webext-helpers

Cross-browser helper utility functions for MV3 & MV2 web extensions.

Please submit any issues or feature requests at https://github.com/tdriley/webext-helpers/issues

Usage

First install as a project dependency:

npm install webext-helpers --save

Functions

• setBrowserNamespace

Normalise the top-level web extension namespace as browser, so you can access chrome.whatever.func() as browser.whatever.func() in all browsers.

    import { setBrowserNamespace } from "webext-helpers"

    setBrowserNamespace()

    // All web extension function calls can now start with browser.

• getCurrentTab

Get the currently active tab in the current window. Requires the tabs permission in manifest.json.

    import { getCurrentTab } from "webext-helpers"

    const activeTab = await getActiveTab()
    // Do what you want with the active tab.
    console.log(activeTab.url)

• promback

Allows you to use Promise syntax with any web extension function (useful for browser differences in MV2 where Firefox expects promises and Chrome expects callbacks). You should provide the function ref and an array of arguments to call it with.

    import { promback } from "webext-helpers"

    promback( browser.tabs.create, [{ url: 'https://github.com/tdriley/webext-helpers#readme' }]).then(data=> {
        console.log(data)
        // data will be whatever is resolved by the promise (Firefox), or whatever is provided to the callback func (Chrome).
    })

• goToTab Check if there is a tab open in the current window with the provided URL. If not, open a new tab with the URL. Requires the tabs permission in manifest.json.

    import { goToTab } from "webext-helpers"

    const result = await goToTab('https://github.com/tdriley/webext-helpers#readme')

    // result will be an object containing `result` and `tab` props. The `result` prop will be "switched" if the tab was switched, or "opened" if the tab was opened. The `tab` prop will be the tab object of the tab that was switched to or opened.