Chromium Code Reviews
chromiumcodereview-hr@appspot.gserviceaccount.com (chromiumcodereview-hr) | Please choose your nickname with Settings | Help | Chromium Project | Gerrit Changes | Sign out
(385)

Side by Side Diff: chrome/common/extensions/docs/autoupdate.html

Issue 195029: Migrate information on AutoUpdate to new extensions docs.... (Closed) Base URL: svn://chrome-svn/chrome/trunk/src/
Patch Set: Created 11 years, 3 months ago
Use n/p to move between diff chunks; N/P to move between comments. Draft comments are only viewable by you.
Jump to:
View unified diff | Download patch | Annotate | Revision Log
Property Changes:
Added: svn:mime-type
+ text/html
Added: svn:eol-style
+ LF
OLDNEW
(Empty)
1 <!DOCTYPE html><!-- This page is a placeholder for generated extensions api doc. Note:
2 1) The <head> information in this page is significant, should be uniform
3 across api docs and should be edited only with knowledge of the
4 templating mechanism.
5 3) All <body>.innerHTML is genereated as an rendering step. If viewed in a
6 browser, it will be re-generated from the template, json schema and
7 authored overview content.
8 4) The <body>.innerHTML is also generated by an offline step so that this
9 page may easily be indexed by search engines.
10 --><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head>
11 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
12 <link href="css/ApiRefStyles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
13 <script type="text/javascript" src="../../../third_party/jstemplate/jstempla te_compiled.js">
14 </script>
15 <script type="text/javascript" src="js/api_page_generator.js"></script>
16 <script type="text/javascript" src="js/bootstrap.js"></script>
17 <title>AutoUpdate</title></head><body> <div id="container">
18 <!-- SUBTEMPLATES: DO NOT MOVE FROM THIS LOCATION -->
19 <!-- In particular, sub-templates that recurse, must be used by allowing
20 jstemplate to make a copy of the template in this section which
21 are not operated on by way of the jsskip="true" -->
22 <div style="display:none">
23
24 <!-- VALUE -->
25 <div id="valueTemplate">
26 <dt>
27 <var>paramName</var>
28 <em>
29
30 <!-- TYPE -->
31 <div style="display:inline">
32 (
33 <span class="optional">optional</span>
34 <span id="typeTemplate">
35 <span>
36 <a> Type</a>
37 </span>
38 <span>
39 <span>
40 array of <span><span></span></span>
41 </span>
42 <span>paramType</span>
43 </span>
44 </span>
45 )
46 </div>
47
48 </em>
49 </dt>
50 <dd class="todo">
51 Undocumented.
52 </dd>
53 <dd>
54 Description of this parameter from the json schema.
55 </dd>
56
57 <!-- OBJECT PROPERTIES -->
58 <dd>
59 <dl>
60 <div>
61 <div>
62 </div>
63 </div>
64 </dl>
65 </dd>
66 </div> <!-- /VALUE -->
67
68 </div> <!-- /SUBTEMPLATES -->
69
70 <a name="top"> </a>
71 <!-- API HEADER -->
72 <div id="pageHeader">
73 <div id="searchbox">
74 <form action="http://www.google.com/cse" id="cse-search-box">
75 <div>
76 <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="002967670403910741006:61_cvzfq tno">
77 <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="UTF-8">
78 <input type="text" name="q" size="31">
79 <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search">
80 </div>
81 </form>
82
83 <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></scrip t>
84 <script type="text/javascript">google.load("elements", "1", {packages: " transliteration"});</script>
85 <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/coop/cse/t13n? form=cse-search-box&amp;t13n_langs=en"></script>
86 <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.google.com/coop/cse/brand ?form=cse-search-box&amp;lang=en"></script>
87 </div>
88 <div id="pageTitle">
89 <h1>AutoUpdate</h1>
90 </div>
91 </div> <!-- /pageHeader -->
92
93 <div id="pageContent">
94 <!-- SIDENAV -->
95 <div id="leftNav">
96 <ul>
97 <li> <a href="index.html">Home</a></li>
98 <li> <a href="getstarted.html">Getting Started</a></li>
