[Solved] URL bar icon does not appear on Google Scholar

obsrvr

GS is moving more forcefully toward its new "modern" interface, which will be especially dramatic for GS Advanced users. See here: http://googlescholar.blogspot.com/2012/05/our-new-modern-look.html

It is quite clear they are intending to phase-out what they describe as the "traditional" GS interface. The new GS-Adv. interface is seriously buggy and cumbersome. But the worst thing is that I can no longer get the Zotero translator icons to even display in the address field when using GS or GS-Adv! This is deeply confounding.

FWIW I use Zotero 3.08 and Firefox 14.01 (although the same problem applied when I was using 13) on a windows laptop. Any fixes pending? Tips?

I'm hoping this problem is temporary and narrow in impacted users, because it is a SERIOUS impediment for me. Guidance (or solace) welcome.

---Andy
acarruth@gmu...

fbennett

I've taken a look. The adjustments required are not major. I'll post proposed changes to GitHub, and once they are reviewed, the translator should start working against the Advanced thingme within a day or so.

(Edit: Changed "not minor" to "not major" -- sorry if that gave anyone a start.)

fbennett

I've submitted the patch. Someone with write access to the translators repository will test it and run it in, probably within the next day or so.

https://github.com/zotero/translators/issues/432

Simon

This is now fixed. Zotero should automatically pull the updated translator within 24 hours. Alternatively, you can click the "Update now" button in the General pane of the Zotero preferences.

moshki

...and then restart firefox ; )

romnoose

This is not just a problem for Firefox - I'm using the Chrome extension and experiencing the same problem. The icon never shows up at all, no matter what I search for. I tried reinstalling the extension and it did nothing.

Simon

If you have Zotero Standalone open, click "Update now" in the Zotero preferences. Then restart Chrome (or clear the cache and disable/re-enable the extension).

obsrvr

I'm very grateful for the prompt attention to my concerns. Thx.

Unfortunately, while the restored translators for Google Scholar can once again be used to download the selected citations pronto, they fail to work by saving screen shots or by downloading the relevant, selected articles, even when logged in through the library proxy.

Any sense of how long that functionality is liable to remain off-line (down)? Sorry I'm not more helpful myself.

--Andy

Cassandra2323

After trying to update, I am still unable to see the icon or download citations. Am using the library proxy and Firefox

Thanks

fbennett

Any sense of how long that functionality is liable to remain off-line (down)? Sorry I'm not more helpful myself.

Well, we've done pretty well so far, at four hours to a fix from the first report.

I'll take another look in a bit if no one else picks it up.

fbennett

@Isis: The change to the site was relatively small -- the Google folks just wrapped the links with an additional styling block. If the translator is still not working for you, I would look into whether the translator has updated first. You have restarted Firefox?

fbennett

@Isis, @obsrvr,

Well, that's interesting.

It looks like Google have changed the HTML of the site at some point within the past four hours, so the fix I put up no longer works. There's not much we can do about this until the site makes up its mind what it wants its pages to look like.

Let's give it a day to settle.

obsrvr

I may have contributed inadvertently to Google's flip-flopping by offering them critical feedback on the new GS interfaces, including but not limited to my concerns about interacting with Zotero.

If it is helpful, the contact e-mail address I have is this: scholar-support@google.com

I have received only unuseful automated responses from them, but it is possible they may have responded already with some programming changes. Wow.

Let me emphasize that I dazzled by the responsiveness of you Zotero wonks. MUCH appreciated. My follow-up was only intended to show that the mechanism for downloading a series of journal articles from a GS search was (and is) not working, after the bibliographic mechanism (translators) was restored.

What's more, though I have no programming experience, I am thrilled with Zotero overall, and would like to contribute what I can. I hope to give a workshop to fellow grad students in my department, and I'm more than willing to contribute my time. Other than these forums, is there a way or a place where I can develop expertise useful to this enterprise (rather than just opine as I have)? TIA.

---Andy

fbennett

Thanks for your note. It looks like the layout is stable now. I'm doing a little reshuffling in my GitHub account that will make it easier for me to submit translator patches. I have made the little changes necessary in the translator to get the basics working, I'll push them through as soon as I have a submission pipeline going (or someone else might take care of it before I'm done).

I haven't used the latest Google Scholar translator much, and I have a question about its expected behavior. When an article is linked to (say) JSTOR, and I have my JSTOR proxy enabled (and so have access to licensed full text content), should grabbing the item in GS pull through the PDF of the article, or is the expected behavior to get a snapshot of the JSTOR page for the article? I'm getting the latter, and I'm curious whether that's normal, or whether something is still broken.

obsrvr

To clarify (hopefully): the capacity to do a batch download of actual journal articles for a given keyword search is my main concern using GS and its advanced interface and Zotero's proxy server log-in to my university library (GMU, incidentally). However, it may be worth noting the example you chose---JSTOR---is a bit tricky and seemingly unique.

Even after the proxy server log-in, JSTOR articles will NOT download until one clicks one-time on the JSTOR permission/consent link for any specific article to acknowledge terms of license/access. That must be done only once per log-in/session, as batch downloads from JSTOR will subsequently behave as any other academic or publisher database (so long as my university library subscribes, of course).

Not trying to get too far into the weeds, but wanted to offer the caveat to you (and the tip for other Zotero users who may not understand why JSTOR articles can be problematic in batch downloads using Zotero and GS).

Incidentally, the capacity to use GS-Advanced to do sophisticated searches by author or journal using key phrases and other authors' names is potentially transformative like no other tool(s) I've seen in graduate school. Most of the "scholarly" databases I've had occasion to use are woefully incomplete, under-indexed or inefficient (or all three). I expect more and more Zotero users will using it in tandem with GS. Sky's the limit.

Thx for your efforts.