popup.html e popup.js not important here (i think).
I've to distribuite this extension manually, so i would distribuite a zip that user can load with "developer mode ".
*Now the issue is: why the code was working only on my Chrome ? *
I've tested with others 2-3 laptop with Chrome, the background script is loaded (i can see the background page printint console log)
but in webpage the contents.js seems no way executed .
In my chrome works well: i can see in console some initial output (i print the name of dir extension to check) and
the dynamic created element (button,input box ect.) in page.
And all is working, i can fire the start button and receive results of parsing.
During the development i've never run the extension on other machine. Yesterday i've succssfully tested on 2-3 laptop.. then i made only few change but nothing serious.
Today i can run only in my chrome.
In other pc nothing, neither the simple console.log output first line of script.
I can read in console log :
"Unchecked runtime.lastError: Could not establish connection. Receiving end does not exist."
but this also in my working istance in my laptop chrome .
The zip file is the same and the extraction is good, in fact i can actually load the extension and i see the background page debug console.log() sentences
In some case, in laptop where it dosen't work, i've received a message relative jQuery and the fact that chrome.runtime.sendMessage() is not defined; and it points to code in webpage, not mine.
I've see that in webpage code there is something like:
var extid = "mcmhdskbnejjjdjsdkksmeadjaibo";
var extVer = "1.5";
var extStatus = 0;
$(document).ready(function () {
///...
chrome.runtime.sendMessage(extid, {message: "version"},
function (reply) {
if (reply) {
if (reply.version) {
if (reply.version == extVer) {
if (reply.gminfo != 'OK') {
extStatus = 1; /// ...
Seems that chrome.runtime is undefined, and the webpage can't call the sendMessage().
EDIT: this undefined occurs only when my extension is loaded
Maybe there is some conflict when i load my extension? But in my chrome browser works...
Can some expert indicate in where direction i've to investigate?
Thanks a lot for any suggestions.
My Manifest.json :
{"manifest_version": 2,
"name": "myAlarm",
"description": "This extension alerts.",
"version": "0.1",
"permissions": [
"alarms",
"system.cpu",
"storage",
"tabs",
"webNavigation",
"https://www.mytargetsite.com/subUrl/"
],
"web_accessible_resources": [
"icon.png",
"vanillaSelectBox.css"],
"content_scripts": [
{
"matches": ["https://www.mytargetsite.com/subUrl/"],
"css": ["vanillaSelectBox.css"],
"js": ["jquery-3.3.1.min.js","vanillaSelectBox.js","taffy-min.js","content.js"],
"run_at": "document_end"
}
],
"background": {
"scripts": ["eventPage.js"],
"persistent": true
},
"browser_action": {
"default_icon": "icon.png",
"default_popup": "popup.html"
},
"icons": {
....
}
}
My contents,js (stripped):
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(
function(request, sender) {
// here i parse message "time'up" from background js
});
window.addEventListener('load', function() {
var pt=chrome.runtime.getURL('filterOff.wav');
var p=pt.split("/");
console.log("[myAlarm v0.1] started" );
console.log("[myAlarm v0.1] folder : ("+p[2]+")");
// here i start an active wait for the presence in page of button with ID= btntarget_id
waitForElementToDisplay("#btntarget_id", 500); //when function find button then create and add button and input text to webpage
});
My eventPage.js :
var curr_alarms =[];
chrome.extension.onMessage.addListener(function(request, sender)
{ /// here receive start countdown message from content.js and set alarm ...
}
chrome.alarms.onAlarm.addListener(function(alarm) {
/// here i manage each alarm for each tab
});
chrome.tabs.onRemoved.addListener(function(tabid, removed) {
// ...
});
chrome.tabs.onUpdated.addListener(function
(tabId, changeInfo, tab) {
//
});
edit : in browser where it dosen't work i can read also :
Access to XMLHttpRequest at 'https://mytargetsite.com/suburl/grid.php' (redirected from 'https://mytargetsite.com/suburl/grid.php') from origin 'https://mytargetsite.com' has been blocked by CORS policy: Response to preflight request doesn't pass access control check: Redirect is not allowed for a preflight request.
The fact that the declared content script runs or not, should be verified by inspecting in devtools => sources sub-tab => content scripts sub-sub-tab. If it really doesn't run, there can be just two explanations: the URL is different (for example not https) or extensions are blocked by their domain admin via runtime_blocked_hosts which you can see in chrome://policy.
Your development mode extension's id will be different on a different machine unless you pin it by adding a "key" in manifest.json
To use chrome.runtime to send messages to your extension from a webpage code (not from a content script!) your extension's manifest should declare "externally_connectable" and use a different event onMessageExternal, see also sending messages from web pages.
The CORS error may be irrelevant to your code (you can investigate the source of the error by expanding the error's call stack in devtools console).

