Some new features?

Q-bit

Hey,

just started using Zotero after ditching Mendeley for good.

But some features I would still like to see:

1. Addition of more theses types such as master thesis, bachelor thesis (or also Diplom thesis for older German works), habilitation would also be good. Perhaps even a category like "poster" (even though it's rather unusual).
2. Some PhD thesis allow the addition via DOIs already, would be cool to add this as well (currently it is saved journal article if not changed manually afterwards).
3. Would it be possible that after adding a .pdf file to my Zotero library that the original file gets deleted and instantly gets copied over to the Zotero (so there is no file twice on your PC, it would save time to manually delete the original .pdf).
4. To be able to save an entire *Book Series* under one big category with several sub-categories for the individual books would also be neat.



Best regards

aborel

Requests for new document types or fields are fairly common, but usually the need is already covered by existing functionality. Here's my (somewhat subjective) evaluation for these ones:
1. Check https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/item_types_and_fields to see which existing types and fields can be used for this.
2. I trust that it will happen in the near future (as with most document types), meanwhile you can use an Extra field that many styles will understand https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/item_types_and_fields#citing_fields_from_extra (it should be automatically migrated when the official DOI field is introduced for the document types that do not have it yet).
3. [Could be useful, but I don't know what priority it would have for developers.] OK, so this already exists.
4. Probably not feasible. Such multiple, and sometimes massive, downloads would probably be identified as abuse by the content providers, with personal or institutional consequences (blocked access, unpleasant discussions with IT or library staff...)

tim820

1. You enter the thesis type in the right Info pane for the Thesis item type. Those types then appear in the dropdown as options once you have added more theses of different types and then start to type in that field.

3. If you mean dragging a PDF from your computer into Zotero, there are different shortcuts:
On Windows, drag copies the PDF into Zotero (ie leaving the original where it was), Shift+drag moves it, and Ctrl+Shift+drag creates a 'linked' PDF (ie link to its current location).

adamsmith

Re 4: we'll likely get a periodical item type (CSL now has one). Book Series are probably close enough to fit (they are "serials" and can have an ISSN).

dstillman

But on (3), the larger point is that in normal usage of Zotero you would usually be saving from the web using the Zotero Connector, so you wouldn't have an original file on disk. (Obviously a file from an email or something like that might be an exception.)