The default Safari App Extension created by Xcode does nothing.

Question

Created Mar ’23

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I just installed the default safari app extension (the one created by Xcode) on my mac. Its icon is visible in Safari, but when I run the extension, nothing happens. Then when using the Safari/Developer/Web Inspector/ and choosing Sources, an Extension Script folder does not appear at the lower left. Do you have any suggestions to resolve this problem?

Answered by Engineer in 747681022

Which website did you go to? If you look at the extension's Info.plist, you can see it only has access to example.com.

You will need to go to example.com to see the Extension Scripts folder.

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Answer 1

Engineer OP

Apple

Mar ’23

Accepted Answer

Which website did you go to? If you look at the extension's Info.plist, you can see it only has access to example.com.

You will need to go to example.com to see the Extension Scripts folder.

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Answer 2

calebhailey OP

Mar ’23

I also struggled with this when I got started, but I shipped my first Safari Extension from this template!

See: https://themagichighlighter.com ⚡️

The thing that helped me was to edit the manifest.json file "content_scripts": [] configuration.

Here's an example:

{
    "...": "...",
    "content_scripts": [
        {
            "js": [ "common.js", "content.js" ],
            "css": [ "content.css" ],
            "exclude_matches": [],
            "matches": [ "*:&#x2F;&#x2F;*&#x2F;*" ],
            "run_at": "document_start",
            "all_frames": false
        }
    ]
}

Just edit which js and css files are loaded and you should be able to see your code loaded on any/all pages.

The Mozilla documentation for manifest.json, content_scripts, and "Matching URL Patterns" were incredibly helpful for me:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json/content_scripts
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json/content_scripts#matching_url_patterns

I hope this helps!

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