Here is how developing chrome extension works out of the box:
Steps 2,3,4 really should not be there. Doing this over an over again just makes me want to stop writing software and get into baby clothes instead.
Turns out I am not the only one to feel that pain. There is an Extenstion Reloader extension that, if combined with Guard, automates those steps.
There is a bit of setup. But really is just a bit, assuming you’ve got a ruby interpreter and a terminal. It works on OSX and, with minor adjustments, on Linux. Not sure about Windows.
Install guard-shell
gem:
$ gem install guard-shell
Add Guardfile
to the root of your project with the following contents:
guard :shell do
watch /(js|css|html|json)$/ do
`open -g http://reload.extensions`
end
end
In a terminal, cd into project folder and run guard
.
That is it. From now on, while guard is running, changing any file inside your project will result into extensions reload in a background.
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One caveat though, looks like Extension Reloader does not reload changes in manifest. Other than that, you got it!