99 <li> <a href="overview.html">Overview</a></li>
100 <li> <a href="devguide.html"><div>Developer's Guide</div></a>
101 <ul>
102 <li><a href="toolstrip.html">Toolstrips</a></li>
103 <li><a href="pageActions.html">Page Actions</a></li>
104 <li><a href="background_pages.html">Background Pages</a></li>
105 <li><a href="content_scripts.html">Content Scripts</a></li>
106 <li><a href="events.html">Events</a></li>
107 <li><a href="tabs.html">Tabs</a></li>
108 <li><a href="windows.html">Windows</a></li>
109 <li><a href="bookmarks.html">Bookmarks</a></li>
110 <li><a href="themes.html">Themes</a></li>
111 <li><a href="npapi.html">NPAPI Plugins</a></li>
112 <li><a href="xhr.html">Cross-Origin XHR</a></li>
113 <li><a href="packaging.html">Packaging</a></li>
114 <li class="leftNavSelected">Autoupdate</li>
115 </ul>
116 </li>
117 <li><a href="tutorials.html"><div>Tutorials</div></a>
118 <ul>
119 <li><a href="tut_debugging.html">Debugging</a></li>
120 </ul>
121 </li>
122 <li>Reference
123 <ul>
124 <li> Formats
125 <ul>
126 <li><a href="manifest.html">Manifest Files</a></li>
127 <li><a href="match_patterns.html">Match Patterns</a></li>
128 <li>Packages (.crx)</li>
129 </ul>
130 </li>
131 <li> <a href="api_index.html">chrome.* APIs</a> </li>
132 <li> <a href="api_other.html">Other APIs</a> </li>
133 </ul>
134 </li>
135 <li><a href="http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/extens ions/samples">Samples</a></li>
136 </ul>
137 </div>
138
139 <div id="mainColumn">
140 <!-- TABLE OF CONTENTS -->
141 <div id="toc">
142 <p>Contents</p>
143 <ol>
144 <li jsinstance="0">
145 <a href="#H2-0">Introduction</a>
146 <ol>
147 <li jsinstance="*0" style="display: none; ">
148 <a>h3Name</a>
149 </li>
150 </ol>
151 </li><li jsinstance="*1">
152 <a href="#H2-1">Overview</a>
153 <ol>
154 <li jsinstance="0">
155 <a href="#H3-2">Update URL</a>
156 </li><li jsinstance="1">
157 <a href="#H3-3">Update Manifest</a>
158 </li><li jsinstance="2">
159 <a href="#H3-4">Testing</a>
160 </li><li jsinstance="3">
161 <a href="#H3-5">Advanced Usage : Request Parameters</a>
162 </li><li jsinstance="*4">
163 <a href="#H3-6">Advanced Usage : Minimum Browser Version</a>
164 </li>
165 </ol>
166 </li>
167 <div style="display: none; ">
168 <li>
169 <a href="#apiReference">API reference</a>
170 <ol>
171 <li>
172 <a href="#properties">Properties</a>
173 <ol>
174 <li>
175 <a href="#property-anchor">propertyName</a>
176 </li>
177 </ol>
178 </li>
179 <li>
180 <a href="#methods">Methods</a>
181 <ol>
182 <li>
183 <a href="#method-anchor">methodName</a>
184 </li>
185 </ol>
186 </li>
187 <li>
188 <a href="#events">Events</a>
189 <ol>
190 <li>
191 <a href="#event-anchor">eventName</a>
192 </li>
193 </ol>
194 </li>
195 <li>
196 <a href="#types">Types</a>
197 <ol>
198 <li>
199 <a href="#id-anchor">id</a>
200 </li>
201 </ol>
202 </li>
203 </ol>
204 </li>
205 </div>
206 </ol>
207 </div>
208 <!-- /TABLE OF CONTENTS -->
209
210 <!-- STATIC CONTENT PLACEHOLDER -->
211 <div id="static"><div id="pageData-title" class="pageData">AutoUpdate</d iv>
212 <div id="pageData-showTOC" class="pageData">true</div>
213 <a name="H2-0"></a><h2>Introduction</h2>
214 <p>We want extensions to be autoupdated for some of the same reasons as chrome i tself: to incorporate bug and security fixes, add new features or performance en hancements, and improve user interfaces.</p>
215
216 <p>For extensions packaged and distributed via the extensions gallery, developer s will be able to use a web interface to release updated versions of their exten sions and do not need to concern themselves with the rest of this document.</p>
217
218 <p>Those who choose to host extensions themselves instead of using the gallery w ill probably want to use autoupdate for their extensions as described below. You might want to make sure you are familiar with <a href="packaging.html">Packagin g</a> first.</p>
219
220
221 <a name="H2-1"></a><h2>Overview</h2>
