release notes for safari technology preview 27 npapi

Release notes for safari technology preview 27 npapi how to#
Release notes for safari technology preview 27 npapi update#
Release notes for safari technology preview 27 npapi code#
Release notes for safari technology preview 27 npapi mac#

Starting in Xcode 10.1, Apple has made it slightly less troublesome. In the brave new world of Safari App Extensions, extensions are made in Xcode, Apple’s all-purpose IDE. In the good old days, you went into Safari’s Develop menu and hit Show Extension Builder.

Release notes for safari technology preview 27 npapi how to#

The Basics How to create a Safari app extension Corrections and constructive suggestions welcome in the comments.

Release notes for safari technology preview 27 npapi update#

Future versions may drastically change the extension model, and I may or may not update this document as things change. In any case, leaving aside my personal opinion about this extension system and its undoubtedly negative effects on the already dwindling Safari extension ecosystem, this document constitutes my notes on porting a traditional JS-based Safari Extension to a Safari App Extension.ĭisclaimer: These notes are now updated for Safari 13 and XCode 11. In my experience, the result of the set intersection of is quite small. You’d also have to be a competent Swift / ObjC developer, in addition to being a competent JS developer. The implication, therefore, is that it is no longer enough to be a Javascript dev to make a Safari extension.

Release notes for safari technology preview 27 npapi mac#

the containing app can also be signed using a developer certificate and distributed outside the App Store like any other Mac app, and the extension will still operate – though I wonder if this will change in the future.

the container app (with its extension embedded) is distributed on the Mac App Store, as opposed to the old Safari Extension Gallery.

all embedded into a mostly useless macOS container app that magically installs an extension (sometimes) into the browser when first run.

Release notes for safari technology preview 27 npapi code#

the injected code remains in Javascript.You might be able to get away with embedding the old JS code inside WKWebview instances from the WKWebKit framework, but that is very hacky and depends on the JS code’s complexity. the “global” or “background” part of the extension generally must be written in native code (Objective-C or Swift, instead of Javascript).Safari is using its own weird and different extension model for its new Safari App Extension system where: However, while all other browsers have moved to support the growing WebExtensions standard, making browser extensions easy to generate across browser platforms. Like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge, old style extensions have been deactivated (with a scary and very disingenuous warning message that legacy extensions are “unsafe”). With the release of Safari 12 and macOS Mojave, Safari has taken a separate path from every other browser in terms of extension support, by creating a new “Safari app extension” model and deprecating old Javascript-based extensions. Using the webExtension standard would make everything much easier to maintain, and it is unclear for how long Apple would maintain the app extension model now that webExtensions exist. In any case, if you can afford to target Safari 14 only, I would hold off on making new App Extensions. The native app extension appears to still be around, but I’m not clear what role it plays right now. But hopefully the new API is standard and more JS-focused than this current hybrid system. I have not had a chance to play with the new API. That is definitely progress in terms of documentation writing. They even have a listing of what the boilerplate files do, as I had below for App Extensions. There appears to be a porting utility for converting extensions from other browsers. These new style Web Extensions appear to follow the same API standard for Chrome and Firefox extensions. Apple’s Safari Web Extensions documentation now available, along with an associated WWDC session.