WebMemex browser extension

This browser extension aspires to turn the browser into an offline-first knowledge management tool. It can store web pages you visit on your computer by freeze-drying them: removing scripts and thus most interactive behaviour, but inlining all images and stylesheets to let you save the page exactly the way you saw it.

The long-term goal is to enable you to extract quotes, create notes, and make links between things, to really grow your personal web. Ultimately, you should be able to publish (parts of) your web to share your knowledge with others, thus turning your browser from a web viewer into a web weaver.

It is currently tested on Firefox and Chromium. It is published on Mozilla Addons (also on Chrome Web Store but it may be outdated as that repository often imposes new constraints).

Contribute

Got feedback, bug fixes, new features, tips? Want to help with coding, design, or communication? Give a shout. 📢

Pop in on #webmemex on Freenode, send a PR or open an issue on the GitHub repo, or send me (Gerben/Treora) a message.

All code in this project is in the public domain, free from copyright restrictions. Please waive your copyrights on any contributions you make. See e.g. unlicense.org for more information.

Hacking

See Codetour.md for an explanation of the repository structure. In short, it is a WebExtension (runs on Firefox and Chrome/Chromium browsers), bundled by browserify, that logs and stores pages in PouchDB, and provides a viewer built with React+Redux.

Build and run it

1. Clone this repo.
2. Get Node/NPM≥10.
3. Run make to install dependencies and compile the source files.
4. Load it in Firefox or Chromium/Chrome/Opera/Brave/…:
   • In Firefox: run npm run firefox (or run web-ext directly for more control). Alternatively, go to about:debugging, choose 'Load Temporary Add-on', and pick extension/manifest.json from this repo.
   • In Chromium/…: go to Tools→Extensions (about:extensions), enable 'Developer mode', click 'Load unpacked extension...', and pick the extension/ folder from this repo.

Automatic recompilation

If the steps above worked, running npm run watch will trigger a quick recompilation every time a source file has been modified.

If you are testing in Firefox through npm run firefox/web-ext, the extension should also reload automatically. Otherwise, manually press the reload button in the extension list.