Chrome Extensions Web Dev Friendly

Google Extensions provide us with a way to enhance our chrome browsers with additional functions, much the same way that Firefox Add-ons do.  Like Add-ons, the possibilities of apps that we can build are endless.  You might think that with that flexibility, there will be strict rules for how to develop these apps.  That would be an incorrect assumption.

Extensions are easy to implement and utilize many of the tools Web Developers already use.  JSON, HTML, JS, and CSS make up the core structure and building blocks for building your extension.  Extensions are simply put, micro-sites with one addition, the manifest.json file.

The basic folder structure of the extension is like any website out there.  It can be as basic or complex as you desire.  You can also freely use your long learned CSS and Javascript tricks and libraries to help you turn out those sleek looking extensions.

Once you have created your micro-site, you just need to create the manifest file as outlined in the extension documentation.  Basically, the manifest file is where the extension goes to find all its needed information.  This includes the extension information, name, extension image, version, and page to launch.  There are many other options available, but for the basic app, that should be all you need.

Now that all those pieces are complete, you can use the developer tool within the Chrome browser to create a .crx file, the chrome version of a zipped file.  This will create the needed .crx file and a permission file you will need to keep if you wish to make updates at a later time.  You can then upload to your own server or skip creating the .crx file and upload it to the Extensions gallery on Google.

There are many other in-depth parts to Extensions, but for now, I encourage all web developers out there to try creating your own and see how easy it is.