Zotero 7 Beta: Click on "URL" and "DOI" in the Item Pane

mjthoraval

I was used to clicking on "URL" and "DOI" in the Item Pane to open them in a browser.
In the new update, they can be opened by clicking on an icon at the end of the line (View Online), appearing only when hovering the mouse over that line.

Would it be possible to recover the click from the name "URL" and "DOI" on the left? That gives a bit larger area, so easier to click.

Would it make sense also to move all the small icons on the right side of the fields in the Item Pane (Open Context Menu and View Online) to the left side of the field name (Author, Book Title, Short Title, ...)? Or even on the name of the field itself?

All these options are already accessible from a right-click on the field, or a drag-and-drop of the authors, so I guess the main purpose of these icons is for keyboard accessibility. But the same functionality could be achieved in the same way from the left, without loosing the space at the end of the line. These additional icons plus the sidenav put together has reduced the horizontal useful space in a noticeable way.

adamsmith

FWIW, I think the new design is much better. Among other things, the old behavior was virtually impossible to discover and I'm guessing <10% of Zotero users were aware. The new option is much more aligned with standard behavior and the difference in clicking surface really is tiny.

Also don't think moving icons to the left is a good idea: having the actual field names left-align seems strongly preferable for readability (and hiding them entirely, again, goes against discoverability -- the interface does need to be intuitive not just for someone who already knows where everything is)

dstillman

Yeah, what adamsmith said.

But I think it's actually just a bug that the space for the View Online button is reserved when not hovering. It should work like the Creator buttons, where it uses the full width by default and only shortens on hover as necessary to make room for them. We'll fix that.

DWL-SDCA

Personal example from a user since early 2007. Since the very beginning, I had been copying the DOI and pasting it into a browser window or double-clicking the title from the stacked-view list to go to the journal article at a publisher's website (when a PubMed record didn't contain an abstract). This was operator error on my part, I'll admit. That said, I really appreciate the new UI because I have been saved several copy-paste and click steps. The new UI immediately demonstrated a better way.

mjthoraval

I agree with the left alignment being better. But it seems that this has not changed since the beginning of Zotero? Are there plans to move in this direction?

I have just double checked again: in Zotero 6, the full length between the left of the Item Pane and the right side of the field name was clickable for DOI and URL. This is a very large difference compared to a small icon on the right side that becomes visible only after hovering (~5x).

The new design is ok if the space is not reserved when not hovering. But from my experience, it takes me more than twice more time to open a link in the new interface compared to the previous one: move vertically to the DOI or URL line to activate the button, and then move right to catch it.

I understand the standard behavior argument for the edit menus (Open Context Menu) to be on the right side. But I feel that a button to open a link is different from an edit menu. It is not used for the same purpose, so I would not put it at the same place.

It is not a big issue, and I will probably get used to it.
But, is there any reason not to keep the old way at the same time as the new button? Is there any drawback for having the field name clickable for the DOI and the URL? With the current alignment or a left-alignement, it should all work the same?

dstillman

Is there any drawback for having the field name clickable for the DOI and the URL?

Yes, clicking field labels now behaves how it should (and how all properly coded forms behave), automatically selecting the associated text box. We can't have two of them randomly launch a web browser.

mjthoraval

Thank you for the explanations.

mjthoraval

Maybe use some key modifier to make the URL/DOI lines clickable? Like Ctrl + Enter or Ctrl + Click?

Or use some key modifier to open the URL and DOI directly from the item in the center pane (Alt)? I have seen this post for example: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/93419/opening-url-rather-than-pdf-shortcut

dstillman

You can just right-click → View Online.

mjthoraval

The View Online has moved down a long right-click menu, so that is not much faster.
It is just a small thing. Thank you for your replies.

dstillman

No it hasn't? If there's a PDF, it's the third entry, the same as in Zotero 6.

mjthoraval

Zotero 6:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u265723/txecdhp8rswcyqg1khea.png

Zotero 7:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u265723/52pv04a7b9cjhwxq7hzm.png

dstillman

I'm talking about the items list context menu. I'm saying you can just right-click on the item row and choose View Online if you don't want to open the PDF — you don't need to go hunting around the item pane.

(We might move the custom options in the field context menus to the top, though. Requested here.)

dstillman

(Actually, the presence of those text-editing options is just a bug. Explained in the linked thread.)

dstillman

In beta 57, the URL/DOI fields use the full width except when hovered, and right-clicking on a field no longer triggers edit mode, which keeps the context menu much shorter.

mjthoraval

Thank you very much, this is working nicely for the URL/DOI icons on the right.

Just a very small thing for the right-click: I was expecting that a right-click on a field should still exit any previous edit mode of a text field. I can for example select the text in the Short Title, then right-click in the field URL, and it would still show the highlighted content in Short Title. This could be a bit confusing on what is actually copied, but I am not sure if that is the intended behaviour.