I am currently writing my first extension for Safari 5. I can't find a reference on what events an extension can react.
I want my extension to react on these events:
when a new tab is created.
when a new browser window is created.
when the URL inside a tab changes.
Is this possible?
Yes. Create an Injected Script and add it as an End Script. Set the Access Level of Extension Website Access in the builder to All. Your Injected End Script will be called for every page that loads in Safari, which covers all of the cases you mentioned.
Yes, as of version 5.1
From the Safari documentation:
In Safari 5.1 and later, you can listen for and respond to the
following window and tab events:
Open—Safari sends an "open" event to a window or tab when it is first
opened.
...
Navigate—Safari sends a "navigate" event to a tab when the main frame of the new URL has loaded.
Here is the reference: The Windows and Tabs API
Edit: Hmm... it seems it only documents how to do some actions, not how to listen to events :-/
Related
I would like to get the URL of the current tab within a page action popup.
At first it seems obvious: Just use the tabs API. But that doesn't seem to be available on Android if I deciphering the docs correctly. So I kept looking for something else and found the onClicked event of the pageAction API.
The pageAction API seems to be listed as compatible with Android and the onClicked event is marked as supported. So that implies that it would actually return a tabs.Tab object. But does it really? Has anyone tried it?
What is the best way to retrieve the URL? I know I could just use a content script and let that run in every single tab and create a long lived messaging connection to send the URL to the page action popup whenever it is requested. But that would be very inefficient and make the code insanely complicated compared to how easy it would be using the tabs API.
Is there anything else I could do?
Current (Firefox 54 and later)
As of Firefox 54, the tabs API is available in Firefox for Android. This means you can use the normal methods available to desktop Firefox. Specifically, chrome.tabs.query() or browser.tabs.query(). However, you will need the activeTab and/or tabs permissions in your manifest.json.
chrome.tabs.query:
chrome.tabs.query({active:true,currentWindow:true},function(tabs){
//'tabs' will be an array with only one element: an Object describing the active tab
// in the current window.
var currentTabUrl = tabs[0].url;
});
browser.tabs.query:
browser.tabs.query({active:true,currentWindow:true}).then(function(tabs){
//'tabs' will be an array with only one element: an Object describing the active tab
// in the current window.
var currentTabUrl = tabs[0].url;
});
Prior to Firefox 54
If you have defined a page/browser action popup
If you have defined a popup for your page/browser action, then the onClicked event does not fire. Your popup is not passed any information when it is created/shown. Thus, you will not receive a tabs.Tab object. The normal way to obtain tab information is from tabs.query, which, as you have already determined, is not (yet) available in Firefox for Android.
The APIs available to Firefox on Android are quite limited. For what you are wanting to do, using webNavigation events to keep a record of each tab's frame 0 URL would be more efficient than a content script in every page. You could use the webNavigation.onCommitted or webNavigation.onCompleted events depending on your needs. You will need to assume that the active tab of the current window is the one which most recently had a webNavigation event, or perhaps you could also monitor webRequest events. However, any way that you do it, which tab you assume to be the current tab will just be an assumption, and will be inaccurate under some circumstances.
A more accurate URL (and active tab determination) requires using a content script
If the page that is being visited changes the tab's URL through some method that does not trigger navigation, using webNavigation events will not give you the updated URL. As you have identified, without the tabs API, the only way to be certain you have the actual current URL for the tab, when you define an actual page/browser action popup (and thus don't get a tabs.Tab object), is to inject a content script into every page. You will either need the content scripts to continuously update the URLs, or be listening with storage.onChanged for a request for that information from your background/popup script. Communication from the background/popup scripts to content scripts must be accomplished through the storage API due to not having the tabs API (i.e. no tabs.sendMessage).
Using page/browser action onClicked
An alternative, which I have not tried on Firefox on Android, would be to not define an actual page/browser action popup. If you don't define an actual popup, you receive the onClicked event (getting the tabs.Tab Object with both the active tab's ID and the URL) and then can open a pseudo-popup1.
1. The implementation of opening a a pseudo-popup in my linked answer uses the tabs and windows APIs which are both currently unavailable for Firefox for Android. It could be re-written to use the above mentioned webNavigation listener to track tab URLs and window.open() to open the window used for the pseudo-popup. Again, I have not tested this with Firefox on Android to determine that it actually works.
