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  2. core/
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  4. features.gni
  5. OWNERS
  6. README.md
components/contextual_search/README.md

Contextual Search Component

The Contextual Search component implements some platform agnostic services that mediate between the main CS implementation in the Browser and some other parts of the system. These include the JS API service to allow communication from the Overlay to CS, and user-interaction aggregation.

JS API Service

The JS API Service allows JavaScript in the Overlay Panel to call into Contextual Search. This is done by providing an entry point at chrome.contextualSearch when the Contextual Search Overlay Panel is active.

Enabling this API is somewhat complicated in order to make sure that the API only exists for a Renderer created by CS for the Overlay:

  1. Whenever a Renderer is created, an OverlayJsRenderFrameObserver is created. This class is at the heart of the connection between the Renderer, CS, JS and the JavaScript API.
  2. An OverlayJsRenderFrameObserver is created for every renderer to check if it's a CS Overlay Panel. When the renderer starts up it asks Contextual Search if the current URL belongs to its overlay panel, and if it does then the JS API is enabled for that renderer to allow it to accept JS messages from the page.
  3. When the OverlayJsRenderFrameObserver gets the response in #2 it creates a ContextualSearchWrapper object that allows injecting JavaScript into the WebFrame.
  4. When some JS in a page wants to call into Chrome it simply accesses methods in the chrome.contextualSearch API. If the page is being presented in the Overlay Panel for CS then that object will exist with native method implementations. The renderer forwards the API request to the browser for processing.

The above interaction is used by the Translate onebox to allow showing a translation in the caption of the Contextual Search Bar, and to provide control of the position of the Overlay.

User Interaction Aggregation

The CtrAggregator and WeeklyActivityStorage classes are used aggregate user actions on a weekly basis for use in machine learning for improved triggering.