BookTrack Companion

Track books, import lists, and revisit key takeaways.

BookTrack Companion is a Chrome Manifest V3 extension that helps you maintain a personal reading library inside the browser popup. There is no sign-in, no developer-operated backend, and no bundled web app—the library lives in chrome.storage.local on the user’s machine. Core flows: - Search books using the public Google Books API (volumes search). Results show title and primary author; the user picks a status and adds a book to the local library. Duplicate adds are blocked when the same Google Books volume id is already present. - Library management: change status (Want to read, Reading, Finished), optional progress percent (0–100), optional rating (1–5), and optional takeaway notes. Saving updates timestamps; marking Finished sets finishedAt when it was not already set (used for recall scoring). - Import: paste multiple lines—one book per line—using either "Title - Author" or "Title by Author". En dash (" – "), em dash (" — "), hyphen (" - "), and the word "by" (case-insensitive) are accepted as separators. Lines that cannot be parsed are skipped; duplicate title+author pairs (case-insensitive) are not added again. - Recall: surfaces up to three finished books scored for gentle revisiting (recent edit/finish staleness, whether a takeaway exists, and rough anniversary proximity to finish date). This is read-only information in the UI—no notifications or background alarms. Privacy stance in plain terms: Book metadata and notes you enter are stored locally. Search queries are sent to Google only when you submit the Search form—standard Google Books HTTPS endpoints—not to a separate app server owned by the extension author. FEATURE SUMMARY (TABS AND ACTIONS) ---------------------------------- Search tab: - Text search field and submit; results list with per-row status dropdown (Want to read / Reading / Finished) and Add button. - Status line shows result count or errors. Library tab: - Summary counts: Want / Reading / Finished. - Per-book card: status, progress, rating, takeaway, Save, Delete. - Empty state when the library has no entries. Import tab: - Large textarea for pasted lines; default status selector for newly imported rows; Import button; status line with import and skip counts. Recall tab: - Short explanation and a list of up to three suggested finished books with a reason line and takeaway preview (or “no takeaway” copy). POPUP USER INTERFACE STRINGS (FOR CONSISTENCY WITH THE PRODUCT) --------------------------------------------------------------- Header: - App icon (40×40 display from assets/booktrack-48.png) beside title text - Title: BookTrack - Subtitle: Library, import, and recall in one popup. Tab labels: - Search - Library - Import - Recall Search: - Label: Find books - Placeholder: Title, author, keyword - Button: Search Library: - Empty: No books tracked yet. - Labels: Status; Progress (0-100); Rating (1-5); Takeaway - Buttons: Save; Delete Import: - Hint: One book per line. Use "Title - Author" or "Title by Author". - Placeholder lines (examples): Atomic Habits - James Clear; Dune by Frank Herbert - Status options: Want to read; Reading; Finished - Button: Import Recall: - Intro: Top finished books to revisit. - Empty recall: No finished books yet. Mark one as finished to unlock recall prompts. CONTEXT MENU STRINGS -------------------- (none — the extension does not register context menus or a service worker.)