You can get it this way with webextensions. Take into account that if you want to debug a popup, you have to "prevent popups to be closed" (4-squares icon at the top-right of the browser's toolbox)
var activeTabPromise = browser.tabs.query({active: true, currentWindow: true});
activeTabPromise.then((tabs) => {
console.log(tabs[0].url);
});
I hope this will help you,
Is it possible to open a new popup tab that would run in a separate thread? To be more specific, if I create a new popup tab and start debugging in that new tab, tab which contains link will also pause javascript until I click resume in a new tab. What I want to achieve is to create a new tab that is separated so I can debug it while parent tab continues running.
I have this problem using Chrome browser. Note that this works fine in Firefox (haven't tested in other browsers).
Usually chrome forces new window to run on the same Process ID.
But, there are techniques which allows sites to open a new window without forcing it into the same process:
Use a link to a different web site that targets a new window without passing on referrer information.
Open in new tab and new process
If you want the new tab to open in a new process while still passing on referrer information, you can use the following steps in JavaScript:
Open the new tab with about:blank as its target.
Set the newly opened tab's opener variable to null, so that it can't access the original page.
Redirect from about:blank to a different web site than the original page.
For example:
var w = window.open();
w.opener = null;
w.document.location = "http://differentsite.com/index.html";
Technically the original website still has access to the new one through w, but they treat .opener=null as a clue to neuter the window.
Source: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=666746
The current version of Chrome does not appear to use a separate thread when using the null opener trick that domagojk referenced. However, if you're in a javascript handler you can still take advantage of the noreferrer link trick he mentions:
var e = document.createElement("a");
e.href="/index.html";
e.target="_blank";
e.rel = "noreferrer";
e.click();
Have you tried using Web Workers? Not sure about support, but they're supposed to offer parallel JS execution functionality. See here and here.
While not exactly an answer, to me it is the best answer. The print dialog should not be blocking.
I have reported this as a bug and given a test case. Show your support at here - https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1023161&q=ryein%20goddard&colspec=ID%20Pri%20M%20Stars%20ReleaseBlock%20Component%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20OS%20Modified
I think once Chromium fixes this bug we won't have to worry about it any more. It is really the only choice at this point.
So to me the answer is we need Google/Chromium to fix this issue.
LIVE DEMO
Given a URI of a file, I'd like to open it in a new tab (not a new window).
It looks like it is not possible to use $window.open(uri, '_blank').
So, I tried the following trick:
var link = angular.element('');
angular.element(document.body).append(link);
link[0].click();
link.remove();
and it works.
But, if I put exactly the same code in a promise callback, it doesn't work anymore (it opens the file in a new window instead).
Any idea what's going on here?
PLAYGROUND HERE
From your code/content, you can't force the browser to open a new tab (rather than a new window, or vice-versa). It's up to the browser settings to force it one way or another.
Anything else would be a security risk.
Let us understand fundamental how pop up blocker work.
If user trigger the function to open a new url, then pop up blocker will allow it(it should applied to any modern browser - at least firefox, chrome)
If not from user (like javascript function in background, promise or any other function trigger not from user), browser will block unless user whitelist the site manually.
This is not working.
function openInNewTab() {
window.open('http://stackoverflow.com','_blank');
}
openInNewTab();//fail
This is working
<h1><button onclick="openInNewTab()">Open In New Tab - working</button></h1>
I created simple plunkr version - http://plnkr.co/edit/QqsEzMtG5oawZsQq0XBV?p=preview
So, to answer your question. It is impossible unless user authorize it (user trigger it or white listed the site).
Quote from firefox -
Pop-up windows, or pop-ups, are windows that appear automatically
without your permission.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/pop-blocker-settings-exceptions-troubleshooting
*Open in new tab / new windows not make any difference. Pop up blocker will still always block. It doesn't means that browser will allow if open in new tab. It is just coincidentally for certain browser default the settings in that manner.
Workaround
You can ask user explicitly to trigger the function to open in new tab after the background execution.
You can display message in UI to ask user to open the url.
