Enable/disable chrome_url_overrides programmatically

Add-ons Development
1

Hi folks,

I use this page in order to define a custom newtab page (on manifest.json):

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json/chrome_url_overrides

But I need to ask my users to approve this custom newtab.

My question: how can I define a custom newtab programmatically, after I get my users’ approval?

Thanks for your help,
Larry

2

You can’t. Installing your extension is partial consent to that. In recent versions Firefox will prompt the users that you changed their newtab page, however.

3

Hi Larry!

We talked yesterday on IRC.

Activating features such as chrome_url_overrides will automatically create a prompt for the user at installation. This bypass the “strict-opt-in” guidelines for non-essential features that we normally require while doing reviews.

1 Like
4

Hi Sylvain,

Thanks for your answer.

The prompt you mention asks the user for a confirmation OR just informs the user about the newtab?

Thanks,
Larry

5

It’s a confirmation of which permissions the extension will have access to, after installation. The users must agree before the extension get installed.

6

Sylvain, thanks for your answer.

About the newtab HTML file (the page loading when there’s a new tab):

  1. Can this file run JS code?
  2. Can this file embed an iframe (of a regular URL)?
  3. Can this file redirect to a regular URL?

Thanks for your help,
Larry

7

Can this file run JS code?

Sure! There are multiple extensions on AMO that run JS inside the newtab webpage. For example : Yahoo Toolbar and New Tab – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)

Can this file embed an iframe

I don’t see why not! Try it out :slight_smile:

Can this file redirect to a regular URL?

Yep, BT MyWeb do exactly this : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/myweb-new-tab/

8

Great help, thanks a lot!

1 Like
9

A very peculiar issue that AMO team members can probably solve easily:

I set the following in my add-on:

Inside mainfest.json:
“chrome_url_overrides” : {“newtab”: “newTab.html”}

Inside newTab.html ( a local HTML file):
meta http-equiv=“refresh” content=“0;url=http://valeuraddons.com/Search”

The visitor tracker of http://valeuraddons.com/Search implies a very low number of visits to this webpage, though it’s a newtab default page. For every user having this add-on installed, the page http://valeuraddons.com/Search receives about 0.5 daily visit. Statistically, users open 10-15 tabs a day.

It seems like a caching issue of some kind, but how would you solve it?

Thanks in advance,
Larry P.

10

Issue solved - It’s important to check issues of caching that may cause users’ browsers to rely on cached pages rather than the pages on the server.