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pageAction

Read and modify attributes of and listen to clicks on the address bar button defined with the page_action manifest key.

An address bar button is a button added to the browser address bar.

Paw print icon representing a page action

You can listen for clicks on the icon in a background script, or specify a popup that opens when the icon is clicked.

If you specify a popup, you define its contents and behavior using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. JavaScript running in the popup gets access to all the same WebExtension APIs as your background scripts. Despite being named pageAction, the action code doesn't get access to web page content. To access web page DOM, you need to add a content script and interact with it.

The button also has a context menu, and you can add items to this menu with the {{WebExtAPIRef("menus")}} API using the page_action {{WebExtAPIRef("menus.ContextType")}}.

Page actions are for actions that are only relevant to particular pages (such as "bookmark the current tab"). If they are relevant to the browser as a whole (such as "show all bookmarks"), use a browser action instead.

Types​

  • {{WebExtAPIRef("pageAction.ImageDataType")}}
    • : Pixel data for an image.

Functions​

  • {{WebExtAPIRef("pageAction.show()")}}
    • : Shows the page action for a given tab.
  • {{WebExtAPIRef("pageAction.hide()")}}
    • : Hides the page action for a given tab.
  • {{WebExtAPIRef("pageAction.isShown()")}}
    • : Checks whether the page action is shown or not.
  • {{WebExtAPIRef("pageAction.setTitle()")}}
    • : Sets the page action's title. This is displayed in a tooltip over the page action.
  • {{WebExtAPIRef("pageAction.getTitle()")}}
    • : Gets the page action's title.
  • {{WebExtAPIRef("pageAction.setIcon()")}}
    • : Sets the page action's icon.
  • {{WebExtAPIRef("pageAction.setPopup()")}}
    • : Sets the URL for the page action's popup.
  • {{WebExtAPIRef("pageAction.getPopup()")}}
    • : Gets the URL for the page action's popup.
  • {{WebExtAPIRef("pageAction.openPopup()")}}
    • : Opens the page action's popup.

Events​

  • {{WebExtAPIRef("pageAction.onClicked")}}
    • : Fired when a page action icon is clicked. This event will not fire if the page action has a popup.

Browser compatibility​

{{WebExtExamples("h2")}}

[!NOTE] This API is based on Chromium's chrome.pageAction API. This documentation is derived from page_action.json in the Chromium code.