Example - http://plnkr.co/edit/iyNzpg64DtsrijAGbHlT?p=preview
You can only open new windows inside click event handlers fired by the user.
The reason for this is usability.
I'm not sure if all browsers have this behavior but some browsers do not allow scripts to open windows without the user being noticed. Imagine when you visit a web page and suddenly, the web page opens several windows => it's annoying.
See this DEMO (tested with my Chrome and Firefox), even we trigger click event by script, the browser still blocks the popup.
$("#test").click(function(){
openInNewTab();
});
$("#test").click();
You cannot open a new window inside your ajax success callback because your ajax success is run in another cycle after the click event handler has finished its execution.
See this link for a workaround
if I put exactly the same code in a promise callback, it doesn't work
anymore (it opens the file in a new window instead).
I'm surprised that you're still able to open a new window. But this problem really has a lot of things to do with click events fired by the user.
Your problem is two-fold, and both folds tread on uncertain territory.
In the old days of browsers, window.open did exactly that – open a new window. That's because the concept of tabs hadn't been invented yet. When tabs were introduced, they were treated exactly like windows to improve compatibility, and that tradition continues to this day. That, and the fact that window.open was only standardized very recently, means that JavaScript cannot distinguish between windows and tabs.
There is no "normal" way to specify whether a link should open in a new tab or not. You can use the following hack, though: specify a custom window size to the open call (via the third argument), like so:
window.open('http://example.com', '', 'width=' + screen.width);
This will cause almost all browsers to open a separate window because tabs cannot have custom sizes.
In JavaScript, there are trusted events and untrusted events. Trusted events are, for example, legitimate clicks on a link by the user, whereas an untrusted event would be a manual click() call on a link.
Only trusted event handlers may open new windows/tabs. This is to prevent client-side attacks that crash the browser or confuse a user by rapidly opening a hundred tabs on mouseover or something similar.
Your second example doesn't work because the popup blocker blocks the untrusted event that you triggered via the click(). Although it was caused by a real click, the asynchronous call in-between severs the link to trustedness.
working version
$http.get('https://api.github.com/users/angular').then(openInNewTab());
EDIT----------------
Do not know why but a click() method called from a callback function acts differently than calling it straight.
You can see it here with a set interval example.
That is why I had call the function directly rather than going through a callback.
see it with timer callback
or you can use $window service please see here : http://plnkr.co/edit/8egebfFj4T3LwM0Kd64s?p=preview
angular.module("Demo", []).controller("DemoCtrl", function($scope, $http, $window) {
$scope.uri = 'http://martinfowler.com/ieeeSoftware/whenType.pdf';
function openInNewTab() {
var link = angular.element('');
angular.element(document.body).append(link);
link[0].click();
link.remove();
}
$scope.works = openInNewTab;
$scope.doesntWork = function() {
$http.get('https://api.github.com/users/angular').then($window.open($scope.uri));
};
});
For us the following worked well: http://blog-it.hypoport.de/2014/08/19/how-to-open-async-calls-in-a-new-tab-instead-of-new-window-within-an-angularjs-app/
In short: We remember the reference to the new window and changing the location afterwards.
So, I have my chrome extension, runs in background fine. And every few hours it uses the notification API to ask the user a question.
If they click one answer we open a tab in the current window.
Problem: If there are no chrome windows open (i.e. the extension is running as part of "Let google chrome run in the background" option), the tab doesn't open.
Here's the code which works fine as long as there is at least a single chrome window open:
// tried this too: chrome.windows.create();
chrome.tabs.create({url: pathToGo});
How to make "chrome.windows.create()" actually make a window if there are none already open.
Use chrome.windows.getAll(object getInfo, function callback) APIs to get all open windows.
If in the callback, the array of windows is empty, create a new window using chrome.windows.create(object createData, function callback).
Use chrome.notifications API if you are unable to create new window.
http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/notifications.html
I'm attaching some functionality to javascript by doing a firefox addon. However when coding in chrome and listening to the load event in the chrome overlay triggers for every loaded tab, but the "content" variable only points to the tab currently in the foreground.
How can I get the content of every tab upon document load from a firefox addon?
Assuming you are using code like this to be told every time a new page loads (which is what you really want to use if you aren't), aEvent.originalTarget is a reference to the document that the event was for.