How to get selected text in chrome extension development?

Question

I\'m developing a chrome extension which involves getting selected text of the current tab. Here is the html file that I use:

Answer 1

As @Xan suggested, the method mentioned before (you can find it here) is overcomplicated. To get it to work, there are only two things to do:

1. Change value to innerHTML in document.getElementById("output").value

2. Add an activeTab permission in manifest.json file

Here is the complete source code, three files in total.

manifest.json

{
    "manifest_version": 2,
    "name": "sample",
    "description": "A sample extension to get the selected text",
    "version": "1.0",
    "icons": { 
        "16": "img/icon16.png",
        "48": "img/icon48.png",
        "128": "img/icon128.png" 
    },
    "browser_action": {
        "default_popup": "popup.html"
    },
    "permissions": [
        "activeTab"
    ]
}

popup.html

popup.js

chrome.tabs.executeScript( {
    code: "window.getSelection().toString();"
}, function(selection) {
    document.getElementById("output").innerHTML = selection[0];
});