Feature request : Questions about web page snapshots, and mhtml format support

BlackJack1349

Hello,

I often use the web page snapshot function, usually after translating the web page content into a specific language and save it as a web page snapshot, but when I open this web page snapshot after a while, the layout of the web page snapshot will be messed up, which seriously affects the reading.
The solution I came up with is to save the web page in mhtml format, so that even if you open the mhtml after a long time, the layout will not change.
It would be great if Zotero Connector could support saving web pages as mhtml files and Zotero could support reading mhtml web pages.

Thanks!

YanMing

dstillman

This is some sort of misunderstanding. All snapshots saved by Zotero in the last few years are single-file snapshots with embedded images and all JavaScript removed, so they are static files that won't change.

It's not impossible for a page to not save properly, but that would be apparent immediately upon first viewing.

Snapshots saved before mid-2020 were in a different format, and those were more likely to break if remote resources changed and to save incorrectly to begin with.

But there's nothing special about .mhtml. Zotero's current snapshots are just single-file versions of the same idea.

BlackJack1349

Thank you very much for your reply!

I think there was indeed a misunderstanding. It should have been saved without even if indeed the snapshots were saved correctly (I'll keep an eye on it later on when I run into this problem and give feedback if I have any issues).

Also, there is a situation that happens when it is used before:

Zotero Connector saves the documentation, snapshots are saved incorrectly, but the entry is already created in Zotero. Then I had to delete the entry in Zotero and save it again in the browser with the Zotero Connector, at which point I needed to refresh the web page or else the Zotero Connector wouldn't be able to save the document again. As you know there are a lot of articles and it takes a lot of time to do the web page translation each time, especially when encountering review-type literature, this can take a lot of time, especially when the computer performance is not quite enough.

Would it be possible to add a feature that allows you to manually save snapshots to an already created entry after failing to save the snapshots, or some other solution to the problem I'm experiencing?

Thanks!

YanMing

dstillman

I'm still not sure what you mean. Snapshots shouldn't fail to save, and if they do, reloading the page shouldn't then work. If that's happening regularly for you, there's some more general problem.

BlackJack1349

That way, if I have this problem next time, I'll take a screenshot to note how the error occurred and give feedback.