How to reload a chrome extension automatically? [duplicate]

Answer 1

I have to reveal this because it is little bit more boiled down for dummies (->miself) than gkalpak's solution but is based on that. This uses a plain bookmark to reload Chrome extension. As prerequisite an Apache is running at port 80.

1. Create a bookmark at bookmark bar with real functioning localhost url: 'http://localhost/subdir/reload_dummy.php'. That php file was empty. You can change the url to be any valid url on the web to match your need.

2. Add webRequest permission item to manifest.json:

   "permissions":[ "webRequest","tabs"],

Then copy some code to background.js:

var reloadURL = 'http://localhost/subdir/reload_dummy.php';
var cbBeforeRequest = function (info) {

    if (info.url === reloadURL) {
          chrome.runtime.reload();
           alert("HiiHaa!:" + info.url);
    }

}
var filters = {urls: [reloadURL]};
chrome.webRequest.onBeforeRequest.addListener(cbBeforeRequest, filters);

Answer 2

The extension can reload itself, by calling chrome.runtime.reload(), so it's a matter of triggering the extension to do it.

One method that worked for me, is to watch for tabs' onUpdated event and look for a specific URL (you have come up with), e.g. http://localhost/reloadX?id=....

This is the sample code (to be placed in background.js):

var myReloadURL = 'http://localhost/reloadX?id='
                  + chrome.i18n.getMessage('@@extension_id');

chrome.tabs.onUpdated.addListener(function(tabId, info, tab) {
    if (info.url === myReloadURL) {
        chrome.tabs.remove(tabId);
        chrome.runtime.reload();
    }
});

Additional permissions (to be declared in manifest.json):

...
"permissions": [
    ...
    "tabs",
    "http://localhost/reloadX?id=*"

_{myReloadURL is arbitrary and can be any URL, just doesn't have to be a real URL or the resource will be rendered unreachable.}

Now, in order to reload your extension, you need to open the following address in Chrome:
http://localhost/reloadX?id=<your_extension_id>

It is up to you to choose how to trigger that on save. It could be an on-save hook in your editor, a custom grunt-watch task (since you seem to be familiar with grunt) etc .

---

(BTW, you don't need to reload the chrome://extensions page. It suffices to reload the extension.)

Answer 3

I built Clerc to work out-of-the-box with any LiveReload server. Just include any LiveReload compatible watcher in your build process and Clerc will take care of reloading.