Google Chrome extension for school

Since the release of Google Chrome, I have been waiting for its extra features which has known to be extensions (similar to Firefox addons). I have to admit that Google has made the Chrome extension development process very convenient to web developers since there is not much difference between developing web pages and Chrome extensions, all you need to know is HTML, CSS and Javascript and a bit of API. By making such a good decision, Google has indeed opened the gate for millions of developers to contribute and enhance the usability of Chrome browser.

Being interested in web development, I have decided to give it a shot to try coding a simple Chrome extension that might be used in my school. I have come up with the idea to create an extension that makes it easy for students to check the appearance of other students by inputing the name and student ID. The pictures are taken from one of school's website with the URL pattern matching.

The following is what I did:

1. Create a manifest.json file
2. Create HTML page that shows the UI of the extension (known as popup)
3. External javascript file (which will be linked with the HTML

Yes, it's simple as that. Now let's take a look at the code:

manifest.json

{
"name": "Find your classmates",
"version": "1.0.1",
"description": "Created to tackle the issue of classmates knowing their teammates name but not knowing how they look like. Useful for evaluation",
"browser_action": {
"default_icon": "rplogo.jpeg",
"popup": "rpavatar.html"
},
"icons": { "48": "rplogo.jpeg",
"128": "rplogo.jpeg" },
"permissions": [
"tabs"
]
}