Item preview and number of items in the library
I switched from Endnote a couple of weeks ago and I'm loving Zotero. However, two key features of Endnote are not easily seen in Zotero: Viewing a selected item on screen in a selected style (e.g., APA) and seeing the overall number of items i have in My Library or in a subset. Can somebody point me to the right buttons I should click or are these features not available in Zotero? Thanks a lot.
(2) If you type
chrome://zotero/content/tools/csledit.xul
in your address bar you get a pane to preview styles for selected references. Also, the Styles repository at http://zotero.org/styles has handy style previews if you mouse over them.I think the preview panel (to which you can obviously just make a bookmark) is generally great for that - the only problem is that, while style changes take effect immediately, you need to press refresh everytime you select a different item. For the style testing purposes I'm using the panel for that's fine, but for Peter's use that makes it a bit clumsy.
I'm just saying that some errors can be more quickly spotted using citation preview and that thinking about ways to facilitate that would be a good thing.
I'm very concious about GUI constraints in that context, which is why I think improving the preview panel functionality is probably the way to go.
One error I caught with the preview function yesterday following Mark's tip was that all book editors in book-chapter entries were automatically turned into Contributors during my switch from Endnote. I couldn't see editors in those entries, looked at the right panel, and realised that I should manually turn each Contributor into an editor. And after that things were fine in the preview.
Another problem was pdf files. I followed the standard suggestions during the switch. It seems now that all pdf files have been turned into links in the URL field to their locations in my hard disk. This was ok for journal articles cos I don't need the real URL in the final format. But the preview yesterday of articles from online journals, databases, websites, etc. gave me returns like "Retrieved from file://F:\Bibliography\...". On top of that, access dates were combined into the Date field.
These may be caused by Endnote export, but without an easy way to catch problems or see each item in its desired format is like doing anything without the ability to monitor your own actions and give yourself online feedback.
I have over 3900 entries, and over 2000 pdf files. Formidable task ahead if I have to manually check and correct errors without a built-in preview panel. I wonder if anyone has similar experiences and how they did it.
By the way, I'm just a middle-aged academic who's not technology savvy. It was like a life-long dream come true when I realised how Zotero could integrate bibiliography management with note-taking. I made the switch only about 10 days ago. I'm sure I can work out the glitches with your help.
the notion of "type the line" seems pretty negligible considering the existence of tabs and bookmarks.
Otherwise it's as mark said - you probably want to read up on some of the problems other peopel have had in their switch from Endnote and the solutions they propose. Both issues you raise: editor-contributors and links to files can and should be solved automatically during import. I don't think it's acceptable for anyone to do this manually - with or without preview function.
I do not object to the existing preview panel at all. I think it's excellent. It's just that I thought having a preview panel on screen all the time would be more convenient in terms of online checking each time a new item is added. Going to the bookmarks and bringing the preview panel up each time does the job, but a little tediously.
Now that I found the two problems I mentioned above, I've been trying to catch up with the reading for a whole day today. I still haven't found a solution. Please help and point me to a link that helps me solve 1/ the editor-contributor problem, and 2/ all pdf files in URL field. I'm using the beta version of Zotero, Firefox 3.5, and I exported from Endnote X2.
As I was reading, I found Mark's comments in August about the majority of new users of Zotero possibly being intimated by the complexities of switching from Endnote. I am one of these intimidated new users. I spent so much time searching for the right program because I was not happy with Endnote being so slow at incorporating the note-taking function. I bought MS OneNote and found that it was not what I was looking for. After I found Zotero, I then spent days reading up about it, and finally came up with the courage to make the switch. I'm now so happy about what Zotero can do, and so frustrated that I have to spend so much time searching and reading and still can't get easy solutions.
Maybe somebody more tech-savvy can look into this.
Otherwise, it is fairly easy to import all book chapters separately, by sorting in endnote for book chapter, select and export. then change all the fields by hand. Finally inverse the selection in endnote and export the rest.