222 <ul><li>An extension manifest may contain an "update_url" for doing update check s.</li>
223 <li>The content returned by an update check is an "update manifest" xml document listing the latest version of an extension (or set of extensions, more on that later).</li></ul>
224
225 <p>Every few hours, the browser will check if any installed extensions have an a utoupdate url. For each one, it will make a request to that url looking for an u pdate manifest xml file. If the update manifest mentions a version of an extensi on that is more recent than what's installed, it will download and install the n ew version. Similar to manual updates, the new crx must be signed with the same private key as the currently installed version.</p>
226
227
228 <a name="H3-2"></a><h3>Update URL</h3>
229 <p>For those who are hosting their own extensions, you need to add the "update_u rl" key to your manifest.json file like this:</p>
230 <pre>{
231 "name": "Test Extension",
232 "version": "1.0",
233 "description": "My test extension",
234 <b>"update_url": "http://myhost.com/mytestextension/updates.xml"</b>,
235 "toolstrips": ["mytoolstrip.html"]
236 }
237 </pre>
238
239 <a name="H3-3"></a><h3>Update Manifest</h3>
240 <p>The "update manifest" returned by the server&nbsp;should be an xml document t hat looks like this (parts you'll want to modify highlighted):</p>
241
242 <pre>&lt;?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?&gt;
243 &lt;gupdate xmlns='http://www.google.com/update2/response' protocol='2.0'&gt;
244 &lt;app appid='<b>aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa</b>'&gt;
245 &nbsp;&lt;updatecheck&nbsp;codebase='<b>http://myhost.com/mytestextension/mte _v2.crx</b>'&nbsp;version='<b>2.0</b>' /&gt;
246 &lt;/app&gt;
247 &lt;/gupdate&gt;
248 </pre>
249
250 <p>(This xml format is borrowed from that used by Omaha, Google's update infrast ructure. See <a href="http://code.google.com/p/omaha/">http://code.google.com/p/ omaha/</a> for more details.)</p>
251
252 <p><b>appid</b><br>
253 The 'appid' property is the extension id, generated based on a hash of the exten sion's public key as described in <a href="packaging.html">Packaging</a>. You ca n find out the id of your extension by going to chrome://extensions/ in a chrome browser where you have the extension installed.</p>
254
255 <p><b>codebase</b><br>
256 The 'codebase' property is a url to the crx file.</p>
257
258 <p><b>version</b><br>
259 This is used by the client to determine whether it should download the crx file at 'codebase'. It should match the version parameter in the crx file's manifest. json file.</p>
260 <p>The update manifest xml file may contain information about multiple extension s by including multiple <code>&lt;app&gt;</code> tags.</p>
261
262
263 <a name="H3-4"></a><h3>Testing</h3>
264 <p>The default update check frequency is several hours, which obviously makes te sting challenging. To overcome this, you can use the --extensions-update-frequen cy command line flag to set a more frequent interval in seconds. For instance, t o make checks run every 45 seconds, you would run chrome like this:</p>
265 <pre>chrome.exe <b>--extensions-update-frequency=45</b></pre>
266
267 <p>Note that this affects checks for all installed extensions, so consider the b andwidth and server load implications of this. You may want to temporarily unins tall all but the one extension you are testing with, and should not run with thi s option turned on during normal browser usage. In the future we may remove this command flag and replace it with a different mechanism to trigger update checks for testing (perhaps a button on the chrome://extensions page). Star the follow ing issue to receive updates: <a href="http://crbug.com/17853" rel="nofollow">ht tp://crbug.com/17853</a>.</p>
268
269 <p><b>Addendum:</b> the "Update now" button has been added, and will be present in dev channel builds soon (likely 4.0.207.x and above).</p>
270
271
272 <a name="H3-5"></a><h3>Advanced Usage : Request Parameters</h3>
