paper_finder is a Python 3 script that accepts a journal citation as its input and attempts to open
the default web browser to the online article. Journal information is stored in a YAML database.
I'm an organic chemist, so the default database is populated with chemistry journals. Contribution
of additional journals to journal_def.yaml is welcome.
It is intended as a command-line utility, so input should be in the format paper_finder.py abb v123 1234, where abb is the abbreviation/name of the journal, 123 is the volume number and 1234 is
the page number. When possible, it can be used to find papers by year with paper_finder.py abb y1999 1234. If the v/y prefix is omitted, it is assumed that the number is a volume number. It is
very handy when coupled with a launcher, like Alfred.
The script is inspired by the Chemistry Reference Resolver. Frankly, the Chemistry Reference Resolver is a more powerful tool, but this utility is easily customized to add/remove journals and change abbreviations, which can be handy.
Notes:
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Requires installation of PyYAML
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Non-Safari users will need to switch the commented out lines at the very end of the script.