Build Your Own Chrome Extension Using Angular 2 & TypeScript

This tutorial demonstrates building a Chrome extension using Angular 2 and TypeScript to manage bookmarks directly within the new tab page. It enhances both the functionality and visual appeal of the default new tab experience.

Key Features:

• Leverages Angular 2 and TypeScript for a structured and maintainable codebase.
• Integrates bookmarks directly into the new tab page, offering a customized user experience.
• Provides a streamlined development environment using a text editor, npm, and a Google developer account (for publishing).
• Employs Angular 2's component-based architecture, starting with a simple bookmark component and expanding to a list component for managing multiple bookmarks.
• Utilizes Angular services and local storage to manage application state and persist bookmark data across sessions.
• Includes a browser action icon to add the current page to bookmarks.
• Replaces the default new tab page with a custom bookmark manager.
• Covers testing, packaging, and preparation for Chrome Web Store distribution, ensuring correct configuration of manifest.json.

Project Structure and Setup:

The project is initiated by creating a directory and populating it with essential files: tsconfig.json (TypeScript compiler configuration), package.json (npm dependencies and scripts), and manifest.json (Chrome extension metadata). The package.json file includes Angular 2 dependencies and npm scripts for compilation and development server setup. The initial manifest.json file includes basic extension information.

The tutorial then guides you through creating the Angular components: bookmark.component.ts (for individual bookmarks) and list.component.ts (for managing the bookmark list). These components interact with a list.service.ts to handle data persistence using local storage. The bookmark.component includes an HTML template (bookmark.html) for rendering individual bookmarks, allowing editing and deletion. The list.component uses a template (list.html) to display the bookmark list, utilizing *ngFor to iterate over the bookmarks. Default bookmark data is provided in list.data.constant.ts.

Chrome Extension Integration:

The tutorial explains how to add Chrome extension functionality:

• Browser Action Icon: An icon is added to the Chrome toolbar to allow users to add the currently viewed webpage as a bookmark. This functionality is implemented using the Chrome browserAction API and an eventPage.ts script.
• New Tab Override: The default new tab page is replaced with the custom bookmark manager built with Angular. This is configured within the manifest.json file using the "chrome_url_overrides" property.

The manifest.json file is updated to include icons, browser action details, content security policy, permissions (for accessing the active tab), and the override for the new tab page.

Testing and Distribution:

The tutorial concludes with instructions on testing the extension within Chrome using the "Load unpacked extension" feature in chrome://extensions/. It also provides npm scripts to copy necessary libraries and compress the project into a .zip file for distribution via the Chrome Web Store.

Further Enhancements:

The tutorial suggests several areas for improvement, including adding features (e.g., color schemes, bookmark import), UX enhancements, unit and end-to-end testing, a more robust build process, and publishing to the Chrome Web Store. It also provides links to relevant resources for further learning. A comprehensive FAQ section addresses common questions related to building Chrome extensions with Angular 2.

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