We are making Safari extension for MacOS, that uses SFSafariApplication.dispatchMessage() to communicate between native and javascript parts of extension. Until recently everything worked, however after update to xcode 16 I started getting this error:
'dispatchMessage(withName:toExtensionWithIdentifier:userInfo:completionHandler:)' is unavailable in application extensions for macOS: Not available to extensions
'dispatchMessage(withName:toExtensionWithIdentifier:userInfo:completionHandler:)' has been explicitly marked unavailable here (SafariServices.SFSafariApplication)
I looked into documentation, however I did not find any hint of dispatchMessage() being replaced by something else. According to https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/messaging-between-the-app-and-javascript-in-a-safari-web-extension this is the way communication should be done.
Is it a bug? Or can someone direct me to working alternative of communication?
The error you're seeing is because dispatchMessage(withName:toExtensionWithIdentifier:userInfo:completionHandler:) has always been unavailable for app extensions, which is now being flagged by the compiler in Xcode 16.
Communication from the extension to JavaScript is handled via context.completeRequest(returningItems:completionHandler:), but only in response to messages initiated from JavaScript. The dispatchMessage method is intended for use by the app itself—not the extension process—to initiate communication when the app is running.