273 <p>The basic autoupdate mechanism is designed to make the server-side work as ea sy as just dropping a static xml file onto any plain webserver such as apache, a nd updating that xml file as you release new versions of your extension(s).</p>
274 <p>More advanced developers may wish to take advantage of the fact that we add o n parameters to the request for the update manifest to indicate the extension id and version. Then they can use the same update_url for all of their extensions pointing to a url running dynamic server side code instead of a static xml file. </p>
275 <p>The format of the request parameters is:</p>
276 <p><code>&nbsp;&nbsp;?x=&lt;extension_data&gt;</code></p>
277 <p>where <code>&lt;extension_data&gt;</code> is an url-encoded string of the for mat:</p>
278 <p><code>&nbsp;&nbsp;id=&lt;id&gt;&amp;v=&lt;version&gt;</code></p>
279
280 <p>So for example, say we have two extensions installed</p>
281 <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;Extension 1 with id "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" and versio n "1.1"<br>
282 &nbsp;&nbsp;Extension 2 with id "bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb" and version " 0.4"</p>
283
284 <p>and that both point at the same update_url: <code>http://test.com/extension_u pdates.php</code></p>
285
286 <p>The two requests made would be:</p>
287 <code>http://test.com/extension_updates.php?x=id%3Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaa%26v%3D1.1</code>
288 <br>
289 <code>http://test.com/extension_updates.php?x=id%3Dbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb bbb%26v%3D0.4</code>
290
291 <p><b>Note</b>: in releases before 3.0.196.x there was a bug in how request para meters were put together (<a href="http://crbug.com/17469" rel="nofollow">http:/ /crbug.com/17469</a>).</p>
292
293 <h4>Future work for Request Parameters</h4>
294 <p>While not implemented yet, we will eventually list multiple extensions in a s ingle request for each unique update_url. For the above example, the request wou ld end up being:</p>
295 <p><code>http://test.com/extension_updates.php?x=id%3Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaa%26v%3D1.1&amp;x=id%3Dbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb%26v%3D0.4</code></p >
296
297 <p>If the number of installed extensions using the same update_url is large enou gh that a GET request url would be too long (probably greater than 1024 characte rs or so), the update check will instead issue a POST with the request parameter s in the POST body.</p>
298
299
300 <a name="H3-6"></a><h3>Advanced Usage : Minimum Browser Version</h3>
301 <p>As we add more API's to the extensions system, it's possible you will want to release an updated version of an extension that will only work with newer versi ons of the chrome browser. While chrome itself is autoupdated, it can take a few days before the majority of the userbase has updated to any given new release. To ensure that a given extension update will only apply to chrome version at or higher than a specific version, you would add the prodversionmin parameter to th e <code>&lt;app&gt;</code> tag in your update manifest. For example:</p>
302
303 <pre>&lt;?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?&gt;
304 &lt;gupdate xmlns='http://www.google.com/update2/response' protocol='2.0'&gt;
305 &nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;app appid='aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa'&gt;
306 &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&lt;updatecheck&nbsp;codebase='http://myhost.com/mytestextens ion/mte_v2.crx'&nbsp;version='2.0' <b>prodversionmin='3.0.193.0'</b>/&gt;
307 &nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;/app&gt;
308 &lt;/gupdate&gt;
309 </pre>
310
311 <p>This would ensure that users of this extension would only autoupdate to versi on 2 if they are running chrome 3.0.193.0 or greater.</p>
