Editing info fields is extremely slow
I've noticed lately that editing info fields is extremely slow. Sometimes changing the value of a field locks up Firefox for over a minute -- this is just unacceptable. I have to be able to work more quickly than this. (I can tell that Firefox locks up because my Linux window manager dims windows of applications that are not responding.)
I've tried everything I can think of to speed up Zotero -- I've disabled auto-sync, set Zotero to index 0 pages and 0 characters of each file, and cleared the index. None of this helps. The problem occurs even immediately after a restart and even when no applications other than Firefox (well, and the operating system) are running.
Zotero.org says that I have 1889 items in my library (what I've accumulated during three and a half years of graduate school). This doesn't seem like a huge amount.
I *have to* work more quickly than Zotero is currently allowing me to work. Any suggestions?
I'm currently using Zotero 3.0.11 with Firefox 17.0.1 under Ubunto Linux 10.04.
I've tried everything I can think of to speed up Zotero -- I've disabled auto-sync, set Zotero to index 0 pages and 0 characters of each file, and cleared the index. None of this helps. The problem occurs even immediately after a restart and even when no applications other than Firefox (well, and the operating system) are running.
Zotero.org says that I have 1889 items in my library (what I've accumulated during three and a half years of graduate school). This doesn't seem like a huge amount.
I *have to* work more quickly than Zotero is currently allowing me to work. Any suggestions?
I'm currently using Zotero 3.0.11 with Firefox 17.0.1 under Ubunto Linux 10.04.
I've also recently rolled back to 10.04 from 11.10, in large part because 11.10 pushes the user in a variety of unpleasant directions and, more pertinently, is much slower on my computer (which is nearly three years old) -- Ubuntu 12.04 tends to favor eye candy over speed and usability, in my opinion. (Should you so desire, you can see a long list of my beefs with 11.10 at http://patrickbrianmooney.tumblr.com/post/35699617719/things-i-really-hate-on-being-strong-armed-into.) In any case, 10.04 is still being supported, and the problem was actually worse in later versions. I'm loathe to upgrade my operating system to a version that hogs resources more intensely unless it's likely to actually solve the problem, or to think that I have to use bleeding-edge hardware and software to get a minimally usable user experience from Zotero: I'm a grad student living on a TA salary in one of the ten most expensive urban areas in the country, and can't afford to keep up to date with the latest and greatest. I just need usable citation management software.
I found my Zotero run a bit slowly on Firefox using Ubuntu on an old-ish computer and used Standalone for editing and using the Word plugin (sharing the data directory with Zotero for Firefox - the default on install), which I still used for importing from the web. But also, I used a five year old computer with a database more than twice as large, and delays were seconds not minutes, so something else is going on.
Provide a debug ID for editing any field in Zotero:
http://www.zotero.org/support/debug_output
(As for Ubuntu - sounds like you'll want to move over to Mint eventually?)
(I think I will move to Mint eventually -- and might look into this over the winter break.)
(Of course, when I try to get a debug ID, it's substantially faster than normal, although still kind of slow.)
Does it improve if you close the tag selector before making changes (or if you toggle off "Show Automatic" in the tag selector menu)?
If you don't have the tag selector open this doesn't apply.