CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-chrome-extension
Peter Prettenhofer
Peter Prettenhofer

Reputation: 1971

Hidden tabs in google chrome extensions

I've a chrome extension that sends a message from the content script to the background page and logs the tab_id of the content script. I noticed that on google.com|de|at two messages are logged thus two content scripts are created: one for the actual web page shown in the tab (e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=python+standard+library ) and another content script for the first item in the google result list ( in the above example http://docs.python.org/library/ )

Even stranger - the tab_id of the second content script (the hidden one) is not valid. I.e. chrome.pageAction.hide(tab_id) causes the following error to appear:

Error during pageAction.hide: No tab with id: 71

Is there a way to figure out if a content script belongs to a "hidden" tab?

thanks, Peter

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3829

Answers (1)

Jeremy
Jeremy

Reputation: 521

First of all, you can use onCreated and/or onUpdated to keep track of tabs and url mappings without the need for a content script.

However, if there's more to your content script than just informing the background page of the tab id, it may mean more checking.

If your content script is run on all_frames, then you will be getting messages from the content script in the top window and all internal frames. Still, when I test a sample implementation, I get the same IDs for all of them. Also, none of them appear to be from entries in the search result list.

If you are running the script in all tabs, you can ensure that only the top window sends the message by wrapping your sendRequest call with an if (window.top === window).

Could it be possible that you have another extension running that previews google results somehow? That may have this effect....

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions