Question

New to Chrome programming, but am more or less familiar with Javascript.

Goal:

A Chrome add-on that will allow me to:

1) Right-click on an link

2) then add a some more characters to that link

3) then reload the page with the new constructed URL.

EX:

A. Object has a link : http://www.address.com/34922

B. User righ-clicks on that object (Chrome’s menu appears [which I know how to mod]), a menu option appears ‘reconstruct rul.’

C. The add-on adds ‘/subfolderA’ to the above mentioned url.

D. Page reloads with the following URL: http://www.address.com/34922/subfolderA

Thanks,
Steve

Answer 1

Use the chrome.contextMenus API, more specifically the create method.

// Add this to the background page
chrome.contextMenus.create({
    title: 'Open this link plus /subfolderA',
    contexts: ['link'],
    onclick: function(info, tab) {
        var linkUrl = info.linkUrl;
        // Some logic, eg adding a fragment:
        linkUrl += '/subfolderA';
        // Replace URL on current tab
        chrome.tabs.update(tab.id, {url: linkUrl});
    },
    // The following array should consist of valid match patterns
    //  This context menu item will only be visible on matching links
    targetUrlPatterns: ['http://adress.com/*']
});

Relevant documentation

Used methods:

• chrome.contextMenus API
  • chrome.tabs.create(<object createProperties>)
  • The onClickData type. This is just a plain JavaScript object. However, Chrome will validate this object, and throw an error when an unknown format (e.g. wrong property) is used.
• chrome.tabs API
  • chrome.tabs.update(<integer tabId>, <object updateProperties>)

Further reading:

• Background pages
• Manifest file
• Match patterns