Event for background tab reloads (in addition to UrlEnter)

[poslat-pismo]

Hi,

First of all, thank you for Glide – I really enjoy using it and experimenting with some small automations.

I’m currently trying to implement a simple polling script that checks a static page for new messages every 3 minutes and shows a browser notification if there are any. The basic idea was:

UrlEnter fires when I open the page.

I run a check and show a notification if needed.

I schedule a setTimeout to reload the page after 3 minutes.

After reload, UrlEnter fires again, and the cycle repeats.

A simplified version of what I’m doing:

glide.autocmds.create("UrlEnter", /.*my_awesome_site.com/, async ({ tab_id }) => {
  const match = await glide.content.execute(() => {
    if (window.__bs_proc) return "";
    window.__bs_proc = true;
    window.__bs_timer = setTimeout(() => {
      delete window.__bs_proc;
      location.reload();
    }, 180000);

    return [...document.body.textContent.matchAll(/\S+\s-\s\d+\snew!/g)]
      .map(m => m[0])
      .join("\n") || "";
  }, { tab_id });

  if (match) {
    await browser.notifications.create("xNot", {
      type: "basic",
      title: "New messages:",
      message: match,
      iconUrl: `https://${new URL(glide.ctx.url).hostname}/favicon.ico`
    });
  } else {
    await browser.notifications.clear("xNot");
  }
});

However, I realized that UrlEnter does not fire when the tab is in the background (not active), so this pattern does not work reliably for passive monitoring of a page.

Would it be possible to add an event that also triggers on reloads for background tabs, something like a TabReload (or equivalent), or alternatively make UrlEnter fire on reload even when the tab is not active? That would make it much easier to implement lightweight polling/notification workflows like the one above without having to rely on setInterval in the browser context.

If there is already a recommended way to handle this scenario with the current API, I would really appreciate any pointers as well.

Thank you for your time and for considering this request.

[RobertCraigie]

Hello, appreciate the love for glide :)

However, I realized that UrlEnter does not fire when the tab is in the background (not active), so this pattern does not work reliably for passive monitoring of a page.

Yeah the intention for UrlEnter is for when it is the active tab, maybe the wording could change to make that more clear?

If there is already a recommended way to handle this scenario with the current API, I would really appreciate any pointers as well.

This approach using browser.tabs.onUpdated.addListener() worked for me!

glide.autocmds.create("ConfigLoaded", async () => {
  const tab = await browser.tabs.create({ url: "https://example.com" });
  const target_tab_id = tab.id!;

  if (window.__interval_id != null) {
    clearInterval(window.__interval_id);
  }

  window.__interval_id = setInterval(() => {
    browser.tabs.reload(target_tab_id);
  }, 3000);

  browser.tabs.onUpdated.addListener((tab_id, change_info, tab) => {
    if (tab_id === target_tab_id && change_info.status === "complete") {
      console.log("Tab finished loading:", tab.url);
    }
  });
});

[poslat-pismo]

Thank You