46 | Various applications of Browser Extensions 47 | need a mechanism to communicate with local client native processes outside of the browser environment. 48 | This specification proposes such a mechanism. 49 |
50 |53 | This specification is not actively maintained. 54 | Issues previously filed against it can be read on 55 | github. 56 | A public archived mailing list 57 | was also available, 58 | but was reserved for high level discussions, 59 | and was not appropriate for specific comments about this document. 60 |
61 | 62 |63 | Work on this document is governed by 64 | the charter of the Browser Extension CG, 65 | which includes among other things the Communication, 66 | Decision, 67 | and Contribution policies 68 | of this community group. 69 |
70 | 71 |73 | Implementation of the technologies discussed and tentatively specified in this Community Group is ongoing 74 | and none of the original contributors have expressed opposition to this work. 75 | However, due to various circumstances, 76 | the level of participation has dropped below the level at which productive discussion is possible, 77 | and activity in this group has stopped as a result. 78 |
79 | 80 |81 | The specifications have therefore not been maintained in a while, and are out of date. 82 |
83 | 84 |85 | In the meanwhile, a new “WebExtensions Community Group”, 86 | with similar objectives but much more active participation, 87 | has sprung up. 88 | People interested in this topic are encouraged to join that group. 89 |
90 |The Browser Extensions Community Group's goal is to make browser extension code much more interoperable across browsers by specifying common extension interfaces and well-defined browser behavior.
96 |This specification defines the interfaces and behavior which enables extensions to communicate with local client native processes outside of the browser environment.
97 |It is not a goal of this specification to define:
98 |The goal for these APIs is to provide functionality that extension authors need for message-passing between extensions and local client native process outside of the browser. Methods are provided for both establishing long-lived connection ports and for sending individual "one-shot" messages.
108 |runtime object
113 | In addition to the base functionality of the browser.runtime object defined in the [[!browserext]] Browser Extensions specification, these additional APIs provide functionaly for Native Messaging.
114 |
118 | The "nativeMessaging" permission is required to use these additional APIs.
119 |
121 | {
122 | "permissions": [ // Required
123 | "nativeMessaging" // Required
124 | ] // Required
125 | }
126 |
127 | 131 | This API is available only in background pages, a subset of the Window context. 132 |
133 |137 | A description of the special WebIDL syntax considerations for browser extensions are defined elsewhere in the [[!browserext]] Browser Extensions specification. 138 |
139 |
140 | dictionary BrowserExtRuntimePort {
141 | Function disconnect;
142 | DOMString name;
143 | object onDisconnect;
144 | object onMessage;
145 | Function postMessage;
146 | MessageSender sender;
147 | };
148 | callback BrowserExtRuntimeSendNativeMessageCallback = void (any response);
149 | [NoInterfaceObject]
150 | partial interface BrowserExtBrowserRuntimeNativeMessaging {
151 | BrowserExtRuntimePort connectNative(DOMString nativeServiceName);
152 | void sendNativeMessage(DOMString nativeServiceName, object message, optional RuntimeSendNativeMessageCallback callback);
153 | attribute BrowserExtRuntimePort Port;
154 | };
155 | [NoInterfaceObject, Exposed=Window,Ck_Any_Prm_nativeMessaging_]
156 | interface BrowserExtRuntimeNativeMessagingAPI {
157 | readonly attribute BrowserExtRuntimeNativeMessaging runtime;
158 | };
159 | Browser implements BrowserExtRuntimeNativeMessagingAPI;
160 |
161 |
162 | The local client native process must register itself in such a way that the browser will be able to:
169 |Each browser implementation may have different mechanisms for registration, message filtering and lifetime management of the local client native process.
175 |