CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-chrome-extensionmanifestchromium
Erik Rothoff
Erik Rothoff

Reputation: 5123

Chrome extension manifest 2 and 1, compatibility

I have an extension that I recently upgraded to manifest version 2. To do this I removed the background_page property in the manifest file and replaced it with background: {page: "background.html"}. This works and everything is fine. Turns out, however, that there are browsers and people out there with old versions of Chrome, or versions of Rockmelt and other Chromium-based browsers that don't support the background-property, or the manifest_version: 2 yet.

A simple solution would be to just add the background_page: "background.html"-property to the manifest file, in addition to the background-property. This gives the warning in chrome://extension developer mode:

There were warnings when trying to install this extension:
     'background_page' requires manifest version of 1 or lower.

My question is: can having both have any negative impact? For example, what will happen when background_page is deprecated? Will my users see any warnings? Any ideas?

Upvotes: 17

Views: 14873

Answers (2)

Wu Zhou
Wu Zhou

Reputation: 1129

You should replace "background_page" with "background".

Like:

"background": "background.html"

Rather than:

"background": {"page": "background.html"}

Upvotes: 44

Konrad Dzwinel
Konrad Dzwinel

Reputation: 37903

Even thought having undocumented, deprecated or experimental attributes in manifest.json gives warnings, these warnings are only visible with "Developer mode" active. They don't affect end-user. In my option you are perfectly fine keeping background-page: in your manifest.

You can also consider using minimum_chrome_version to block users with older browsers from downloading your latest update. It's a bit too late for that (since your manifest_vesion: 2 update is published) but you can do a small trick here. Downgrade to manifest_version: 1, wait for everyone to download downgraded version and, yet again, push update with manifest_version: 2 this time adding minimum_chrome_version: 18.

Upvotes: 5

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