Building Browser Extensions
About This Book
Browser extensions call for different instincts than ordinary websites, and much of what web developers know about page apps does not carry over cleanly. Building one has more in common with shipping a mobile app, complete with its own concepts and quirks. This guide maps that terrain, showing how extensions work, what their component pieces are, and how to build and deploy them, while helping readers avoid the stumbling blocks that most developers otherwise learn through trial and error. The book moves from the extension architecture and manifest through background scripts, popup and options pages, content scripts, devtools pages, extension and browser APIs, permissions, and networking. A full chapter addresses the move from manifest v2 to v3 and what that transition means for developers. It also covers building cross-browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge, and it shows how to use modern tooling such as Webpack and React. The book ends with a complete reference to extension APIs and features. A companion extension is available at buildingbrowserextensions.com. The book is written for web developers who want to create and deploy a modern browser extension. Readers already comfortable with JavaScript frameworks can apply that knowledge directly to React or Vue projects. It also suits anyone who wants to put together a quick prototype or side project, since the tools it covers can handle much of the boilerplate and underlying API work automatically.
ISBN: 9781484287248
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