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We recently converted a chrome extension into safari extension using the tool provided by apple [1]. While the conversion is smooth in general, the generated app (not the extension) got UI issue during extension review! Reviewer insists the app does not fit the UI guideline. I need to write back and explain the entire app is actually generated by the official Apple tool. The only use of generated app is open the preferences page of Safari. Anyway, after two back and forth, the extension is finally launched.

[1]: https://bartsolutions.github.io/2020/11/20/safari-extension/

> I have an extension idea; it's literally a single line of JS. However, to get it into Safari, I need to create a (useless, and empty) Mac app with a specific configuration in Xcode that'll allow it to appear in the "extensions" list in Safari. Then I need to deal with all the signing & App Store distribution stuff if I actually want to distribute it.

Probably less annoying, but there's still a time and effort cost to publishing on both Chrome and Firefox as well. They don't have the same policies, the APIs have differences, they have their own bugs, and the submission/review process is different for each. It's a real drag, compared to pushing updates to a website.

Also, with the Chrome store right now, once you push an update for review, there's no way to replace it with a newer update until the (up to 3 weeks) review process finishes so say goodbye to pushing quick fixes, automated deploys and fast iterations. It's ridiculous.

Publishing extensions on Chrome/Firefox is annoying, and we probably would have more extensions if it was easier.

But, it's not so annoying that the entire platform is being abandoned. This is a matter of degree, but there's a point where the effects of that annoyance become very obvious.

If publishing on Apple devices was just a tiny bit more annoying, devs would complain and then still publish their extensions. But that doesn't seem to be what's happening, it seems Apple has crossed a line where extension devs have decided to just ignore the entire thing.

Come on you can’t compare what it takes to submit an update on those two. Literally 5 clicks and drop a zip on the page, so long as they don’t single you out for manual review.

Apple requires a thousand clicks, a 11GB app on your computer and the manual review every time.

I push my extension to Firefox, Chrome, and Edge. Updates for me take less than five minutes to upload and appear within an hour or so.

Maybe it's because I don't have many users, or don't use any minification, or something else?

I'd like to publish for Safari but it's a much higher bar. Similar to the old Edge extensions which required Microsoft Store hoop jumping.

> I push my extension to Firefox, Chrome, and Edge.

Do you automated this or are there manual steps?

> Updates for me take less than five minutes to upload and appear within an hour or so.

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/webstore/faq/#faq-listing-...

"Review times vary; some reviews complete in a few hours, others take many days, and in some cases a review can take several weeks. ... If your item's status says "pending review" for more than three weeks, you should contact support."

Reviews are meant to take longer if you ask for e.g. permission to all URLs (which a large number of popular extensions need to because of lack of permission granularity). Maybe your extension isn't impacted here? There's no guarantee the next update won't get trapped in the review queue either, which is not going to be fun when a critical fix is pending.

> Do you automated this or are there manual steps?

Manual for the time being.

> Maybe your extension isn't impacted here? There's no guarantee the next update won't get trapped in the review queue either,...

Mine does need all URLs, though it is possible the next review could take days or weeks. Yet it's all still so much simpler a process than Safari.

I agree with your point on a whole, I do want to add that tamper monkey does indeed work on Safari so you could just add that line of JS there

Thanks. I've been wanting to check it out but put it on the back burner. I'll revisit it at some point.

>In addition to the money argument raised in another comment, the Apple development experience is a major annoyance when all you need is a couple lines of JS. > >I have an extension idea; it's literally a single line of JS. However, to get it into Safari, I need to create a (useless, and empty) Mac app with a specific configuration in Xcode that'll allow it to appear in the "extensions" list in Safari. Then I need to deal with all the signing & App Store distribution stuff if I actually want to distribute it.

I've shipped an extension like this, and it took me an hour to build (which included testing), and then I hit "archive" and submitted it.

The signing pieces "just work" in modern Xcode if you have a developer account associated.

Extensions don’t appear unless you go to the develop menu and turn on ‘Allow unsigned extensions’.

And the "develop menu" doesn't show either unless you go in advanced settings, and select that it should be visible.

Apple has no issues putting 200 hoops in front of you to get a simple thing done.

This is just another one of those hoops, and another reason developers don't like doing things with Apple-technologies.

Yup, it's mentioned here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/saf....

I'm fairly confident I did that. Either way, the process is very unclear - what actually notifies Safari that an extension is available and whether it's updated?

With most browsers it's clear, you open a specific file with the browser, the browser loads it and that's it. To update, you open the updated version of the file.

With these apps it doesn't even seem like the app itself is doing any work - there's no code in there to for example connect to an internal socket or do some IPC to notify the browser and supply it with extension files - instead it seems to be handled out-of-band by "magic".

> what actually notifies Safari that an extension is available and whether it's updated?

Since extensions are made available via app extensions, it is:

- installation of an app from the app store

- first run of an app which is not from the app store

This is actually the big reason why they require you to use apps - all system customizations (device drivers, web extensions, photo plugins, fonts, etc) are supported with an application life cycle, and support appstore-style review and updates.

I haven't done enough development of safari app extensions in particular to fully understand how _live_ updates work. I typically just enabled the extension with Safari Tech Preview as the only extension, loaded on a test page, and would restart. There may well be logic now to do a page refresh when an enabled extension is updated, however.

> With these apps it doesn't even seem like the app itself is doing any work - there's no code in there to for example connect to an internal socket or do some IPC to notify the browser and supply it with extension files

The app extension has a global JS file loaded, and the safari.extension object allows one to send IPC to the corresponding native Mac app. This is (for example) how 1Password and other password managers integrate with the native password store.

The native app is a pretty good place to put all the configuration options for your extension, which may eliminate the need to surface browser-bar buttons and the like.

(FWIW: my Safari extension was a prototype that was abandoned because Safari didn't surface enough HTTP request/response access in their old API. I haven't checked yet if their Web Extension API surface includes what I needed.)

> didn't surface enough HTTP request/response access in their old API. I haven't checked yet if their Web Extension API surface includes what I needed

Nope, which is why uBlock Origin is still not possible.

Do you know why the app did not appear in Safari’s preferences? And how did you fix it?

I don't fully remember, this was over a year ago. But the entire process put me off making Safari extensions for a long while.

> I have an extension idea; it's literally a single line of JS.

That's better suited as a userscript.

One of the reasons it's better suited to be a userscript is that there's so much friction to create an extension.