22

I want to use clojurescript to write chrome extensions.

akietta
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4 Answers4

23

Chrome extensions are generally made with HTML/CSS/JS so ClojureScript should work just fine because it compiles to JavaScript. That being said, I don't think anyone has actually built a large extension with ClojureScript yet. As a proof of concept here's a general outline of how to make a simple alert extension that will say Zaboomafoo (sorry for that name):

Install Leiningen and lein-cljsbuild first. Read the docs for lein-cljsbuild and check out the wiki on ClojureScript to understand how to use lein-cljsbuild for projects and compiling.

Make a ClojureScript file that displays an alert saying "Zaboomafoo" like this: 

(ns Zaboomafoo.hello)   
(js/alert "Zaboomafoo")

Compile this with lein cljsbuild to get a JavaScript file. Then add a basic HTML file and manifest.json for the extension.

Zaboomafoo.html:

<!Doctype html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Zaboomafoo!</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <script type="text/javascript" src="Zaboomafoo.js"></script>
    </body>
</html>

manifest.json:

{
   "name": "Displays Zaboomafoo when opening a new tab",
   "version": "0.1",
   "incognito": "split",
   "chrome_url_overrides": {
   "newtab": "Zaboomafoo.html"
  },
 "manifest_version": 2
}

Put the new manifest.json, Zaboomafoo.html, and Zaboomafoo.js into a folder somewhere obvious. Finally, go to the chrome extension page, turn on developer mode, load unpacked extension, and open a new tab. The extension should load an alert that annoyingly says "Zaboomafoo" when you open the tab. Hopefully making browser extensions gets to be a little more popular but this is the general flow of it.

greenyouse
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7

I have just released a simple Chrome extension sample project along with some documentation: https://github.com/binaryage/chromex-sample

It uses Chromex library: https://github.com/binaryage/chromex

Disclaimer: I'm author of the library

Antonin Hildebrand
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0

I started this project with the exact purpose of writing a Chrome extension using ClojureScript.

While greenyouse answer does provide you the general directions, as a beginner in ClojureScript I had some trouble using lein and cljsbuild and chose to go for the basic setup first. Maybe it will help someone.

Sidenote: I plan to migrate my project to lein and cljsbuild once I understant things better. At that point I'll update this answer.

marcelocra
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-1

Take a look at this chrome extension written in cljs which allows you to eval clojure code in browser by selection as an example.

Jeroen van Dijk
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firesofmay
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    It seems like this project (goranjovic/chromeclojure) doesn't use any ClojureScript. Rather the Chrome extension (written in plain JavaScript) sends selected Clojure code to an external Clojure JVM process and returns the result to the browser. I don't think this is really what the poster was looking for. – Aaron Aug 17 '13 at 04:35