Content script not executing in new window

I am trying to create a Chrome extension that, when clicked, opens a new incognito window and performs some DOM action on it. These are the files I'm using:
manifest.json
{
"manifest_version": 2,
"name": "SampleExtension",
"description": "",
"version": "1.0",
"incognito": "spanning",
"browser_action": {
"default_icon": "icon.png",
"default_popup": "popup.html"
},
"content_scripts": [
{
"matches": ["http://www.google.com"],
"js": ["myscript.js"]
}
],
"permissions": [
"tabs",
"activeTab",
"http://www.google.com"
]
}
popup.js
chrome.windows.create({
"url": "http://www.google.com",
"focused": true,
"incognito": true
});
chrome.tabs.executeScript(null, {
"file": "myscript.js",
"run_at": "document_end",
"all_frames": true
});
myscript.js
document.querySelector('a[target]').click();
The extension opens the new window, but my content script doesn't seem to be executing. Any thoughts?
Edit: Added "incognito": "spanning" to the manifest. Still doesn't work, however.
First of all, I understand that you have enabled to run in Incognito Mode. Extensions are disabled by default and, hence, it would not run otherwise.
Secondly, your match pattern needs to end with a slash:
"matches": ["http://www.google.com/"],
Thirdly, Google will redirect you to its https version, hence I would improve the match pattern like this:
"matches": ["*://www.google.com/"],
Still, it didn't work for me as I was redirected to my local Google domain. Hence, I had to do add more:
"matches": [
"*://www.google.com/*",
"*://www.google.com.sg/*"
],
Also, I added the final wildcard, because Google was adding some ?urlParams that I had to match too. And this made it work. Note that I tried with other pages like "*://www.stackoverflow.com/*", and it was easier than Google :)
In case your Google page was just a test, I'd advise to use some less redirected pages to test with.
A final note: I do not think it's possible to use the wildcard for the domain (I tried). However, you can request all the main domains, or request all_pages and then add the logic for Google only on my_script.js to decide whether to execute the action or not. (However, this last piece is not ideal).
Edit post comments:
It seems your function fails because the element is not loaded yet. An easy way to solve this is by doing an interval which checks whether the element is on the page. When it finds it, clicks it and removes the interval.
// Function which clicks element if existing and clears interval after doing it.
var clickLink = function() {
if (document.querySelectorAll('a[target]').length > 0) {
clearInterval(waitAndClick); // stop interval
document.querySelector('a[target]').click(); // click element.
}
}
// Run click function every second, until it clicks it.
var waitAndClick = setInterval(clickLink, 1000);

