Run chrome application from a web site button

Question

I have a requirement to launch a chrome application from a web page button click. I have found the following resources,'

• Run Google Chrome application from url
• Activate chrome app from web page?
• How can I launch a Chrome Packaged App through javascript?

Which suggests to use externally_connectable and url_handlers but doesn't seem to work. Is there a proper way I could launch a chrome application via button click on web page by calling the chrome app extension id?.

I am new to this field and any help from you experts would be greatly appreciated :)

PS

I tried the following command on a button click on my web page,

chrome.management.launchApp('app id');

This resulted in an error Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'launchApp' of undefined.

Answer 1

I found how to achieve this incase someone else comes across this issue.

• in your web page on button click for example, include the following code,

                                                   //data passed from web to chrome app
  chrome.runtime.sendMessage('your_chrome_app_id', { message: "version" },
      function (reply) {
          if (reply) {
              if (reply.version) {
                  //log the response received from the chrome application
                  console.log(reply.version);
              }
          }
      }
   );
  

• in your chrome application manifest.json define the externally_connectable url/ urls as follows,

   {
    "name": "App name",
    "description": "App Desc",
    "version": "1",
  
    ...
  
    "externally_connectable": {
      "matches": ["*://localhost:*/"]
    }
  }
  

• In your application background.js setup a listener to be invoked when a message is sent from the web page as follows,

  chrome.runtime.onMessageExternal.addListener(
    function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
      if (request) {
        if (request.message) {
          if (request.message == "version") {
  
            //my chrome application initial load screen is login.html
            window.open('login.html');
  
            //if required can send a response back to the web site aswell. I have logged the reply on the web site
            sendResponse({version: '1.1.1'});
          }
        }
      }
      return true;
    });
  

Hope this helps :)

Answer 2

Hasitha's reply worked. However in the manifest file I needed to do a regex change. For the URL

localhost:3905/manager

obviously the externally_connectible value should be set as

"externally_connectable": {
    "matches": ["*://localhost:*/*"]
}

But for some reason, the same URL cannot be matched with

"externally_connectable": {
    "matches": ["*://localhost*"]
}

did not work. Generated error Invalid match pattern '://localhost'