CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-chromegoogle-chrome-extensionmessagingmessage-passing
François Pérez
François Pérez

Reputation: 1579

Passing message from background.js to popup.js

I'm trying to implement my own chrome extension on which, on a certain event, create a browser notification and fills the popup with data calculated in background.js

Here is my manifest.json file:

{
    "name": "Dummy name",
    "description": "Description",
    "manifest_version": 2,
    "version": "1.1.3",
    "icons": {
        "16": "icon_16.png",
        "48": "icon_48.png",
        "128": "icon_128.png",
        "256": "icon_256.png"
    },
    "browser_action": {
        "default_icon": "icon_48.png",
        "default_title": "Test",
        "default_popup": "popup.html"
    },
    "permissions": ["background","webRequest","webRequestBlocking","webNavigation","tabs","notifications"],
    "background": {
        "scripts":["jquery-1.8.1.min.js","classy.js","background.js"]
    }
}

My call to sendMessage in background.js

show : function(result) {
    var that = this;
    chrome.extension.sendMessage({greeting: "hello"}, function(response) {
        console.log(response);
    });

    if(window.webkitNotifications) {
        var notification = webkitNotifications.createHTMLNotification('notification.html');
        notification.show();
        setTimeout(function(){
            notification.cancel();
            }, '7000');
        }
    }

My message listener in popup.js (from chrome extension samples)

chrome.extension.onMessage.addListener(
  function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
    console.log(sender.tab ?
                "from a content script:" + sender.tab.url :
                "from the extension");
    if (request.greeting == "hello")
      sendResponse({farewell: "goodbye"});
  });

The only error I get is a

Port error: Could not establish connection. Receiving end does not exist.

Thank you for your help!

Upvotes: 39

Views: 47724

Answers (5)

Perfect
Perfect

Reputation: 1636

Popup doesn't have tab id so you will get the error.

You can use chrome.runtime.sendMessage and chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener in that case.

So in background.js

chrome.runtime.sendMessage({
    msg: "something_completed", 
    data: {
        subject: "Loading",
        content: "Just completed!"
    }
});

And in popup.js

chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(
    function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
        if (request.msg === "something_completed") {
            //  To do something
            console.log(request.data.subject)
            console.log(request.data.content)
        }
    }
);

I hope it would be helpful to you.

Upvotes: 45

Maciej Kravchyk
Maciej Kravchyk

Reputation: 16617

localStorage solution

Because the popup does not have a persistent state, you may want to use localStorage to store the popup state and preload it when popup opens and the storage event to keep track of changes to the state while the popup is open.

Background:

localStorage.setItem('popupData', JSON.stringify({ tabReady: true }));

Popup:

// Load the state from localStorage when popup opens
let popupData = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem('popupData'));

// Keep track of changes to the popup state while the popup is open
window.addEventListener('storage', (e) => {
  if (e.key === 'popupData') {
    popupData = JSON.parse(e.newValue);
    console.log(popupData.tabReady);
  } 
});

Upvotes: 1

jlo
jlo

Reputation: 2269

These are the two simplest ways I've found to send data from background.js to popup.js:

1) Using storage

Save values into storage and once popup gets opened, it gets the values from storage and displays them in the popup.

background.js

chrome.storage.sync.set({ 'dataValue1': 'Some data 1.' });
chrome.storage.sync.set({ 'dataValue2': 'Some data 2.' });

popup.js

function updatePopup() {
    chrome.storage.sync.get(['dataValue1', 'dataValue2'], function (data) {
        document.getElementById("popupElement1").innerText = data.dataValue1;
        document.getElementById("popupElement2").innerText = data.dataValue2;
    });
}    
document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', updatePopup);

popup.html

<html>    
<head>
    <script src="popup.js"></script>
</head>    
<body>
    <p id="popupElement1"></p>
    <p id="popupElement2"></p>
</body>    
</html>

manifest.json

{
    "name": "Background2popup",
    "version": "1.0",
    "manifest_version": 2,
    "description": "This is a demo",
    "browser_action": {
        "default_popup": "popup.html"
    },
    "background": {
        "scripts": [
            "background.js"
        ]
    },
    "permissions": [
        "<all_urls>",
        "storage",
        "tabs"
    ]
}

2) Using chrome.runtime.sendMessage()

Once popup opens, you send a message from popup to background to establish the connection/handshake (otherwise, you would get a 'Unchecked runtime.lastError: Could not establish connection. Receiving end does not exist.' if you try to send a message from background to popup and popup isn't open). Once with the connection established, you use sendResponse from background to send the data you wanted to send to popup in the first place.

background.js

chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(function (request, sender, sendResponse) {
    if (request.method == "getStatus") {
        console.log(request.data)
        sendResponse({ method: "peepee", data: "poopoo" })
    }
});

popup.js

chrome.runtime.sendMessage({ method: "getStatus", data: "xxx" }, function (res) {
    document.getElementById("popupElement1").innerText = res.method;
    document.getElementById("popupElement2").innerText = res.data;
return true;
});

popup.html & manifest.json are the same as in the first example

Upvotes: 10

Akshay Singh
Akshay Singh

Reputation: 163

To solve this you need to first send a handshake message to background.js and then send the actual data from background.js to popup.js For Example: In my case what i did was

popup.js

chrome.runtime.sendMessage({data:"Handshake"},function(response){
	
			});
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(function(message,sender,sendResponse){
	str = JSON.stringify(message.data);
});

background.js

chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(function(message,sender,sendResponse){
//alert(message.data);
	chrome.runtime.sendMessage({data:datax},function(response){
			});
			});

What iam trying to do is that as soon as we click on icon the handshake message is sent to the background.js and when it recieves it we can then send the variable or any data whick we wanted to send on popup.js to render it on popup.html.

Upvotes: 14

i11v
i11v

Reputation: 62

Use runtime.sendMessage to send messages to background script, and tabs.sendMessage from background to content script.

Please note that you need to specify tab id:

chrome.tabs.query({ active: true }, (tabs) => {
    chrome.tabs.sendMessage(tabs[0].id, { greeting: 'hello' }, (response) => {
        console.log(response);
    });
});

You can find full example and documentation here: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/messaging#simple

Upvotes: -1

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