Disable / Enable Chrome Extension Via Browser Action / Icon

Question

The chrome extension I am developing inserts content scripts and css onto every page of a website. However, the user may have a certain page or pages he or she does not want the extension to run on, so it would be great if I could set up the browser action as basically a toggle on / off.

What I'd like to do is something like this:

chrome.browserAction.onClicked.addListener(function(tab) {

    //IF ENABLED THEN DISABLE

    //IF DISABLED THEN ENABLE

} 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Such API is not provided. But two possible workarounds exist:

I. You can use the "disabled" flag variable and update it from your background page.

Background page:

function disableExtension(disabled)
{
    chrome.windows.getAll({populate : true}, function (window_list)
    {
        for (var i = 0; i < window_list.length; ++i)
        {
            var window = window_list[i];
            for (var j = 0; j < window.tabs.length; ++j)
            {
                var tab = window.tabs[j];
                if (checkContentScriptExists(tab))
                {
                    chrome.tabs.executeScript(tab.id, {code : "disabled = " + disabled + ";"}, allTabs: true) 
                }
            }
        }
        // No matching url found. Open it in the new tab
        chrome.tabs.create({ url : url, selected: true });
    });
}

And content script should check the condition before the run

if (!disabled) doSomething();

II. A controversial approach to save disable variable within background age content

Background page:

function disableExtension(disabled)
{
    global.disabled = disabled;
}
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
    if (request.msg == "getDisabled") {
        sendResponse({disabled: global.disabled});
        return true;
    }
});

and the content script should query current disabled status before execution

chrome.runtime.sendMessage({msg: "getDiasbled"}, function(response) {
   if (!response.disabled) doSomething();
});

Answer 2

Chrome extensions have APIs of their own. You can invoke them via content scripts. Not sure if you can invoke them via any third party JS. Refer this ink

Hope it helps.