Chrome extension regarding injected script + localstorage

Question

I am puzzling my way through my first 'putting it all together' Chrome extension, I'll describe what I am trying to do and then how I have been going about it with some script excerpts:

1. I have an options.html page and an options.js script that lets the user set a url in a textfield -- this gets stored using localStorage.

function load_options() {
   var repl_adurl = localStorage["repl_adurl"];
   default_img.src = repl_adurl;
   tf_default_ad.value = repl_adurl;
}

function save_options() {
   var tf_ad = document.getElementById("tf_default_ad");
   localStorage["repl_adurl"] = tf_ad.value;
}

document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function () {
   document.querySelector('button').addEventListener('click', save_options);
});

document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', load_options );

1. My contentscript injects a script 'myscript' into the page ( so it can have access to the img elements from the page's html )

var s = document.createElement('script');
s.src = chrome.extension.getURL("myscript.js");
console.log( s.src );
(document.head||document.documentElement).appendChild(s);
s.parentNode.removeChild(s);

1. myscript.js is supposed to somehow grab the local storage data and that determines how the image elements are manipulated.

I don't have any trouble grabbing the images from the html source, but I cannot seem to access the localStorage data. I realize it must have to do with the two scripts having different environments but I am unsure of how to overcome this issue -- as far as I know I need to have myscript.js injected from contentscript.js because contentscript.js doesn't have access to the html source.

Hopefully somebody here can suggest something I am missing.

Thank you, I appreciate any help you can offer!

-Andy

Answer 1

First of all: You do not need an injected script to access the page's DOM (<img> elements). The DOM is already available to the content script.

Content scripts cannot directly access the localStorage of the extension's process, you need to implement a communication channel between the background page and the content script in order to achieve this. Fortunately, Chrome offers a simple message passing API for this purpose.

I suggest to use the chrome.storage API instead of localStorage. The advantage of chrome.storage is that it's available to content scripts, which allows you to read/set values without a background page. Currently, your code looks quite manageable, so switching from the synchronous localStorage to the asynchronous chrome.storage API is doable.

Regardless of your choice, the content script's code has to read/write the preferences asynchronously:

// Example of preference name, used in the following two content script examples
var key = 'adurl';

// Example using message passing:
chrome.extension.sendMessage({type:'getPref',key:key}, function(result) {
    // Do something with result
});
// Example using chrome.storage:
chrome.storage.local.get(key, function(items) {
    var result = items[key];
    // Do something with result
});

As you can see, there's hardly any difference between the two. However, to get the first to work, you also have to add more logic to the background page:

// Background page
chrome.extension.onMessage.addListener(function(message, sender, sendResponse) {
    if (message.type === 'getPref') {
        var result = localStorage.getItem(message.key);
        sendResponse(result);
    }
});

On the other hand, if you want to switch to chrome.storage, the logic in your options page has to be slightly rewritten, because the current code (using localStorage) is synchronous, while chrome.storage is asynchronous:

// Options page
function load_options() {
   chrome.storage.local.get('repl_adurl', function(items) {
       var repl_adurl = items.repl_adurl;
       default_img.src = repl_adurl;
       tf_default_ad.value = repl_adurl;
   });
}
function save_options() {
   var tf_ad = document.getElementById('tf_default_ad');
   chrome.storage.local.set({
       repl_adurl: tf_ad.value
   });
}

Documentation

• chrome.storage (method get, method set)
• Message passing (note: this page uses chrome.runtime instead chrome.extension. For backwards-compatibility with Chrome 25-, use chrome.extension (example using both))
• A simple and practical explanation of synchronous vs asynchronous ft. Chrome extensions