I'm writing a Chrome extension that captures the user text selection and sends the selected text to Google search.
manifest.json
{
"manifest_version": 2,
"name": "Selection Extension",
"description": "Search your selected text",
"version": "1.0",
"permissions": [
"tabs",
"http://*/*",
"https://*/*"
],
"background": {
"scripts": [
"background.js"
],
"persistent": false
},
"browser_action": {
"default_icon": "icon.png",
"default_title": "Mark it!!"
},
"content_scripts": [
{
"matches": ["<all_urls>"],
"js": ["content_script.js"]
}
]
content_script.js
chrome.extension.onMessage.addListener(function(request, sender, sendResponse) {
if (request.method == "getSelection") {
sendResponse({data: window.getSelection().toString()});
} else {
sendResponse({});
}
});
background.js
function initBackground() {
chrome.browserAction.onClicked.addListener(function(tab) {
chrome.tabs.sendMessage(tab.id, {method: "getSelection"}, function(response){
sendServiceRequest(response.data);
});
});
}
function sendServiceRequest(selectedText) {
var serviceCall = 'http://www.google.com/search?q=' + selectedText;
chrome.tabs.create({url: serviceCall});
}
initBackground();
This code works for selection in webpages (such as Gmail, Facebook, news.)
I also want to be able to get the selection in PDF, and Google Docs (viewed in the browser).
In these cases: window.getSelection
returns an empty string...
Someone knows how to do it?
Google Docs document does not really follow the normal ways of how a to access text on from a Extension. I have for this reason created a tool to work with Google Docs, which can be found here
This should enable you to:
//contentScript.js
var googleDocument = googleDocsUtil.getGoogleDocument();
console.log("The selected text is: " + googleDocument.selectedText);
You can get this from the context menu. I bet you'll be adding a context menu item anyway.
chrome.contextMenus.create({
id:"g-search",
title:"Search %s",
contexts:["selection"]
});
chrome.contextMenus.onClicked.addListener(function(sel){
console.log(sel.selectionText);
});
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