Category: Browser Extension

Chrome Extension Inline Installation

Tim 4 Comments

You’ve probably come across extensions that allow you to install them from their website without ever going to the Chrome extension store. This is what Chrome calls inline installation and it’s a great way to make it easier for users to install an extension.

Overview

Inline installation requires 3 parts. A link tag in the head of your website, a call to the JavaScript function chrome.webstore.install() and lastly the extension must be assigned to the domain you want to use for inline installation. Read More

Animated Badge Icon

Tim 13 Comments

Weather Extension was recently updated to have a spinning indicator in the badge icon to let the user know the extension is loading when it is clicked. I wanted to give the user immediate feedback. The challenge was that the badge toolbar icon is limited to static images. I was able to get around this by using canvas and generating multiple images that update the icon. I’ve haven’t come across anything like this so I thought I would share.

Javascript JSFiddle example: https://jsfiddle.net/w7t2fe0j/

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Url Shortener Extension

Tim 6 Comments

Let’s face it, URLs can be long and with Twitter’s 140 character limit, link shorteners can be very useful. There are several free services but I tend to use T.LY. It’s free, easy to use, and tracks stats like the number of clicks.

To make the process of generating a short URL easier, I created a chrome extension (Chrome|Firefox|Edge|Opera) that uses Google link shortener API to quickly generate a short link and copy it to your clipboard. If you shorten links often, you should check out my chrome extension.

Install Link Read More