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We have plans of developing a web application that will have to communicate with our locally running application. One of the possible options is using browser extensions. I was looking into how Skype add-ons to browsers communicate with Skype client. In Firefox, Skype add-on inserts a piece of HTML when it encounters a phone number. Is this 

<span skypeaction="...">

processed by a Skype extension which makes a call using Skype API? Do extensions for other browsers use Skype API or other communications mechanism?

Yulia Rogovaya
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2 Answers2

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I did a bit of research and here's what I found. When the user clicks on the Skype link injected by the extension, the extension creates a new Skype process and passes it the parameters specifying the action and the number. Custom protocol handler is not used.

Yulia Rogovaya
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The Skype extension would use regular expressions to search for valid and visible phone numbers displayed on a webpage, and as you say it would wrap a span class around it.

The span class would be defined within the extension code, and would insert the skype icon along with a clickable link that launches the skype application.

You also see similar functionality from iTunes and IRC, they have links in the irc://... format.

Tom Gullen
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  • For me, the Firefox extension changes phone numbers into Skype links only if Skype is already launched. I wonder what is the mechanism of communication between the extension and the Skype app - is it Skype API or ... ? – Yulia Rogovaya Jul 29 '10 at 08:38
  • To prove, I did an experiment. I modified the registry entry for custom skype: protocol, specifying an invalid path to Skype app. After this, the normal Skype link on a webpage stopped working. But the link injected by Firefox extension remained working. Looks like the extension uses Skype API. – Yulia Rogovaya Jul 30 '10 at 14:21