Safari Extension Sending a Message To an App

Question

I'm new in making browser extensions. I need to make an extension for Safari capable of launching or sending a message to an existing app on user machine. I want to do this in Mac platform. I want to know is it possible? and if it is possible can anyone provide a sample code or a way of how can it be done?

Regards

Answer 1

There are at least a couple ways a Safari extension can communicate with the outside world. Probably the cleanest is for your extension to open a connection to a WebSocket server running on the local machine.

// Inside your extension's master or local .js
WebSocket ws = new WebSocket("ws://localhost/mywebserver");
ws.onopen = function () {
    ws.send("Message to outside world");
};

This server could be integrated into your application using a library like libwebsockets, jWebSocket, or Socket.IO.