example-chrome-extension VS plasmo

Shameless plug: I was totally dissatisfied with the state of extension documentation and tutorials, so I wrote a book on building Chrome extensions: https://www.buildingbrowserextensions.com/

I was enthusiastic enough about extensions that I decided to publish a book about building them: https://www.buildingbrowserextensions.com/

Browser extensions are severely underrated as a platform because they aren't sexy. For all that mobile devices have given us, so much of our work continues to be done using a desktop browser. Enhancements such as augmenting websites with widgets, supplying contextual information, and automating repetitive tasks using the authenticated session - when applied appropriately - can save someone hours every day.

Browser extensions. Not quite a website, not quite a mobile app, and surprisingly pervasive. Most people don't realize how incredibly powerful they are, even with manifest v3.

I almost fell out of my chair when I found out there were no books on how to build them, so I wrote one: https://www.buildingbrowserextensions.com/ It was incredibly enjoyable to go through the APIs and write about all the different crazy things they can do.

I was frustrated with the lack of resources, so I'm publishing a book on it: "Building Browser Extensions". Available later this year. https://www.buildingbrowserextensions.com/

And check out the companion extension: https://www.buildingbrowserextensions.com/b2x

Ooof!! It is an... interesting time right now in extensions land. The switch from MV2 to MV3 is a bit chaotic but hopefully tools like this (Bedframe) and tools like [Plasmo](https://github.com/PlasmoHQ/plasmo) start to inject some freshness in the space.

GitHub: https://github.com/PlasmoHQ/plasmo

Shameless plug, but we built the Plasmo Framework to make that (and a lot more) super easy: https://github.com/plasmohq/plasmo

Thanks! We wrote a custom Parcel runtime [1] inspired by Parcel's HMR runtime (which was too bloated and buggy for us) that injects a web socket listener into the development build of the extension.

Whenever a bundle change happens, Parcel sends it the refresh message and it either does `chrome.runtime.reload()` or `location.reload()` depending on the context.

[1]: https://github.com/PlasmoHQ/plasmo/blob/main/packages/parcel...