Research Workbench — Enrico Rossini

Research Workbench keeps the sources of your research in one place on your own computer: papers, web pages, notes, references and the writing you make from them. This extension is how a page you are reading gets there.

Press the button (or Alt+Shift+S) on any page and choose where it goes: a project and folder in your workbench, found by typing part of its name. Add a note on why you kept it and a few tags if you like, and press Save. The workbench files it, reads the article out of the page, links it to the reference it stands for when the page carries a DOI, and makes it searchable alongside everything else.

On a journal's page, the extension saves the paper's PDF when the page links to one, and the page itself when it cannot be fetched. A PDF open in the browser is saved as the PDF.

It works when the workbench is closed. A page you save waits in the browser, the button shows how many are waiting, and they go in as soon as the workbench opens. A page the workbench refuses stays in the popup with the reason, to try again or discard.

Nothing leaves your computer. The extension talks only to the Research Workbench program on the same computer, through the browser's native messaging, never over the network: there is no account, no server and no tracking. It asks to read a site only when you save a PDF from it, and only that site.

Research Workbench is a desktop application for Windows, macOS and Linux, and this extension needs it installed: https://researchworkbench.org

What it can do, and all it can do:
• ask the workbench for your projects, folders and tags, to offer them as places to save to;
• send it the page or PDF you chose to save, with your note and tags;
• open the workbench's window.
It cannot read your vault, and the workbench answers it only.