Skip to main content
# nativemessaging
A Python package for interfacing with Native Messaging in WebExtensions

[See Native Messaging on MDN](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Native_messaging)

Based on [Native Messaging on MDN](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Native_messaging#App_side) and [native-messaging on mdn/webextension-examples](https://github.com/mdn/webextensions-examples/tree/master/native-messaging) (MPL 2.0 License)

`pip3 install nativemessaging`

## `get_message()`
`nativemessaging.get_message()` will poll for a message from the browser.
If [`runtime.connectNative`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/runtime/connectNative) is used, `get_message()` must be called repeatedly in a loop to poll for messages.
If [`runtime.sendNativeMessage`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/runtime/sendNativeMessage) is used, `get_message()` only needs to be called once.

## `encode_message( message_content )`
`nativemessaging.encode_message()` takes one argument, a message to be encoded.
Returns an encoded version of a message to be returned to the browser. Use with `send_message()`.

## `send_message( encoded_message )`
`nativemessaging.send_message()` takes one argument, an encoded message from `encode_message()`. Returns a message to the browser.

## Sample
Browser side:
```javascript
function onReceived(response) {
console.log(response);
}

// runtime.connectNative
var port = browser.runtime.connectNative("application_name");
port.onMessage.addListener(onReceived);
port.postMessage("hello");

// runtime.sendNativeMessage
browser.runtime.sendNativeMessage("application_name", "hello").then(onReceived);
```

App side:
```python
import nativemessaging

while True:
message = nativemessaging.get_message()
if message == "hello":
nativemessaging.send_message(nativemessaging.encode_message("world"))
```

## nativemessaging-install
`nativemessaging-install` is a command line script provided with the package.

### Arguments
`nativemessaging-install browser [--manifest manifest]`
* `browser` - positional argument, 1 or more parameters. Must be `chrome` or `firefox`.
* `--manifest` - a path to a manifest file to use for installing.

### manifest-install.json
A `native-manifest.json` file is expected in the current working directory when running the script, unless `--manifest` is passsed.
The format must be similar to the native manifest format for Chrome or Firefox, with two main differences:
* `path` must be a relative path to the native app in relation to your current working directory.
* Both `allowed_extensions` and `allowed_origins` must be in the manifest to work with both Chrome and Firefox.
```json
{
"name": "application_name",
"description": "description",
"path": "application_name.py",
"type": "stdio",
"allowed_extensions": ["extension@id"],
"allowed_origins": ["chrome-extension://extension-id"]
}
```

### Created files
On Windows, it will create `<application_name>_firefox.json` and `<application_name>_chrome.json` in the same directory as `<path>`.
A batch file will also be created for python apps on Windows.
A registry key is created at `HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Chrome\NativeMessagingHosts\<application_name>` or `HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mozilla\NativeMessagingHosts\<application_name>`

On linux, it will create `~/.config/google-chrome/NativeMessagingHosts/<application_name>.json` or `~/.mozilla/native-messaging-hosts/<application_name>.json`

On mac, it will create `~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/NativeMessagingHosts/<application_name>.json` or `~/Library/Application Support/Mozilla/NativeMessagingHosts/<application_name>.json`

#### See also:
* [Native Messaging on Chrome Docs](https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/nativeMessaging)


Release files for nativemessaging 1.0.1

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for nativemessaging 1.0.1
File Size Uploaded
nativemessaging-1.0.1.tar.gz 4.1 kB Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for nativemessaging 1.0.1
File Interpreter ABI Platform
nativemessaging-1.0.1-py3-none-any.whl Python 3 none any Details

Total release size: 11.1 kB

Release files / nativemessaging-1.0.1.tar.gz

Download URL nativemessaging-1.0.1.tar.gz
Size 4.1 kB
Tags Source
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
9e52dad970e91e7fb9571951ea610a461d0e01324ab1f0dc08e127dc2ec5bd78
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
fec11271a54bfa7dda4675248b5e81b77dd801182309ebabde8f7dd7a27562e7
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
No
Uploaded via twine/1.12.1 pkginfo/1.4.2 requests/2.21.0 setuptools/40.6.3 requests-toolbelt/0.8.0 tqdm/4.28.1 CPython/3.6.7

Release files / nativemessaging-1.0.1-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL nativemessaging-1.0.1-py3-none-any.whl
Size 7.0 kB
Tags Python 3
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
596196460fc1d23933c8daed7022f6e54a8f551a985a87fa74c6d0aed06c6bb8
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
24c6156c213b38d96a07906faf435e7cef025273a262a1bf2a4480923faa98c6
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
No
Uploaded via twine/1.12.1 pkginfo/1.4.2 requests/2.21.0 setuptools/40.6.3 requests-toolbelt/0.8.0 tqdm/4.28.1 CPython/3.6.7

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

This release

1.0.1 This release

2 release files

1.0.0

2 release files

Anthropic, PBC Visionary sponsor Bloomberg Visionary sponsor Hudson River Trading Visionary sponsor Meta Visionary sponsor NVIDIA Visionary sponsor Microsoft Sustainability sponsor Depot Continuous Integration AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page