A programmer's diary
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
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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