Open a tab and make a POST request to it in a firefox webextension

Question

I try to migrate my firefox addon wich use low level SDK API to WebExtension and at some point I want to POST data url-encoded to a new tab.

With the low level API it is possible through the following code:

const querystring = require('sdk/querystring');
let stringStream = Cc["@mozilla.org/io/string-input-stream;1"].createInstance(Ci.nsIStringInputStream);
stringStream.data = querystring.stringify(params); // params is a json data

let postData = Cc["@mozilla.org/network/mime-input-stream;1"].createInstance(Ci.nsIMIMEInputStream);
postData.addHeader("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
postData.addContentLength = true;
postData.setData(stringStream);

var tabBrowser = Cc["@mozilla.org/appshell/window-mediator;1"].getService(Ci.nsIWindowMediator).getMostRecentWindow("navigator:browser").gBrowser;
var selectedTabIndex = tabBrowser.tabContainer.selectedIndex;
var newTab = tabBrowser.loadOneTab("https://myurl.com/", {
    inBackground: false,
    postData: postData
});
tabBrowser.moveTabTo(newTab, selectedTabIndex + 1);

But I haven't found a WebExtension equivalent.

Is it possible or the only solution is to create a form and submit it in js?

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 27 '16 at 13:07

1

Do you actually need to post to a tab or just display the response? This will post and get a response you can do something with. Make sure your CORS header is set correctly too.

<meta http-equiv="Content-Security-Policy" content="default-src 'self' www.demo.com; script-src 'self'; img-src http: https: data:; style-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'">

function ajax(url) {
    return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
        var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
        xhr.onload = function() {
            resolve(this.responseText);
        };
        xhr.onerror = reject;
        xhr.open('POST', url);
        xhr.send();
    });
}

ajax("www.demo.com/test.php?q=" + params).then(function(result) {
    //Do something with result
}).catch(function(err) {
      console.log("Error: " + err.message);
});

answered May 27 '16 at 13:07

Paul Heil

295
1
9

Good idea, but I need to post a url-encoded data (like HTML form) to a website which I don't own, so I prefer to POST to a tab rather than just showing the result. Right now I am generating the HTML form through javascript, I will post the code for example. – Jérémie Bertrand May 27 '16 at 13:59
1

I think you can just modify xhr.send("lorem=ipsum&name=binny"); to include your parameters. http://www.openjs.com/articles/ajax_xmlhttp_using_post.php – Paul Heil Jun 01 '16 at 14:48
Another example: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2016/05/31/using-google-analytics-in-extensions/ – Paul Heil Jun 02 '16 at 16:46
Thanks, I will try that :) – Jérémie Bertrand Jun 03 '16 at 06:54
It can works, but I have to replace the current page content with the result and I can't change the tab url. So I used another solution: inject an html form in the current tab and submit it. – Jérémie Bertrand Jun 19 '16 at 15:38

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 19 '16 at 15:46

Right now the only solution is to create a form in the new tab and submit it. In the background script:

// tab creation
browser.tabs.create({ index: tab.index + 1, url: "https://myurl.com/" }, function (tab) {
    // load content script submitForm.js
    browser.tabs.executeScript(tab.id, { file: "submitForm.js" }, function () {
        // send message to submitForl.js with parameters
        chrome.tabs.sendMessage(tab.id, {url: tab.url, message: 'hello world'});
    });
});

submitForm content:

function submitForm(request, sender, sendResponse)
{
    var f = document.createElement('form');
    f.setAttribute('method','post');
    f.setAttribute('action','https://myurl.com/form');

    var f1 = document.createElement('input');
    f1.setAttribute('type','hidden');
    f1.setAttribute('name','url]');
    f1.setAttribute('value', request.url);
    f.appendChild(f1);

    var f2 = document.createElement('input');
    f2.setAttribute('type','hidden');
    f2.setAttribute('name','content');
    f2.setAttribute('value', request.message);
    f.appendChild(f2);

    document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].appendChild(f);
    f.submit();
}

// listen for messages and execute submitForm
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(submitForm);

Open a tab and make a POST request to it in a firefox webextension

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