Opera extensions: documentation

By Andreas Bovens

With Opera switching from Presto to Chromium and a complete UI remake, our extensions infrastructure has also gotten a major overhaul: from Opera 15 onward (currently available as Opera Next), Opera 11 & 12’s extension format is no longer supported, and instead, we’ve switched to Chromium’s extension model. To prepare for Opera 15, check out our documentation for developing Chromium extensions and start building your own.

Getting started

API reference

You can build Opera extensions using the Opera Extensions APIs and open web standards like JavaScript and HTML. This makes Opera extensions easy to create, quick to debug, and fast to install.

Basics and UI elements:

Browser functions:

Injected scripts (add JavaScript to websites)
URL filtering (e.g. for ad blocking)
Messaging (e.g. between the background process and the injected script)
Speed Dial (for Speed Dial extensions)
Resource Loader (access any file within an extension package)
Screenshot (take screenshots of pages)
Context Menu (add items to the context menu)

Finishing up:

Adding an options page
Packaging your extension
Publishing it to the Opera extensions catalog

Extension tutorials

Templates and code samples

UI guidelines and distribution

Andreas Bovens

Andreas is based in Oslo, where he works for Opera Software as Extensions Product Manager and Dev Relations Lead.

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.