A programmer's diary
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A programmer's diary

Learning to code browser extensions

About the Book

This is a strange book. Somewhere around 2021 (or so) I thought I would like to learn to write browser extensions, with two goals: to make my life easier by customizing my browser (much like I customize Emacs, my editor of choice), and to write a book to help other people learn the same thing (much like I wrote a book teaching how to customize Emacs).

Another idea I had was that it might be an interesting experiment to document my learning process – in other words, write down my thoughts while studying. I already did something similar back in 2016, when I took part in a blogging contest (however strange it may sound), where I learned a new technology and coded an application while blogging about it three times a week for two and a half months.

This book is the result of that experiment. I don’t know if it will be interesting to anyone, but in case you like it, well, you can buy it here. (And if you don’t like it, you can easily get a refund.)

So, join me in my journey learning some new stuff! I can’t promise any enlightening thoughts or brilliant insights, but what I can promise is some ranting, my thoughts on documentation writing (and web extension APIs etc.), and a rant from time to time. Oh, and did I mention rants?

About the Author

Marcin Borkowski
Marcin Borkowski

I am a mathematician, a blogger, a technical writer, a programmer, and an Emacs user. Also, a part of a multi-generational family of geeks, a boardgamer, amateur translator, a former teacher and more.

Table of Contents

    • 1 Introduction
    • 2 The sources
    • 3 Getting started
      • 3.1 What are extensions?
      • 3.2 Your first extension
      • 3.3 Your second extension
      • 3.4 Anatomy of an extension
      • 3.5 Example extensions
      • 3.6 What next?
    • 4 Concepts
      • 4.1 Using the JavaScript APIs
      • 4.2 Content scripts
      • 4.3 Background scripts
      • 4.4 Match patterns in extension manifests
      • 4.5 Working with files
      • 4.6 Internationalization
      • 4.7 Content Security Policy
      • 4.8 Native messaging
      • 4.9 Differences between API implementations
      • 4.10 Chrome incompatibilities
    • 5 User interface
      • 5.1 User interface
      • 5.2 Toolbar button
      • 5.3 Address bar button
      • 5.4 Sidebars
      • 5.5 Context menu items
      • 5.6 Options page
      • 5.7 Extension pages
      • 5.8 Notifications
      • 5.9 Address bar suggestions
      • 5.10 devtools panels
    • 6 Howtos
      • 6.1 Intercept HTTP requests
      • 6.2 Modify a web page
      • 6.3 Safely inserting external content into a page
      • 6.4 Sharing objects with page scripts
      • 6.5 Add a button to the toolbar
      • 6.6 Implement a settings page
      • 6.7 Working with the Tabs API
      • 6.8 Work with the Bookmarks API
      • 6.9 Work with the Cookies API
      • 6.10 Work with contextual identities
      • 6.11 Interact with the clipboard
      • 6.12 Extending the developer tools
      • 6.13 Building a cross-browser extension
    • 7 Firefox differentiators
    • 8 JavaScript APIs
      • 8.1 Browser support for JavaScript APIs
      • 8.2 action
      • 8.3 alarms
      • 8.4 bookmarks
      • 8.5 browserAction
      • 8.6 browserSettings
      • 8.7 browsingData
      • 8.8 captivePortal
      • 8.9 clipboard
      • 8.10 commands
      • 8.11 contentScripts
      • 8.12 contextualIdentities
      • 8.13 cookies
      • 8.14 declarativeNetRequest
      • 8.15 devtools
      • 8.16 dns
      • 8.17 dom
      • 8.18 downloads
      • 8.19 events
      • 8.20 extension
      • 8.21 extensionTypes
      • 8.22 find
      • 8.23 history
      • 8.24 i18n
      • 8.25 identity
      • 8.26 idle
      • 8.27 management
      • 8.28 menus
      • 8.29 notifications
      • 8.30 omnibox
      • 8.31 pageAction
      • 8.32 permissions
      • 8.33 pkcs11
      • 8.34 privacy
      • 8.35 proxy
      • 8.36 runtime
      • 8.37 scripting
      • 8.38 search
      • 8.39 sessions
      • 8.40 sidebarAction
      • 8.41 storage
      • 8.42 tabs
      • 8.43 theme
      • 8.44 topSites
      • 8.45 types
      • 8.46 userScripts
      • 8.47 webNavigation
      • 8.48 webRequest
      • 8.49 windows
    • 9 Afterword

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