I've updated this to the browser actions API. The diff is mostly deleting lines, since it is now much easier to do this kind of thing: http://neugierig.org/software/git/?url=chrome-readability/commit/&id=9768c8fa1f807f85a2387310214b7ff6b4153e1a
I was able to pack my extension and install it as well, all on Linux. Pretty much everything was great -- my only points of confusion follow. I'm almost certain y'all already know about all of these, but just in case... - The docs are behind the code (had to read the code once or twice to figure out what was going wrong). - Not exactly clear sometimes which error console you're supposed to look at; the workflow of "reload, see what error happened this time" takes a few too many clicks. Would be nice if chrome://extensions/ remembered whether I had the developer tools turned on or off. - Got one browser crash while developing. But I think we've fixed some crashers seen on the current dev channel on trunk, so I hope it was one of those. On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 7:02 PM, Evan Martin <e...@chromium.org> wrote: > [resend, I think I screwed up the previous three tries] > I wrote an extension that adds a page action to trigger Readability: > http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ > > It's basically just a glorified bookmarklet. > > Code is here: > http://neugierig.org/software/git/?url=chrome-readability/ > Browse it here: > http://neugierig.org/software/git/?url=chrome-readability/tree/ > > I can't provide a .crx because I wasn't able to figure out how to > build one, which I think means I can't actually install it. :~( > > Here's some feedback on the process. I know extensions are still > under development, and that surely most if not all of these are > already known bugs, and that others are probably my fault for doing it > on Linux. I thought it would still be helpful to give an overview of > points of confusion I ran into, in case any of these aren't yet known > bugs. > > - Weight. > This feels like a *lot* of code (content script, page action, > background page, manifest, message ports) just to make a bookmarklet > appear in the URL bar. I wonder if there's a place for a "simple" > extension API for bookmarklet-y sorts of things? > > - Making my page action show up. > It wasn't clear to me how to make my action just always show up. > I think I may have done it wrong: > http://neugierig.org/software/git/?url=chrome-readability/tree/background.html > since it feels unreliable (sometimes it doesn't show). > > - The failure modes are confusing. > Sometimes it prints to the console (when I've made a typo in my > manifest); other times it prints to the error console of the extension > (bugs in my background js); other times it prints to the page's error > console (bugs in my content script). Many of those times there's no > obvious way to map the error back to the line that is failing. > > - JS console. > Do we really have no UI to get to the JS console? I had to open the > developer tools, then guess that one of the icons at the bottom of > the window would show me the messages. > > - The docs around content scripts communicating with the embedding > page aren't too clear. See e.g.: > http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/content_scripts.html#messaging > That section is mostly just a big example but for example nowhere is > the postMessage API described. I'd prefer it to be laid out more > like: > - how to make each endpoint listen for messages > - how to make each endpoint send a message > > - Doc organization. > It would've been clearer to me if there is one more level of nesting. > Sections like toolstrips, page actions are features with manifest > edits as well as APIs, while sections like tabs and windows are just > API references. > > - Building the .crx. > strace -fo log chromium-browser --user-data-dir=/home/martine/test > --pack-extension=`pwd`/readext > --pack-extension-key=chrome-readability.pem > Doesn't show it ever trying to create my .pem. Maybe it's not implemented, > but it'd be nice if it at least complained in that case. > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Chromium Developers mailing list: chromium-dev@googlegroups.com View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-dev -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
