Adding links with the Chrome extension

Issue Mint for Chrome turns the page you are reading into a link in your next issue, in two clicks. It reads the page, prefills the title and your note, and hands the link to the composer or to your library without you leaving the article.

Installing it, and pairing it with your account

Issue Mint for Chrome is not listed in the Chrome Web Store, so it installs from a folder: open chrome://extensions, turn on developer mode, choose Load unpacked and pick the built extension directory. If the icon is not in your toolbar afterwards, pin Issue Mint from Chrome’s extensions menu.

Installing opens your connect page in a new tab straight away, because that is where the pairing code comes from. You can reach the same page any time from Extension in the dashboard sidebar.

Press Generate a code. Issue Mint shows a code 8 characters long, in upper case, with the characters that get misread for one another left out of the alphabet. It lasts 10 minutes and works once, and generating a new one expires any earlier unused code, so the code on screen is always the only one that works. Type it into the popup and press Connect. A code that is wrong, expired or already used gets the same answer back, which is deliberate: saying which of the three it was tells somebody guessing more than they should know.

Once the code is accepted, the popup confirms which account it paired with and shows where the two clicks are. The browser then appears under Connected browsers on the same page, named for its platform, with the time it was last used beside it.

What the popup fills in for you

Opening the popup reads the page you are on and arrives with the fields already filled: the title, your note, and the address.

Issue Mint prefers what the publisher chose to show when the page is shared, so the title comes from the Open Graph title first and the page’s own title tag second, and your note starts as the page’s own description. The address saved is the canonical URL the page declares, where it declares one, which means a link you picked up from a search result or somebody else’s newsletter does not arrive carrying their campaign tags.

Chrome allows nothing to be injected into its own pages, the web store or a PDF. On those the popup falls back to the tab’s title and address, and you write the rest.

The pickers, and what they remember

Three pickers: newsletter, issue and category. The newsletter picker is hidden entirely if you only run one.

The issue picker lists your draft and scheduled issues, newest number first, up to 20 per newsletter, with scheduled ones marked as such. Below a rule sit two more options: “New issue…”, which creates a draft named Issue and the next number without opening the app, and “Save to library”, which parks the link in your library instead. Choosing Save to library hides the category picker, because a library item carries no section.

The extension remembers the newsletter you used last, and the category per newsletter, so the second save is quicker than the first. It does not remember the issue: the picker defaults to your newest editable issue every time, which is almost always the one you want. Its options page sets both defaults directly.

Sent issues are absent from the list, and the server checks again when you press Add it. If an issue went out while the popup was open, the error appears next to the picker with your text still in the form, so you pick another and save.

Right-clicking a page or a link

Right-click a page for “Add this page to Issue Mint”, or right-click a link for “Add this link to Issue Mint”. Either one opens the popup already filled in.

Whatever text you had selected arrives as your note, and on a link it becomes the title as well. Where Chrome does not permit an extension to open its own popup, a “1” appears on the toolbar icon instead and clicking the icon picks the item up. After a save, the icon shows a tick and clears it a couple of seconds later.

The keyboard shortcut, and why yours may do nothing

The suggested shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+M, or Command+Shift+M on a Mac, and Chrome does not always assign it.

Chrome refuses a combination the browser or another extension already owns, and on some platforms that one is Chrome’s own profile switcher. So the extension asks Chrome what is actually bound and only names a shortcut when there is one: if the first-run screen said nothing about a key, nothing is bound. Set your own at chrome://extensions/shortcuts.

What the extension can and cannot see

The extension holds a token that can read your newsletters and your editable issues, and add a link. It cannot send an issue, change a setting, read your subscriber list or touch billing.

It reads a page only when you act on that page. The script that reads the title and description is injected into the tab you clicked on, at the moment you clicked, rather than declared to run on every site you visit, and the permissions the extension asks Chrome for are the active tab, script injection, local storage for the token and your two defaults, and context menus. The endpoints behind all of this are written down in the extension API reference.

Disconnecting, from either end

Both ends revoke the same token, so either one is enough.

In the extension, open its options page and press Disconnect this browser. It revokes the token on the server and clears it locally whatever the server answers, which is the behaviour you want on a borrowed laptop. In the app, open Extension, find the browser under Connected browsers and press Disconnect: that browser stops working on its next request and the popup returns to the pairing screen.

Reconnecting means a fresh code, because there is no way to reinstate a revoked token. If a browser keeps losing its connection rather than being disconnected once, the disconnection troubleshooting page works through why.