paw de Damon Chan

Transform your web browsing experience with Paw, a powerful browser extension that seamlessly integrates with Emacs through org-protocol. Capture text selections, context, and HTML content with intuitive interactions—all designed to boost your productivity.

🎯 Smart Text Capture

• Hover & Click Interaction: Underline words on mouseover and capture them with a simple click
• Flexible Selection: Select entire passages or single words—captures both text and surrounding context
• Context-Aware: Automatically identifies and captures the parent context (e.g., paragraph) for better note organisation

⚡ Floating Action Button

• Quick Access: A convenient floating "+" button appears near your text selections
• Multiple Protocols: Access all configured org-protocols through an intuitive submenu
• Customisable Position: Adjust button offsets to suit your workflow
• Smart Visibility: Show/hide the button based on your preferences, with automatic display when text is selected

⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts

• Instant Capture: Use customisable keyboard shortcuts (e.g., Alt + S) to grab the word under your caret
• Configurable Modifiers: Choose between None, Ctrl, or Alt modifiers
• Efficient Workflow: Send selections to Emacs without leaving the keyboard

🗂️ Tab Manager

• Capture & Close: Capture the current tab or all tabs in a window — tabs are closed and saved into named sections
• Drag & Drop: Reorder individual tabs within and across sections, or reorder entire sections
• Send to Emacs: Send a single tab, an entire section, or a batch of selected tabs to Emacs via paw-server
• Multi-Format Link Copy: Copy links as Org-mode [[url][title]], Markdown [title](url), or plain URLs
• Multi-Select: Checkbox selection per tab or per section for bulk actions
• Live Manager: The tab manager page updates in real time as new tabs are captured

🔧 Customisable Org-Protocol Support

• Multiple Protocols: Configure unlimited org-protocols using comma-separated format or JSON arrays
• Format Options: Choose between text, HTML, or Markdown formats for captured content
• Advanced Configuration: Support for download (save full page HTML) and deselect (clear selection after capture)
• JSON Editor: The Options page displays Protocol(s) as prettified JSON with live validation
• Example: [{"protocol": "paw", "format": "text"}, {"protocol": "anki", "format": "html"}]

🖱️ Single-Click Mode

• Word-Level Interaction: Enable single-click mode to wrap and capture individual words instantly
• Toggleable: Turn on/off from the popup or options page

🎨 Auto-Highlight

• Visual Feedback: Automatically highlight known words on web pages
• Server Integration: Works with optional paw-server to display your vocabulary or saved words
• Info Bubbles: Hover over highlighted words to see additional information

📋 Rich Content Support

• HTML Content: Send selected HTML content to Emacs for advanced processing
• Full Page Capture: Optionally download entire page HTML for archival
• Text & Context: Captures URL, page title, selected text, and surrounding paragraph

🌐 Server Integration (Optional)

• paw-server Support: Connect to a local Python Flask server for advanced features
• Endpoints: POST /paw for selections, GET /words for highlights, POST /source for full HTML
• Fallback: Automatically falls back to org-protocol if the server is unavailable

Perfect For

• Emacs Users: Seamlessly integrate your browser with Emacs workflows
• Note-Takers: Quickly capture web content with full context
• Researchers: Save selections with URLs and metadata for reference
• Knowledge Workers: Build a personal knowledge base from web content
• Language Learners: Track vocabulary and phrases from online reading

Configuration

Open the Options page (gear icon in the popup) to customise:

• Enable/disable extension, single-click mode, auto-highlight, and floating button
• Configure Protocol(s) with a prettified JSON editor and live validation
• Set keyboard shortcut and modifier keys
• Adjust floating button position offsets
• Configure org-protocol template variables (url, title, note, body)
• Set paw-server address (default: http://localhost:5001)

Privacy

• ✅ No data sent to external servers by default
• ✅ Optional local server integration only (paw-server on localhost)
• ✅ No usage analytics or tracking
• ✅ No third-party telemetry
• ✅ Open source — inspect the code yourself

Emacs Package Integration

• paw.el — Word and note management
• org-protocol — Capture web content directly into Org mode
• wallabag.el — Save articles to Wallabag
• calibredb.el — Open ebooks in browser

For detailed documentation, visit: https://github.com/chenyanming/paw_browser_extension