Open popups in tabs option, fix extension pay website layouts

[goodtube4u]

Hey thanks for making this, so far it's been great!

One thing I've noticed is that it uses window.open() to open the login page, etc. Unfortunately a lot of people have popup blockers installed, in which case this may not work (and to them it just seems like the extension is broken / they can't use it).

I've made some updates on my end to ExtPay.js, which simply opens the page in the current tab instead:
window.open('xxx') vs window.location.href = 'xxx'

That works fine and it's a really simple update - though it would be great if that were an available option in the main build.

That said, when you open a lot of these pages in a full tab, the layouts are a bit messed up. They're almost correct, but the title isn't centered, etc. Which makes everything look a bit less professional, almost dodgy even haha.

I would fix those layouts, but they're part of the extension pay website - so I've got no control over them. I don't think there's a lot of work that would be needed to fix them up, as mentioned they're almost correct already.

So in summary, it'd be awesome if we could:

1. Have an option to open pages in

• A new tab
• The same tab
• A popup

2. Fix the layouts of the login, pay, etc pages on the extension pay website - so they look good at all resolutions when opened in a full tab.

Thanks again! I'm working on an extension which may put a lot of users through soon. Hopefully it makes you some passive income :)

[Glench]

Thanks for the bug report. I'll ask a few clarifying questions.

What version of ExtPay are you using? Can you share with me a specific example of a popup being blocked and what happens when it fails? I'm thinking it would be better to open a new tab as a fallback if it fails rather than default to that since the page is pretty bare bones and a popup is more appropriate for styling and for getting a user's attention.

Also, since you're using ExtPay in an unsupported way, I'd recommend you style the popup using your own extension in the mean time.

[goodtube4u]

I'm using the latest version that was included in the manifest v3 example here:
https://github.com/Glench/ExtPay/blob/main/sample-extension-mv3/ExtPay.js

I think that's version 3.1.1?

As for when popups are blocked, it's hard to say exactly. But a lot of different browsers provide an option to block them, as do various adblockers. When this happens in Chrome for example you get a little notification appear on the right-hand side of the address bar that says "popup blocked".

To give context - I'm actually working on a Youtube Adblocker, which people are likely to install if their current adblocker stops working. So most people will have some sort of adblocker installed and at a guess many of them will block popups. My concern is that this has the potential to harm conversion rates.

I don't think that editing the Extension Pay layouts using my extension is the best call haha. I mean I could, but that's pretty ghetto. Surely it's not too hard to center the content? Just use flex / justify-content: center or something. It's nothing major.

Anyway, I get it. Believe me I do. What I'm making is currently a userscript with almost 200k users. Every other day somebody wants some annoying thing. They're usually impolite and it's draining. Like what is it now dude? It's finished, working....just...use it!

But you know, occasionally, one of them prompts me to make a reasonable improvement haha.

Oh and last thing, on the "open in new tab" vs "open in same tab" functionality. For my use case, opening in the same tab is actually preferable. So I think it's valid to provide both options.

This is because the ux flow is currently something like:

1. The user installs the extension
2. They open Youtube and see a modal. It's like "welcome, start your free trial, buy now or login"
3. They click on one of these options, that opens in the same tab. This is so they're not left with a tab open with that modal still displaying.
4. Once they perform one of these actions, I use my extension to redirect them back to Youtube. This looks at the "success" urls Extension Pay uses, waits for the page to be all done with it's stuff, then redirects the user.

Not sure if that also would be better handled as an extension pay option? Redirect to xxx after xxx action? Either way what I'm doing works fine for now. It's definately easier to understand and use a redirect than the hooks in background.js. I couldn't get the trial started or payment made hooks to work for the life of me. Tried for like 3 hours, read every issue. We can't load packed extensions in Chrome anymore, so we're all stuck in dev mode - and I think the payment hook doesn't fire in dev mode - making testing near impossible...so yeah. For me redirects are a much simpiler solution.

5. Once the user is redirected back to Youtube, it shows the appropriate "success" modal depending on their action.

Hopefully that all makes sense. No rush on this, the primary one - for me at least - is to center / fix the layouts on Extension Pay's website if they're opened in a full tab.

Whatever the outcome of this is, thanks again man! The above aside, Extension Pay has been really great and easy to use. I look forward to working with you. My extension was submitted yesturday, fingers crossed it'll be approved in the Chrome store soon. I really believe it has the potential to get a large amount of users, which would be great for both of us :)