Creating a Google Chrome Extension is as Easy as 1-2-3

devcurry.com

31 pointsguffshemr3 comments

More precisely: Creating a Chrome extension that functions just like a bookmark on a fixed web page [EDITED to clarify: that is, one whose content is fixed] is almost as easy as just making the web page. In other words, "hello world" is easy.

It's nice (and maybe important) for "hello world" to be easy, but this really says nothing at all about how easy it is to make an extension that actually extends the functionality of Chrome.

Adding hotkeys to HN was relatively painless from the set-up point of view. Of course it doesn't do any heavy-duty message passing, but I suppose it could be a good example for those who want to build something that is heavy on the content script side of things.

Here's the code in case anyone wants to use it as an example: http://github.com/dtrejo/HN-hotkeys/

Shameless, but not entirely off-topic self-promotion:

I have created a Google Chrome extension the other day for collapsing comments on Hacker News. You can find the source code on Bitbucket at https://bitbucket.org/drjokepu/hncollapse as well as you can download it from the Chrome Extensions Gallery at https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/bbkfcamiocfccgmc...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com