chromix-too
v0.0.15
Published
Command-line (or scripted) access to Chrome's APIs.
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Chromix-Too
This project provides external (e.g. command-line or scripted) access to Chrome's internal (Javascript) API's.
For example, the following command closes all tabs on stackoverflow:
chromix-too rm stackoverflow.com
Chromix-too is a replacement for chromix. Chromix-too is considerably simpler, uses a Unix-domain socket for communication between client and server (which is more secure), and is better packaged (it can be used as a module too).
Getting started
There are three components: a chrome extension, a server and the chromix-too
utility.
Install the extension from the Chrome Store.
To install the server and the chromix-too
utility:
sudo npm install -g chromix-too
Next, you need to run the server:
chromix-too-server
And try out the client:
chromix-too ls
Of course, you need to keep the server running all the time. There are many ways to do this, but I use daemontools; my daemontools run
file is just:
PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"
HOME='/home/blott' exec setuidgid blott chromix-too-server
(Or perhaps just leave the server running in a tmux session.)
Commands
List tabs:
chromix-too ls
List just tab Ids:
chromix-too tid
Focus a tab:
chromix-too focus https://github.com/smblott-github/chromix
Select a tab (select the tab but don't focus
Chrome window):
chromix-too select https://github.com/smblott-github/chromix
Remove a tab:
chromix-too rm https://github.com/smblott-github/chromix
Reload a tab:
chromix-too reload https://github.com/smblott-github/chromix
Open a tab:
chromix-too open https://github.com/smblott-github/chromix
View a file:
chromix-too file ./README.html
(The file
command also focuses and reloads an existing tab if one exists.)
Verify that everything is running correctly:
chromix-too ping
Raw JSON
Call any available Chrome function from the command line:
chromix-too raw chrome.storage.local.set '{"pi": 3.141}'
chromix-too raw chrome.storage.local.get pi
# {"pi":3.141}
chromix-too raw chrome.storage.local.get pi | jq '.pi'
# 3.141
Filters
For all of the commands above (except where it doesn't make sense), you can filter the list of tabs to which the command applies.
There are three kinds of filter:
If the filter is just a bare number, then it is interpreted as a tab Id.
If the filter is one of the boolean options described here, then the corresponding flag is set. For example, you can use
pinned
to operate on all pinned tabs.These boolean flags can be inverted:
-pinned
selects all unpinned tabs.Any remaining filter arguments are treated as queries. Tabs are removed from consideration unless the query text is present in either the tab's URL or the tab's title.
Examples:
# Remove the tab with this tab Id.
chromix-too rm 1234
# Remove all audible tabs.
chromix-too rm audible
# Remove all unpinned tabs.
chromix-too rm -pinned
# List GMail tabs.
chromix-too ls mail.google.com
# Focus my Google Inbox tab.
chromix-too focus Inbox [email protected]
All commands which accept filters fail (so, yield a non-zero exit status) if there are no matching tabs.
Usage as a module
It is also possible to use chromix-too
as a node module; here's an example:
chromix = require("chromix-too")().chromix
chromix "chrome.storage.local.set", {}, {pi: 3.141}, ->
chromix "chrome.storage.local.get", {}, "pi", (response) ->
console.log response.pi
The second argument ({}
, here) is a place holder for future extensions.
The general form is:
chromix PATH, REQUEST, ARGS..., CALLBACK
The number of ARGS...
provided must match the number of (non-callback) arguments expected by the relevant
Chrome API call. When the call is actually made, chromix-too simply
appends its own callback, and that callback must be in the correct argument position.
Known issues
- There is currently no way to set the websocket port used between the Chrome extension and the server.
- Only background-page API calls are possible. It is intended to add the ability to invoke functions in a content script at some point in the future.
Contributions are welcome.