Reloading toolstrip

**eriqjaffe** · 10-05-2009, 05:32 PM

I have a very simple toolstrip, the text of which is being generated by an external application (a music player).

I'd like to get Chrome to automatically refresh the toolstrip on a scheduled basis (say, every 3 seconds or so). I've tried "<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="3">", sticking "window.location.reload()" in body.onload, etc.

All of this works when I open the toolstrip.html up as a regular html document, but it never reloads as an extension (I can reload it manually, but that kind of defeats the purpose). Any tips on how I can make this work? I'd be willing to have the application write to a plain text or XML file which the extension can read, as long as it updates itself.

Thanks!

**Waha** · 10-06-2009, 12:48 AM

You can have the external application write to another file in your extension's folder, and have your toolstrip AJAX download that file periodically and write the data to its body.

That's the only thing I can think of.

**eriqjaffe** · 10-06-2009, 02:24 PM

Thanks, I got it working with some AJAX/XMLHttpRequest goodness.

Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<script type="text/javascript">
var http = createRequestObject();
function createRequestObject() {
   var objAjax;
   var browser = navigator.appName;
   if(browser == "Microsoft Internet Explorer"){
      objAjax = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
   }else{
      objAjax = new XMLHttpRequest();
   }
   return objAjax;
}

function getNewContent(){
   http.open('get','mm_output.txt');
   http.onreadystatechange = updateNewContent;
   http.send(null);
   return false;
}

function updateNewContent(){
   if(http.readyState == 4){
      document.getElementById('activity').innerHTML = http.responseText;
   }
}
</script>
</head>
<body onload="getNewContent();setInterval('getNewContent()',1000 )">
<div class="toolstrip-button" id="activity"></div>
</body>
</html>

**Waha** · 10-06-2009, 10:21 PM

Looks good, though I don't think you'll need to check if you user's using Internet Explorer or not. ;]

**eriqjaffe** · 10-07-2009, 02:42 AM

Heh, I suppose you're right, at that.

**eriqjaffe** · 10-08-2009, 02:21 PM

Oh, and just in case anybody here uses MediaMonkey and has any interest...

http://eriqjaffe.50webs.com/testext.crx

...and the MediaMonkey script that generates the test file in the first place:

http://eriqjaffe.50webs.com/chromeoutput.mmip

The Chrome extension itself should be fairly agnostic - it just reads a file called "mm_output.txt" located in the extension's directory. That being said, you should be able to easily adapt it to work with any media player as long as the player can be made to write information about the currently playing song to a file (and, optionally, copy the cover art to the "cover.jpg" file).

LinkBack

Thread Tools

Display

Reloading toolstrip

Similar Threads

[Ext] Toolstrip Address Bar

Toolstrip help

settings for toolstrip

Toolstrip Order?

XML Files Not Reloading

Posting Permissions