Firefox addon button (browser_action) not calling js on click - firefox-addon

Question

Trying to create a simple addon to retry a duckduckgo search in google. It parses the current duckduckgo url search params, appends them to a google url, and opens that url in a new tab.
The searchGoogle.js works great when pasted directly into the console context of a duckduckgo search. And the addon loads correctly in about:debugging... But I am unable to get the "searchGoogle.js" to fire on button (browser_action) click. What am I missing here?
manifest.json
{
"manifest_version": 2,
"name": "SearchGoogle",
"version": "1.0",
"description": "Repeats a duckduckgo search in a new tab using google.",
"icons": {
"48": "icons/48search-pointer-icon.png",
"32": "icons/32search-pointer-icon.png",
"16": "icons/16search-pointer-icon.png"
},
"permissions": [
"tabs",
"activeTab",
"webRequest",
"webNavigation"
],
"browser_action": {
"default_icon": "icons/48search-pointer-icon.png",
"default_title": "SearchGoogle"
},
"background": {
"scripts": ["searchGoogle.js"]
}
}
searchGoogle.js
var myStr = window.location.href;
var googurl = 'https://www.google.com/search?q=';
var params = getmyuri('q', myStr);
window.open(googurl+params, '_blank');
window.focus();
window.alert(googurl+params);
function getmyuri(n,s){
n = n.replace(/[\[]/,"\\[").replace(/[\]]/,"\\]");
var p = (new RegExp("[\\?&]"+n+"=([^&#]*)")).exec(s);
return (p===null) ? "" : p[1];
}

Answer 1

What you're currently doing is merely declaring a background script. A background script is loaded when the addon is loaded by the browser, but you need some code to react to other events.
Here's what I found in the MDN pages of browser_action :
If you don't supply a popup, then a click event is dispatched to your extension's background scripts when the user clicks the button.
(...)
The extension's background scripts can receive click events when the user clicks the icon using code like this:
browser.browserAction.onClicked.addListener(function(){})
So in your case, you need to wrap your "on click" code into this browserAction.onClicked event handler, something like this:
// searchGoogle.js
browser.browserAction.onClicked.addListener(function(){
var myStr = window.location.href;
var googurl = 'https://www.google.com/search?q=';
var params = getmyuri('q', myStr);
window.open(googurl+params, '_blank');
window.focus();
window.alert(googurl+params);
});
And voilà, your code should be executed everytime you click the browserAction icon.

Answer 2

For anyone else who comes here with the same question. Here are lessons observed:
window.alert is not a thing in a background script. Instead, wrap things in console.log(). Logging to console from Firefox extension?
Event listeners can pass tab information already, see tabs.getCurrent() result is undefined?.
To fire on button click, DON'T supply a popup in the manifest, and DO wrap the code to be fired in browser.browserAction.onClicked.addListener(function(){}).
Here's the final working script.
Main stays the same.
JS is:
browser.browserAction.onClicked.addListener(function(tab){
function getmyuri(n,s){
n = n.replace(/[\[]/,"\\[").replace(/[\]]/,"\\]");
var p = (new RegExp("[\\?&]"+n+"=([^&#]*)")).exec(s);
return (p===null) ? "" : p[1];
}
console.log(tab)
var googurl = 'https://www.google.com/search?q=';
var params = getmyuri('q', tab.url);
browser.tabs.create({url: googurl+params});
});