Bug? Document preferences button won't show preferences menu on Word (Windows)

guidobuezas
Today my partner was giving a short course on Zotero, and I was helping him. Several participants had a peculiar problem when citing for their first time:

1 - They used the Zotero menu in Word to add cites to a document, selecting a random style (mostly Nature, if not all, which is highlighted by default). Then they added some cites. It worked fine.

2 - Then they tried to change the style by opening "Document preferences" menu. But, instead of the menu, Zotero kept showing the red bar, just like when you add a cite.

3 - We figure out that clicking the Z button, opening Classic view and then exiting allowed us to open Document preferences menu correctly. I tried on my own computer and this bug didn't appeared, but as I'm writing this I tried again and the "always showing red bar" bug appeared. Hitting Esc (so closing the red bar) also allows to open Document preferences as it should.

We only tried this with MS Word (at least 2010 and 2019), and it happened on Ms Windows (10 and 11). My partner has a Mac and it didn't happened to him.

Best regards!
  • dstillman
    edited September 29, 2023
    That just means you had the citation open in the background and hadn't closed it (e.g., by clicking behind it instead of closing it properly, either by adding a citation or pressing Esc). If one of the plugin windows is open, pressing any button will just bring it to the front.
  • guidobuezas
    I understand. As user, I think it would be nice to new users to change this behavior. Is not trivial that if you don't close the bar properly it will block other actions. And it's pretty common that if you can hide/exit a menu by clicking outside, it won't block you for open another feature.

    This was a problem for at least 4 people. Maybe because we were on a course (and I were near them) they immediately looked for help instead of try to solve themselves. I know it's a detail, but I think it worth to improve the experience for people who are in their first steps and still doubts to adopt (or change to) Zotero.

    Thanks for your time!
  • dstillman
    We'll see what we can do.
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