Force Paster

Force Paster is a browser extension that lets you paste text into any input field or text area — even on sites that have deliberately blocked pasting. One click enables it; one click turns it back off.

Privacy Policy

• Force paste anywhere — overrides paste-blocking for <input>, <textarea>, and supported contenteditable editors (including rich text and images where the site allows it)
• One-click toggle — click the extension icon to enable or disable; the toolbar badge shows the current state (on / off)
• Keyboard shortcut — toggle with Alt+Shift+P on desktop (remappable per browser)
• Right-click context menu — on desktop: toggle, open the dashboard, manage shortcuts, rate the extension, or report a bug from the toolbar icon
• Dashboard — a tabbed settings page (Settings / What's new / More); open it via the context menu or the browser’s extension options
• Dark & light icons — the toolbar icon automatically follows your system theme
• Cross-browser — Chrome, Brave, Edge, Firefox desktop (121+), and Firefox for Android (toggle via extensions menu or options; no keyboard shortcuts / context menus on Android)

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/prvashisht/force-paster.git

2. Chrome / Brave / Edge — navigate to chrome://extensions/, enable Developer mode, click Load unpacked, and select the cloned folder.
3. Firefox desktop — navigate to about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox, click Load Temporary Add-on, and select manifest.json inside the cloned folder.
4. Firefox for Android — use web-ext with USB debugging (see Mozilla’s guide), e.g. npx web-ext run -t firefox-android --adb-device <id> --firefox-apk org.mozilla.firefox.

Chrome load-unpacked note: loading the raw repo folder may show a warning about Firefox-only manifest fields (browser_specific_settings, background.scripts). That is expected for the shared source tree. For a Chromium-clean package, run ./build.sh and load the contents of the Chrome zip from dist/.

Note (Chrome): loading the folder unpacked shows a harmless warning — 'background.scripts' requires manifest version of 2 or lower. This is expected. manifest.json is shared across browsers (Firefox uses background.scripts, Chrome uses background.service_worker), and build.sh strips the key that doesn't apply to each target when packaging. The extension still loads and works normally.

User clicks icon / presses Alt+Shift+P / uses context menu / options toggle
        │
        ▼
service_worker.js  ←─ action.onClicked / _execute_action / contextMenus (desktop) / messages
  • toggles isPasteEnabled in storage.local
  • updates badge text ("on" / "off") and badge colour
  • syncs the context menu checkbox when that API exists (skipped on Android)
  • dispatches analytics events (fp_toggle, fp_menu_click, etc.)
        │
        ▼  storage.onChanged
content.js  (injected into every page / frame)
  • document-level capture-phase `paste` listener (runs before site handlers)
  • when isPasteEnabled: stops the site from blocking paste, then:
      – input/textarea: native value setter + input/change events
      – contenteditable: synthetic ClipboardEvent (MIME types + files), with fallbacks
  • reports paste completion back to the background via runtime messages
  • watches prefers-color-scheme and notifies the background for icon variants
        │
        ▼  (options page)
options.html / options.js
  • standalone dashboard — reads state from storage.local
  • toggle sends a "setenabled" message (with storage fallback)
  • on Android: hides shortcuts / pin helper; shows a short platform note
  • shows paste count, toggle count, and (on desktop) the keyboard shortcut

All Chromium/Firefox API differences are centralised in webext.js. The service worker and options page use webext.* throughout; content.js and analytics.js use the chrome namespace, which Firefox MV3 also exposes in those contexts. Context menus and keyboard commands are desktop-only; the background script detects missing APIs so Firefox for Android still loads cleanly.

Events are sent anonymously via the generic Cloud Functions GA proxy, identified as Force Paster with X-Extension-App: forcepaster. Existing install token, client ID, and session storage keys are retained for continuity. Analytics failures are logged and do not block extension behavior.

• Node.js is not required to run the extension — it is plain JavaScript with no app build step.
• Node/npx is only needed for packaging helpers (./build.sh version checks, ./scripts/lint-firefox.sh).

1. Make your changes to the source files.
2. In Chrome, go to chrome://extensions/ and click the reload icon on the Force Paster card to pick up changes.
3. In Firefox, go to about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox and click Reload next to Force Paster.
4. Test on a paste-blocking page. A local demo is in test-fixtures/paste-blocked.html (serve it over http://localhost so content scripts inject).

./build.sh                      # Chromium + Firefox zips in dist/
./scripts/lint-firefox.sh       # build Firefox zip, then addons-linter via web-ext

Fix errors before submitting to AMO. Notices/warnings (for example future data_collection_permissions) should be reviewed but may already be known.

You don't need this to develop, but to produce the distributable zips locally, run ./build.sh. It writes dist/force-paster-chrome-v*.zip and dist/force-paster-firefox-v*.zip, and requires Node.js and zip. The build fails if the manifest.json and release-notes.json versions don't match.

• Chrome / Brave / Edge — chrome://extensions/shortcuts
• Firefox desktop — about:addons → Extensions → Force Paster → Manage
• Firefox Android — not supported by the platform

1. Bump "version" in manifest.json.
2. Update "version" and "notes" in release-notes.json to match — the build will fail if they differ.
3. Merge to main. The release.yml workflow triggers automatically, builds both zips, creates a GitHub release with auto-generated notes, and attaches the zips as assets. This in turn triggers store-deploy.yml, which publishes automatically to the Chrome Web Store and Firefox Add-ons.
4. Edge — upload force-paster-chrome-v*.zip from the GitHub release manually at Microsoft Partner Center. The Chrome zip is compatible with Chromium browsers such as Brave and Edge; Firefox-only manifest fields are stripped by the build script.

Checklist every release:

• manifest.json version bumped
• release-notes.json version and notes updated
• README features/structure updated if new things were added
• ./scripts/lint-firefox.sh clean of errors (especially if Firefox/Android packaging changed)
• Edge Add-ons updated manually via Partner Center

Contributions are welcome! Please read CONTRIBUTING.md and follow the Code of Conduct before opening a pull request.