in a chrome extension can a background page talk to a page_action popup

Question

It is possible for a content script to talk to the background page using

chrome.extension.sendRequest

It is possible for the background page to talk to the content script using

chrome.tabs.getSelected(null, function(tab) {
  chrome.tabs.sendRequest(tab.id, {}, function(response) {
      // do something with response here
  })
})

It is possible for a page_action popup to talk to the background page using

chrome.extension.sendRequest

So, is there a way for the background page to talk to the popup?

The use case is one where

• the popup is open and wants to get some information from the page

• so it sends a request to the background page

• the background page now sends a request to the content script

• and the content script sends a response back to the background page.

• So now the background script needs to send this to the popup !!

  How does that happen?

Answer 1

You can, using chrome.extension.sendRequest, as long as popup remains open.

But looking at your workflow, why not just skip background page and send request to a content script directly from a popup? Then you can just use sendResponse() to return the data back to popup.