312
313 </div>
314
315 <!-- API PAGE -->
316 <div class="apiPage" style="display: none; ">
317 <a name="apiReference"></a>
318 <h2>API reference: chrome.apiname </h2>
319
320 <!-- PROPERTIES -->
321 <div class="apiGroup">
322 <a name="properties"></a>
323 <h3 id="properties">Properties</h3>
324
325 <div>
326 <a></a>
327 <h4>getLastError</h4>
328 <div class="summary">
329 <!-- Note: intentionally longer 80 columns -->
330 <span>chrome.extension</span><span>lastError</span>
331 </div>
332 <div>
333 </div>
334 </div>
335
336 </div> <!-- /apiGroup -->
337
338 <!-- METHODS -->
339 <div class="apiGroup" id="methods">
340 <a name="methods"></a>
341 <h3>Methods</h3>
342
343 <!-- iterates over all functions -->
344 <div class="apiItem">
345 <a></a> <!-- method-anchor -->
346 <h4>method name</h4>
347
348 <div class="summary"><span>void</span>
349 <!-- Note: intentionally longer 80 columns -->
350 <span>chrome.module.methodName</span>(<span><span>, </span><sp an></span>
351 <var><span></span></var></span>)</div>
352
353 <div class="description">
354 <p class="todo">Undocumented.</p>
355 <p>
356 A description from the json schema def of the function goes he re.
357 </p>
358
359 <!-- PARAMETERS -->
360 <h4>Parameters</h4>
361 <dl>
362 <div>
363 <div>
364 </div>
365 </div>
366 </dl>
367
368 <!-- RETURNS -->
369 <h4>Returns</h4>
370 <dl>
371 <div>
372 <div>
373 </div>
374 </div>
375 </dl>
376
377 <!-- CALLBACK -->
378 <div>
379 <div>
380 <h4>Callback function</h4>
381 <p>
382 If you specify the <em>callback</em> parameter,
383 it should specify a function that looks like this:
384 </p>
385
386 <!-- Note: intentionally longer 80 columns -->
387 <pre>function(<span>Type param1, Type param2</span>) <span cla ss="subdued">{...}</span>);</pre>
388 <dl>
389 <div>
390 <div>
391 </div>
392 </div>
393 </dl>
394 </div>
395 </div>
396
397 </div> <!-- /description -->
398
399 </div> <!-- /apiItem -->
400
401 </div> <!-- /apiGroup -->
402
403 <!-- EVENTS -->
404 <div class="apiGroup">
405 <a name="events"></a>
406 <h3 id="events">Events</h3>
407
408 <!-- iterates over all events -->
409 <div class="apiItem">
410 <a></a>
411 <h4>event name</h4>
412
413 <div class="summary">
414 <!-- Note: intentionally longer 80 columns -->
415 <span class="subdued">chrome.bookmarks</span><span>onEvent</span ><span class="subdued">.addListener</span>(function(<span>Type param1, Type para m2</span>) <span class="subdued">{...}</span>);
416 </div>
417
418 <div class="description">
419 <p class="todo">Undocumented.</p>
420 <p>
421 A description from the json schema def of the event goes here.
422 </p>
423
424 <!-- PARAMETERS -->
425 <h4>Parameters</h4>
426 <dl>
427 <div>
428 <div>
429 </div>
430 </div>
431 </dl>
432
433 </div> <!-- /decription -->
434
435 </div> <!-- /apiItem -->
436
437 </div> <!-- /apiGroup -->
438
439 <!-- TYPES -->
440 <div class="apiGroup">
441 <a name="types.sort(sortByName)"></a>
442 <h3 id="types">Types</h3>
443
444 <!-- iterates over all types -->
445 <div class="apiItem">
446 <a></a>
447 <h4>type name</h4>
448
449 <div>
450 </div>
451
452 </div> <!-- /apiItem -->
453
454 </div> <!-- /apiGroup -->
455
456 </div> <!-- /apiPage -->
457 </div> <!-- /mainColumn -->
458 </div> <!-- /pageContent -->
459 <div id="pageFooter" --="">
460 <p>
461 Except as otherwise <a href="http://code.google.com/policies.html#restrictions ">noted</a>,
462 the content of this page is licensed under the <a rel="license" href="http://c reativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">Creative Commons
463 Attribution 3.0 License</a>, and code samples are licensed under the
464 <a rel="license" href="http://code.google.com/google_bsd_license.html">BSD Lic ense</a>.
465 </p>
466 <p>
467 ©2009 Google
468 </p>
469 </div> <!-- /pageFooter -->
470 </div> <!-- /container -->
471 </body></html>
472
OLDNEW
« no previous file with comments | « chrome/common/extensions/docs/api_other.html ('k') | chrome/common/extensions/docs/background_pages.html » ('j') | no next file with comments »

Powered by Google App Engine
This is Rietveld 408576698