wext-manifest-loader

Webpack Loader for Webextension manifest

🙋‍♂️ Made by @abhijithvijayan

Donate: PayPal, Patreon

Generate browser tailored manifest.json for Web Extensions that you specify properties to appear only in specific browsers.

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Table of Contents

• Browser Support
• Installation
• Usage
• FAQs
• Issues
  • 🐛 Bugs
• LICENSE

Browser Support

✔	✔	✔	✔

This loader will take a definition input for the manifest, and return you content for the specified browser.

Looking for Web Extension starter

Checkout web-extension-starter that uses this package

Installation

Ensure you have Node.js 10 or later installed. Then run the following:

# via npm
npm install --save-dev wext-manifest-loader wext-manifest-webpack-plugin

# or yarn
yarn add wext-manifest-loader wext-manifest-webpack-plugin --dev

Usage

You can easily use this module together with the wext-manifest-webpack-plugin to output the manifest.json as part of your build process without any additional js bundle and with auto rebundling on file change.

Note: Make sure you pass a TARGET_BROWSER env variable with one of chrome/firefox/edge/opera value

Sample manifest with vendor prefixed keys

https://github.com/abhijithvijayan/web-extension-starter/blob/react-typescript/source/manifest.json

webpack.config.js

// ... other plugins
const WextManifestWebpackPlugin = require("wext-manifest-webpack-plugin");

const targetBrowser = process.env.TARGET_BROWSER;
const destPath = path.join(__dirname, 'extension');

module.exports = {
    entry: {
        manifest: './src/manifest.json',
        // ...
    },

    output: {
        path: path.join(destPath, targetBrowser),
        filename: 'js/[name].bundle.js',
    },

    module: {
        rules: [
            {
                type: 'javascript/auto', // prevent webpack handling json with its own loaders,
                test: /manifest\.json$/,
                use: 'wext-manifest-loader',
                exclude: /node_modules/,
            },
        ]
    },

    plugins: [
        new WextManifestWebpackPlugin(),
        // ...
    ],
};

Options

usePackageJSONVersion

Type: Boolean Default: false

If true, updates manifest.json version field with package.json version. It is often useful for easy release of web-extension.

webpack.config.js

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        type: 'javascript/auto', // prevent webpack handling json with its own loaders,
        test: /manifest\.json$/,
        use: {
            loader: 'wext-manifest-loader',
            options: {
                usePackageJSONVersion: true,
            },
        },
        exclude: /node_modules/,
      },
    ],
  },
};

FAQs

1.What are vendor prefixed manifest keys

Vendor prefixed manifest keys allow you to write one manifest.json for multiple vendors.

{
  "__chrome__name": "AwesomeChrome",
  "__firefox__name": "AwesomeFirefox",
  "__edge__name": "AwesomeEdge",
  "__opera__name": "AwesomeOpera"
}

if the TARGET_BROWSER is chrome this compiles to:

{
  "name": "AwesomeChrome",
}

Add keys to multiple vendors by seperating them with | in the prefix

{
  __chrome|opera__name: "AwesomeExtension"
}

if the vendor is chrome or opera, this compiles to:

{
  "name": "AwesomeExtension"
}

2. How can I conditionally set keys based on environment

{
  "__dev__name": "NameInDevelopment",
  "__prod__name": "NameInProduction",
  "__chrome|firefox|dev__description": "DescriptionInDevelopmentForSetOfBrowsers",
  "__chrome|firefox|prod__description": "DescriptionInProductionForSetOfBrowsers"
}

if the NODE_ENV is production and the TARGET_BROWSER is chrome this compiles to:

{
  "name": "NameInProduction",
  "description": "DescriptionInProductionForSetOfBrowsers"
}

else

{
  "name": "NameInDevelopment",
  "description": "DescriptionInDevelopmentForSetOfBrowsers"
}

Issues

Looking to contribute? Look for the Good First Issue label.

🐛 Bugs

Please file an issue here for bugs, missing documentation, or unexpected behavior.

See Bugs

Linting & TypeScript Config

• Shared Eslint & Prettier Configuration - @abhijithvijayan/eslint-config
• Shared TypeScript Configuration - @abhijithvijayan/tsconfig

Credits

Thanks to @fregante for suggesting to convert initial (wext-manifest) module to webpack loader(wext-manifest-loader)

License

MIT © Abhijith Vijayan