chrome-extensions-reloader

So, you're developping a chrome extension ? I bet you're doing with this pattern about 3.141e+42 a day:

1. Make a change in your code
2. Go to chrome://extensions
3. Find your unpacked extension
4. Click Reload
5. Go to your extension and inspect your change, debug stuff ect
6. Repeat

So, what if you could do this:

1. Make a change in your code
2. Go to your extension and inspect your change, debug stuff ect
3. Repeat

How I install this awesome stuff ?

First, you should know that i've only tested using OSX but it should also work on Linux. However i'm not brave enought to test on Windows.

Requirements

1. Install chrome-cli

   This is script use the awesome chrome-cli tool, since this CLI tool is a binary and platform dependant, you should install it before using this script.

2. Install chrome-extensions-reloader, you may need sudo

   npm install -g chrome-extensions-reloader

3. Open a tab in chrome to chrome://extensions-frame (yes, extensions-frame, not extensions)

Usage:

As a watcher:

chrome-extensions-reloader can watch a folder and reload the extension each time a change happen in this folder.

Go to your project root directoy:

$ cd my-awesome-chrome-extensions
$ chrome-extensions-reloader
>> SUCCESS	 Reloaded extensions (in tab 818)
>> SUCCESS	 Reloaded extensions (in tab 818)
[...]

As a sublime-text build system

You may find that watching a folder is very slow and that's true, blame fs.watch. That's why with a little of Sublime Text magic you can reload the extension just by pressing ctrl+s

1. In Sublime Text create a new Build System: Tools > Build System > New Build System...

2. Add this to the Build System file (example here)

   {
     "shell_cmd": "chrome-extensions-reloader --single-run"
   }
   

3. There you go, each time you press ctrl+b it will reload the extension

You may want to install SublimeOnSaveBuild plugin to run the build script each time you press ctrl+s

FAQ

1. What does this thing do under the hood ?

   This script simply inject a dumb javascript snippet which trigger a Click() on every Reload links in the chrome://extensions tab. That's why this tab should be open.

2. Does it reload every extensions ?

   This script reload every unpackaged extensions

3. Why is this repository name is too long ?

   Because letters make words and sometime there is too much letters