Scholar Alert Digest for Google Apps Script

Overview

This repository contains a JavaScript adaptation of Alexander Bezzubov's original Go-based project bzz/scholar-alert-digest, designed to run on Google Apps Script. The purpose of this adaptation is to streamline the process of reviewing Google Scholar alerts by combining them into a single digest, with the added feature of posting alerts to Slack.

Purpose

To reduce the effort of checking multiple Google Scholar Alerts emails by consolidating them into a single, organized report and posting that summary to Slack.

Features include

• Aggregation of alerts: Gathers information from Google Scholar Alert emails into a consolidated report.
• Sort by Alert Count: Sorts the collected literature information by the number of alerts.
• Slack integration: This script can post the sorted and aggregated alerts to Slack.
• Save to buttons: Save paper data to your notebook applications by a click.
• Proxy: Append proxy URL to access papers through your organization.

Prerequisites

• Google Scholar Alerts must be set up to arrive in your Gmail, and this script (Google Apps Script) should be run by the same Google Account.
  • Please label the Google Scholar Alerts emails with a specific label (e.g. Google Scholar).
• The script should be created with the same Google account that receives these Scholar Alerts in Gmail.
• You have a your own Slack App installed to the Slack workspace where the alerts to be sent by the Slack App.
  • You have a Slack token and the ID of the Slack channel where the alerts are posted.
  • Make sure the Slack App has the chat:write permission.
  • To get the Slack token, you can check the official tutorial: https://api.slack.com/tutorials/tracks/getting-a-token
• You should have nodejs installed on your local machine if you use clasp.

Usage

Create a Google Apps Script project and upload the script

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/FlechaMaker/scholar-alert-digest-js.git
cd scholar-alert-digest-js

# Install clasp and login to Google
npm install -g @google/clasp
clasp login  # Make sure to login with the same Google account that receives the Scholar Alerts!

# Create a new Google Apps Script project
clasp create --type standalone --title "Scholar Alert Digest"

# Upload the script to the Google Apps Script project
clasp push

# Open the Google Apps Script project to continue the following settings
clasp open

or you can manually copy and paste JavaScript files (.js) to the Google Apps Script project.

Setting up the script properties

Set the following script properties in the Google Apps script configuration.

Gmail

Property Name	Required?	Description	Example
GMAIL_LABEL	Yes	Gmail label for Google Scholar Alerts.	Google Scholar

Slack

Property Name	Required?	Description	Example
SLACK_TOKEN	Yes	Slack token for authentication.	xoxb-00000...
SLACK_CONVERSATION_ID	Yes	ID of the Slack channel where the alerts are posted.	C000000000000

Proxy

Property Name	Required?	Description	Example
PROXY_URL	No	Proxy URL to access papers through your organization.	https://utokyo.idm.oclc.org/login?url=
PROXY_IGNORE_DOMAINS	No	Space-separated list of domains to ignore the proxy.	arxiv.org dl.acm.org

Obsidian

Property Name	Required?	Description	Example
OBSIDIAN_VAULT	No	Obsidian vault name to save the paper note.	My vault
OBSIDIAN_FOLDER_PATH	No	Obsidian folder path to save the paper note. Set "/" if you save note in root directory.	Articles

Scrapbox

Property Name	Required?	Description	Example
SCRAPBOX_NAME	No	Scrapbox project name to save the paper note.	My project

Usage

Follow main.js for usage examples. Execute main function to aggregate and post alerts. You can schedule the script to run at regular intervals to receive the latest alerts. Make a trigger to run the main on the Google Apps Script project interface.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Alexander Bezzubov for the Go-based implementation of Scholar Alert Digest. This JavaScript adaptation builds on his work with additional functionality for Slack integration.