Chrome.tabs.highlight API Broken

nomadic

Edit: Submitted as VB-90915 - The chrome.tabs.highlight extension API method fails to select tabs

The Chrome extension API to highlight tabs seems to not work in Vivaldi 5.3 and 5.4.

To test, open a devTools window for the UI and run this in the console:

chrome.windows.getAll({ windowTypes: ["normal"] }, (windows) => {
  windows.forEach((window) => {
    chrome.tabs.highlight({ tabs: [0, 1], windowId: window.id });
  });
});

Expected Result:
The first 2 tab of each open window should be highlighted like so:

Actual Result:
Vivaldi just switches to the first tab of the window and makes it active. This still happens if you specify a specific window ID and also if you leave the window ID out and run the API call from an extension.

I also tried using the update method to change both the selected and highlighted properties individually and together, but neither worked.

chrome.tabs.update(SOME_TAB_ID, { highlighted: true, selected: true });

The specified tab just gets activated like with the highlight method.

I tried running the highlight method in Chrome 104.0.5112.81 with an extension and it worked properly, so it is unique to Vivaldi.

Can anyone else confirm this?

luetage

@nomadic I can confirm that. Do extensions use it?

Pathduck

@nomadic Your "bug reports" are definitely the geekiest

DoctorG

@nomadic Had you sent a bug report, i cant find a entry?

nomadic

@luetage Thanks for confirming. Can never be too sure that I didn't accidentally break something by fiddling around in Vivaldi's files. Really shouldn't do all my development on my main profile, but ‍️

Do extensions use it?

It definitely seems like a niche method that wouldn't see too much use, but now that Chrome has tab groups, there might be a few extensions that use it in some way.

I only found out it wasn't working because it didn't work in a simple extension I was writing to select all tabs.

@Pathduck You know it

@DoctorG Was just confirming it wasn't just me before making the report. Will make an official bug report now.

Edit: Submitted as VB-90915 - The chrome.tabs.highlight extension API method fails to select tabs

Also didn't realize that one of my extensions was messing with my User-Agent string before submitting the report. Disabled now.