Zotero 7 Beta: Cannot QuickCopy a Note annotation that does not have a comment on it

mjthoraval

Steps to reproduce:
1) Open a PDF file in the Zotero PDF Viewer
2) Make a Note annotation (third button in the top toolbar) without any comment on it
3) Open a note on the right-hand side in the "Notes" pane
4) Drag and drop the Note annotation into the note on the right
--> Nothing happens.
I was expecting to the the citation with the page number to get all the citation links to that page and to the item.

If you add a comment to the Note annotation, it works as expected:
5) Add "a" as a comment on the Note annotation
6) Repeat step 4
--> I get the citation with the page number and the comment on its right.

I would like to use this feature to quickly get a citation link to a specific page of a PDF file. In some cases, there is no specific content to annotate and cite on that page. I just want to link to that page to refer to the whole discussion that is done in there.
I can still add the comment on the Note annotation and then just remove it in the note. But it would seem logical to me to allow a QuickCopy of a Note annotation that does not have any comment on it.

The Debug ID is D1491138702 for doing steps 1 to 4.
Zotero 7.0.0-beta.53+969031a37 (64-bit)
Windows 10

martynas_b

Well, this is intentional but we might want to reconsider that. At least if single annotation is being dragged.

Although this steps shouldn't be necessary if you just want to copy a citation for the current page. Instead, maybe Edit → Copy Citation should take into account the current page number in the reader.

mjthoraval

I see that having a citation to a Note annotation without any comment on it can be a bit confusing, as it does not show any information on what type of annotation it is or why the annotation was added there. But I feel that this confusion could still be quite similar even if there is a comment added to the Note annotation. For example, adding a Note annotation to a figure with the comment: "See in Ref. 2".

So I do not feel that the absence of the comment is really the problem here. Is there any other reason why making a citation to a Note annotation without any comment could be bad?

I think that a Note annotation (with or without a comment) could be a nice way to link to a specific position in a PDF file (not only go to a specific page), especially in places where there is no text, without the constraint of adding an image information.
But it does not work at the moment, because a drag-and-drop of the Note annotation to a Zotero note only produces a "Go to Page" link (broken at the moment). So it seems that it looses the link to the exact position of the Note annotation.
Would it be good maybe to add a note emoji in front of the citation to carry the information that it is citing a Note annotation? That emoji could carry the "Show on Page" link to mirror the structure of the other annotations.

I got confused again in my original post between the Quick Copy and Adding Annotation to Notes. The step 4 ("Drag and drop the Note annotation into the note on the right") would trigger the "Adding Annotation to Notes" and not the "Quick Copy".

For the "Quick Copy" part, I would probably prefer keeping the "Copy Citation" general. So a separate menu option "Edit" → "Copy Page Citation" would probably be better. But if you feel that it would add too many copy options, it should be possible to achieve with the Actions and Tags plugin.

For the "Adding Annotation to Notes" part, a similar option "Add Page Citation to Note" from a right-click on the page in the PDF viewer would be nice.
Also, it seems that there is no way to produce a simple citation to an item in the PDF viewer to a Zotero note? Maybe a drag and drop of the tab title to the note could do the job nicely?

martynas_b

Also, it seems that there is no way to produce a simple citation to an item in the PDF viewer to a Zotero note? Maybe a drag and drop of the tab title to the note could do the job nicely?

For the start, I think, a citation copied with 'Edit' → 'Copy Citation' and pasted into a note should be pasted as an active citation, not just plain text.

And for the page number we have to think a bit more about what is the most convenient way to include it into a copied citation.

mjthoraval

For the start, I think, a citation copied with 'Edit' → 'Copy Citation' and pasted into a note should be pasted as an active citation, not just plain text.

What would be the format of this active citation?

If I choose the Item Format to be "IEEE" in the "Quick Copy" settings, and select one item in My Library:

- 'Edit' → 'Copy Citation' triggers the "Quick Copy". So I will get the corresponding content in my clipboard: "[1]" (plain text only).

- This 'Copy Citation' functionality from the "Quick Copy" tool is also expected to give the same result when doing a drag-and-drop to outside Zotero while holding down Shift, so: "[1]" (plain text only).

If you set your default format to a citation style, press Ctrl/Cmd-Shift-A or hold down Shfit before dragging to copy the in-text ciation or footnote.

- A drag-and-drop of the item to a Zotero note will trigger the "Adding Annotation to Notes", thus generating a citation with links, with settings completely independant of the "Quick Copy". So I get in the note: "(Author et al., 2023)" (with links).

So, by "active citation", do you mean getting:
1) The same result as from the "Adding Annotation to Notes"
or
2) The result of the "Quick Copy" plus the links (same links as with "Adding Annotation to Notes" I guess)

Option 1 feels strange, because the content of the clipboard would be different whether you paste it in a Zotero note or in an external text editor.
Option 2 also feels strange, because you are defining a new type of "active citation" that is not consistent with anything else.

martynas_b

Option 1.

Even though it might seem strange, this could still be expected since all citations in notes are stored in this manner. Have you ever needed to have a plain text citation in a note?

mjthoraval

If option 1, then is it possible also to get a linked citation also when pasting to an external text editor?

Have you ever needed to have a plain text citation in a note?

No, but in the same way as I have also never needed to have a plain text citation in an external text editor.
I agree that a linked citation is better in a Zotero note. But, for the same reason, a linked citation is also better in an external text editor.

I think that it would be better to keep consistent results for the 'Copy Citation' function, when going to a Zotero note or to an external text editor. Having the same function give 2 different results, following 2 completely different logics, depending on the target, will probably be confusing.