Install and first run

Radiowriter is a Python program. It starts a small server on your own computer and serves a page to your own browser — nothing is hosted anywhere, and no page of yours leaves the machine.

Install

One command, the same on macOS, Linux and Windows:

uv tool install radiowriter

Or the very latest

uv tool install git+https://github.com/gmadevs/Radiowriter installs from the repository instead of from the index: whatever is on main right now, released or not.

Then, whenever you want it:

radiowriter

It prints a link and opens http://localhost:8501. Ctrl+C in the terminal stops it.

If you do not have uv

macOS and Linux:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Windows, in PowerShell:

powershell -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

pipx install radiowriter does the same job if you already have pipx.

Updating is uv tool upgrade radiowriter. Removing it is uv tool uninstall radiowriter, and your archive stays where it is.

First run

The app asks for one thing: an email address.

It is not a sign-up. Two of the services it calls — PubMed and Unpaywall — ask for a contact address in every request, so that when a script starts hammering their servers they can warn whoever is running it instead of silently blocking the address. There is nothing to register for, no confirmation mail, and the address is stored on your computer.

Three more are optional and can wait:

	What it buys you
NCBI API key	10 requests a second instead of 3. Free, from your NCBI account settings.
Semantic Scholar key	Faster citation lookups. Works without one.
LibKey library ID	Direct full-text links through your library's subscription. It is your library's Third Iron ID, the number in libkey.io/libraries/<ID>/….

You can add them later under ⚙️ Settings in the sidebar.

Journal quartiles

Quartiles and SJR need one file, and it is not bundled: SCImago's data is CC BY-NC and it is a new file every year.

1. Go to scimagojr.com/journalrank.php
2. Download data — the link at the top right of the table
3. Drop the CSV into the folder that radiowriter --where prints

Any name starting with scimagojr works. The app loads it at the next start, matches your articles by ISSN, and tells you how many it matched under 📊 Journal metrics in the sidebar.

Next year, drop the new file in beside it: the most recent name wins.

Where things are kept

radiowriter --where

macOS	~/Library/Application Support/Radiowriter
Linux	~/.local/share/radiowriter
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Radiowriter

One SQLite file holds everything. To keep it somewhere else — an external disk, a synced folder — set RADIOWRITER_HOME:

RADIOWRITER_HOME=/Volumes/work/radiowriter radiowriter

See Backup and moving computer before you copy it around.