browserAction
Adds a button to the browser's toolbar.
A browser action is a button in the browser's toolbar.
You can associate a popup with the button. The popup is specified using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, just like a normal web page. JavaScript running in the popup gets access to all the same WebExtension APIs as your background scripts, but its global context is the popup, not the current page displayed in the browser. To affect web pages you need to communicate with them via messages.
If you specify a popup, it will be shown — and the content will be loaded — when the user clicks the icon. If you do not specify a popup, then when the user clicks the icon an event is dispatched to your extension.
You can define most of a browser action's properties declaratively using the browser_action
key in the manifest.json.
With the browserAction
API, you can:
- use
browserAction.onClicked
to listen for clicks on the icon. - get and set the icon's properties — icon, title, popup, and so on. You can get and set these globally across all tabs, or for a specific tab by passing the tab ID as an additional argument.
Types
browserAction.ColorArray
- An array of four integers in the range 0-255 defining an RGBA color.
browserAction.ImageDataType
- Pixel data for an image. Must be an
ImageData
object (for example, from a<canvas>
element).
Functions
browserAction.setTitle()
- Sets the browser action's title. This will be displayed in a tooltip.
browserAction.getTitle()
- Gets the browser action's title.
browserAction.setIcon()
- Sets the browser action's icon.
browserAction.setPopup()
- Sets the HTML document to be opened as a popup when the user clicks on the browser action's icon.
browserAction.getPopup()
- Gets the HTML document set as the browser action's popup.
browserAction.openPopup()
- Open the browser action's popup.
browserAction.setBadgeText()
- Sets the browser action's badge text. The badge is displayed on top of the icon.
browserAction.getBadgeText()
- Gets the browser action's badge text.
browserAction.setBadgeBackgroundColor()
- Sets the badge's background color.
browserAction.getBadgeBackgroundColor()
- Gets the badge's background color.
browserAction.setBadgeTextColor()
- Sets the badge's text color.
browserAction.getBadgeTextColor()
- Gets the badge's text color.
browserAction.enable()
- Enables the browser action for a tab. By default, browser actions are enabled for all tabs.
browserAction.disable()
- Disables the browser action for a tab, meaning that it cannot be clicked when that tab is active.
browserAction.isEnabled()
- Checks whether the browser action is enabled or not.
Events
browserAction.onClicked
- Fired when a browser action icon is clicked. This event will not fire if the browser action has a popup.
Browser compatibility
Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHubwebextensions-desktop | webextensions-mobile | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ColorArray | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support14 | FirefoxFull support45 | OperaFull supportYes | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
ImageDataType | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support14 | FirefoxFull support45 | OperaFull supportYes | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
disable | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support14 | FirefoxFull support45 | OperaFull supportYes | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
enable | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support14 | FirefoxFull support45 | OperaFull supportYes | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
getBadgeBackgroundColor | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support14 | FirefoxFull support45 | OperaFull supportYes | SafariPartial support14
| Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
getBadgeText | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support14 | FirefoxFull support45 | OperaFull supportYes | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
getBadgeTextColor | ChromeNo supportNo | EdgeNo supportNo | FirefoxFull support63 | OperaNo supportNo | SafariNo supportNo | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
getPopup | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support79 | FirefoxFull support45 | OperaFull supportYes | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support57 |
getTitle | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support15 | FirefoxFull support45 | OperaFull supportYes | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support55 |
isEnabled | ChromeNo supportNo | EdgeNo supportNo | FirefoxFull support59 | OperaNo supportNo | SafariNo supportNo | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
onClicked | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support14 | FirefoxFull support45 | OperaFull supportYes | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support55 |
onClicked.OnClickData | ChromeNo supportNo | EdgeNo supportNo | FirefoxFull support72 | OperaNo supportNo | SafariNo supportNo | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
onClicked.tab | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support14 | FirefoxFull support45 | OperaFull supportYes | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support55 |
openPopup | ChromeFull support67
| EdgeFull support79
| FirefoxFull support57 | OperaNo supportNo | SafariNo supportNo | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
setBadgeBackgroundColor | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support14 | FirefoxFull support45
| OperaFull supportYes | SafariPartial support14
| Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
The color property of the details parameter can be set to null . | ChromeNo supportNo | EdgeNo supportNo | FirefoxFull support59 | OperaNo supportNo | SafariNo supportNo | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
The color property of the details parameter can be set to a string. | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support79 | FirefoxFull supportYes
| OperaFull supportYes | SafariNo supportNo | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
setBadgeText | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support14 | FirefoxFull support45
| OperaFull supportYes | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
The text property of the details parameter can be set to null . | ChromeNo supportNo | EdgeNo supportNo | FirefoxFull support59 | OperaNo supportNo | SafariNo supportNo | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
setBadgeTextColor | ChromeNo supportNo | EdgeNo supportNo | FirefoxFull support63 | OperaNo supportNo | SafariNo supportNo | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
setIcon | ChromeFull supportYes
| EdgeFull support14
| FirefoxFull support45
| OperaFull support15 | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
setIcon.imageData | ChromeFull support23 | EdgeFull support79 | FirefoxFull support45 | OperaFull support15 | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
The path and imageData properties of the details parameter can be set to null . | ChromeNo supportNo | EdgeNo supportNo | FirefoxFull support59 | OperaNo supportNo | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
setPopup | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support14 | FirefoxFull support45
| OperaFull supportYes | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support57
|
The popup property of the details parameter can be set to null . | ChromeNo supportNo | EdgeNo supportNo | FirefoxFull support59 | OperaNo supportNo | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
setTitle | ChromeFull supportYes | EdgeFull support15 | FirefoxFull support45
| OperaFull supportYes | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support55
|
The title property of the details parameter can be set to null . | ChromeNo supportNo | EdgeNo supportNo | FirefoxFull support59 | OperaNo supportNo | SafariFull support14 | Firefox for AndroidFull support79 |
Legend
- Full support
- Full support
- Partial support
- Partial support
- No support
- No support
- See implementation notes.
- User must explicitly enable this feature.
Example extensions
- bookmark-it
- favourite-colour
- find-across-tabs
- forget-it
- google-userinfo
- native-messaging
- open-my-page-button
- permissions
- runtime-examples
- store-collected-images
- tabs-tabs-tabs
This API is based on Chromium's chrome.browserAction
API. This documentation is derived from browser_action.json
in the Chromium code.
Microsoft Edge compatibility data is supplied by Microsoft Corporation and is included here under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.