CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-chrome-extension
sh4d0w
sh4d0w

Reputation: 123

Chrome extension: Copy text

I have a simple chrome extension where I'd like to click an image and copy the href of the link next to it. I have everything in place, but the copy will not work for the life of me. I have the following premissions in my manifest:

"permissions": [ "clipboardRead", "clipboardWrite" ]

I then create an input with id "copyInp" and use the following function to copy to clipboard (tried to be as deliberate as possible here, so it's not the most compact):

function copyLinkToClipboard( link ) {
$("#copyInp").val(link);
var inp = document.getElementById("copyInp");
inp.focus();
inp.select();
document.execCommand('copy');

};

After this runs, I get nothing new in my clipboard when I ctrl+v. Any ideas as to what's going wrong here? The input definitely has the text I want in it, and I have the permission in the manifest. Any help would be greatly appreciated...

Upvotes: 4

Views: 3966

Answers (1)

sh4d0w
sh4d0w

Reputation: 123

After a bit more digging I discovered I needed to use a background page. Apparently this is the only thing you can call document.execCommand on. So the fix is to create a background.html with the copy function and the input in it, add a listener like so:

chrome.extension.onRequest.addListener(function(obj) {
        copyLinkToClipboard( obj.link );
});

and then use sendRequest to pass the text you want copied to the background page:

chrome.extension.sendRequest({link: linkText});

and don't forget to add the background page in the manifest

"background_page": "background.html",

voila. text copied to clipboard. would LOVE an easier way to do this (if security is the issue then why not make an api for extensions? or rather, why scrap the experimental api only to force us to do this stupid workaround?) but oh well, this will suffice for the time being

Upvotes: 7

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