Chrome extension that acts only when clicked on certain webpages

I'm trying to get my Chrome extension to pop up an alert when the user is on http://google.com/ and clicks on the extension icon.
I have the following manifest:
{
"manifest_version": 2,
"name": "One Megahurt",
"version": "0.1",
"permissions": [
"activeTab"
],
"background": {
"scripts": ["bg.js"],
"persistent": false
},
"browser_action": {
"default_icon": "icon.png"
}
}
and this is bg.js:
chrome.browserAction.onClicked.addListener(function(tab) {
alert('Test!');
})
This code will allow popup an alert on any website, as I don't have any restrictions on which websites this works on. I tried using
if(tab.url === "https://google.com/")
between the first and second lines, but that didn't work.
I'm not sure if I should even be using a background script rather than a content script. I looked in Google's examples and tried using the implementation in "Page action by URL", but that didn't work for me either.
Any help would be appreciated. I should note that I don't really care about the specific issues with the URL--google.com is merely an example. I want to learn to use this for other projects and websites.
EDIT: Adding urls to permissions doesn't restrict which websites the alert pops up on, either.
I ended up using page actions for my solution, per Felix King's suggestion. In retrospect, this was the best solution to use because it doesn't load the extension on every page and cause browser slowdowns (as far as I know).
In addition to adding domains to permissions in the manifest, add a the following code to a background.js.
// When the extension is installed or upgraded ...
chrome.runtime.onInstalled.addListener(function() {
// Replace all rules ...
chrome.declarativeContent.onPageChanged.removeRules(undefined, function() {
// With a new rule ...
chrome.declarativeContent.onPageChanged.addRules([
{
// That fires when a page's URL matches one of the following ...
conditions: [
new chrome.declarativeContent.PageStateMatcher({
pageUrl: { urlMatches: 'http://google.com/' }, // use https if necessary or add another line to match for both
}),
new chrome.declarativeContent.PageStateMatcher({
pageUrl: { urlMatches: 'http://facebook.com/*' },
}) // continue with more urls if needed
],
// And shows the extension's page action.
actions: [ new chrome.declarativeContent.ShowPageAction()]
}
]);
});
});
chrome.pageAction.onClicked.addListener(function(tab) {
chrome.tabs.executeScript(null, { file: "script.js" });
});
Key sections to add in manifest.js are:
"background": {
"scripts": ["res/background.js"],
"persistent": false
}
&
"permissions": [
"declarativeContent", "tabs", "activeTab", "http://google.com", "http://facebook.com/*"
]
I don't have much experience with this, but looking at the example manifests that I've seen, they usually have the a list of domains under permissions. I'm betting that if you used:
"permissions": ["http://www.google.com/", "https://www.google.com/", https://google.com, https://google.com],
it would only run the code on the permissible pages.
Pulled example from:
http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/overview
More detailed info here:
http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/declare_permissions

Accessing Cookies in Chrome Extension

I'm trying to write a chrome extension that works with YouTube and need to access some of YouTube's cookie information. I cant seem to get my extension to see any cookies. (Even though I can see them under resources in the "Inspect Element" developer portion of Chrome).
I'm pretty sure I've set up permissions correctly in the manifest 2 file because when I take out the "cookies" permission just to test it I get an error saying "Cannot call method 'getAll'". My current problem is just that no cookies are returned by the callback function.
{
"manifest_version": 2,
"name": "YouTube Viewer",
"description": "This extension is for YouTube videos.",
"version": "1.7",
"icons": {
"128": "ytblack.png"
},
"permissions": [
"cookies",
"https://www.youtube.com/",
"http://www.youtube.com/",
"tabs",
"storage"
],
"background": {
"scripts": ["bootstrap.js"],
"persistent": false
},
"page_action": {
"default_title": "YT View",
"default_icon": "ytblack.png",
"default_popup": "popup.html"
}
}
My manifest calls the bootstrap.js. Inside bootstrap.js there is a call to another file ytview.js but I'm not concerned with that. The code in that is working fine. But inside bootstrap.js my cookies.length is returning as 0 when I look at my "background page" console. The log for "Callback for cookies came in fine." fires correctly. But then it says "cookies.length=0". Like I said, I know the cookies exist because I can see them in the resources.
chrome.tabs.onUpdated.addListener(function(id, info, tab){
// decide if we're ready to inject content script
if (tab.status !== "complete"){
console.log("not yet");
return;
}
if (tab.url.toLowerCase().indexOf("youtube.com/watch") === -1){
console.log("you are not on a YouTube video");
return;
}
chrome.cookies.getAll({domain: "www.youtube.com"}, function(cookies) {
console.log('Callback for cookies came in fine.');
console.log('cookies.length=' + cookies.length);
for(var i=0; i<cookies.length;i++) {
console.log('cookie=' + cookies[i].name);
}
});
chrome.tabs.executeScript(null, {"file": "ytview.js"});
});
Any ideas why no cookies are being returned? Maybe something with "domain" in the .getAll statement? I've tried lots of combinations like www.youtube.com, youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com with no luck.
for future users:
youtube.com use ".youtube.com" as cookie domain to allow the site to share cookies across all youtube subdomains so in your example you should use domain name without 'www' subdomain for example:
chrome.cookies.getAll({domain: "youtube.com"}, function(cookies) {
//...
});
you can clearly see cookies domain using default chrome developer tools
I figured it out. In my manifest I was asking for permission on www.youtube.com but the cookies I was trying to read were on simply youtube.com without the www. Adding the plain youtube.com to the permissions in manifest fixed it.

Communication between scripts in Chrome Extension

I know there are many variations of this question already in existence here, but none of them seem to work for me.
Details:
I'm writing an extension that pulls some email data from emails you send in gmail. In order to achieve this I am using this version of Gmailr https://github.com/joscha/gmailr.
In effect, I have three content scripts: Gmailr.js and main.js (which are pretty much identical to those in the link above) allow me to pull out the information I'm looking for. Then content.js I use to send a message to the background page of the extension.
The problem is that from gmailr.js and main.js I cannot use any of the Chrome APIs, and I'm not really sure why, so I can't send messages from these back to the background page.
That is why I made content.js which can communicate with the background page. However, it does not seem to be able to see anything the other content scripts do. For example, main.js inserts a div at the top of the page. When I try to attach an event listener to a button in this div from content.js, I am told that no such element exists.
How can I get the data pulled out by main.js to be seen by content.js? (I also tried to put the data in local storage, then trigger a custom event listener to tell content.js to read local storage, but no luck because they don't seem to be able to hear each other's event being triggered).
Any insight or alternatives are much appreciated.
(I can post code if necessary, but it's fragmented and long)
My manifest file:
{
"manifest_version": 2,
"name": "Email extractor",
"description": "Extracts data from emails",
"version": "1.0",
"background": {
"script": "background.js"
},
"content_scripts": [
{
"matches": [
"*://mail.google.com/*",
"*://*/*"
],
"js": [
"lib/yepnope.js/yepnope.1.5.4-min.js",
"lib/bootstrap.js",
"main.js",
"gmailr.js",
"content.js"
],
"css": [
"main.css"
],
"run_at": "document_end"
}
],
"permissions": [
"tabs",
"storage",
"background",
"*://mail.google.com/*",
"*://*/*"
],
"browser_action": {
"default_icon": "img/icon.png",
"default_popup": "popup.html"
},
"web_accessible_resources" : [
"writeForm.js",
"disp.js",
"/calendar/jsDatePick.min.1.3.js",
"/calendar/jsDatePick_ltr.min.css",
"lib/gmailr.js",
"lib/jquery-bbq/jquery.ba-bbq.min.js",
"content.js",
"main.js",
"background.js"
]
}
This is main.js:
Gmailr.init(function(G) {
sender = G.emailAddress();
G.insertTop($("<div id='gmailr'><span></span> <span id='status'></span>)");
el = document.getElementById("testid");
el.addEventListener('click', mg, false);
var status = function(msg) {
G.$('#gmailr #status').html(msg); };
G.observe(Gmailr.EVENT_COMPOSE, function(details) {
....
status(" user: " + user);
console.log('user:', user);
//now try to send a message to the background page
//this always returns the error that method sendMessage does not exist for undefined
chrome.runtime.sendMessage({greeting: "test from gmailr"}, function(response) {
console.log("did it send?");
});
});
});
gmailr.js is quite long and is also not my own code but it can be seen here: http://pastebin.com/pK4EG9vh
Hi perhaps 3 likely reason to your problem :
The way you send messages to bgp from main.js and gmailr.js are perhaps wrong because you must arrive to communicate from any content script to your bgp. (in your manifest content script key the gmailr.js is missing). Show us your code it would help.
You seems to have a problem with the moment you search from content.js to access to the element created in main.js. Do you try to access your element with the jQuery $("").on() method ? A simple test must be to declare a function in one cs and to use it in another. If it's not working it's a manifest problem. The order you declare .js file in manifest content script key is important also.
try to in the manifest content script array "run_at":"document_end"
Hope it help !

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