Can we hope for batch editing in Zotero 7 ?

Anthea_Liles

This feature seems to be planned

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u14083416/rlukhvdb4lrry8ssgiba.png

But, while digging into the forum before writting this message, i've found that this subject is :
- Old
- Strongly asked

So, can we hope to see this feature implemented in Z7 instead of relying in custom JS scripting (from the normie standpoint it's a bit disapointed)

Not to mention that Zutilo and co. arn't supported on Z7
And, for such an important feature, I thin that it should be natively implemented.

Thanks for your insight :)

---

Some old post related :
2008
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/3707/multiple-edit
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/3226/editing-multiple-items/
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/4661/edit-multiple-references-at-once/

2009
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/7707/find-and-replace-on-multiple-items/
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/7201/mass-tagging/

2010
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/14162/edit-authors-name-in-multiple-items
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/13146/add-multiple-tags-at-once/

2011
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/17648/tagging-multiple-items-at-once/

2013
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/31380/deleting-several-tags-at-once/
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/31839/edit-multiple-items-at-once/

2014
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/40792/editing-multiple-items-at-once/

2016
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/56473/modify-tags-of-multiple-items/
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/63331/edit-same-field-for-multiple-items
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/62616/can-i-edit-a-field-in-multiple-entries-at-the-same-time

2017
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/64634/batch-change-information-of-a-field-for-many-items
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/64065/tagging-multiple-items-at-once
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/65814/editing-multiple-items-at-once

2019
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/78245/i-need-javascript-code-to-change-a-lot-items-type

2022
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/96686/how-to-delete-in-mass-contents-of-a-field
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/63331/edit-same-field-for-multiple-items/p2
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/100455/edit-multiple-entries
(strange move for tags implemented ?) https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/101450/zotero-tags-tag-multiple-items-at-once

Anthea_Liles

To showcase how this function can be implemented i've done a lil diagram

I've seen an implementation like this one in logseq where a community member embed Luckysheet and this was really lightweight and efficient
https://github.com/sethyuan/logseq-plugin-luckysheet

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u14083416/q9dd1blio0nmghz97pph.png

mileshastie

100% support! I've posted in parallel. If I can add, another implementation model that works pretty well is SharePoint Document Libraries. When you select multiple items, it displays in the sidebar all the field values, with *common* field values listed, and some placeholder text where there are mixed values for that field. You can simply type to replace a common value or harmonized values. IMHO, this use case, of changing manually-selected item values, is more urgent than a single-field or multi-field 'find and replace'.

micha

I agree as well. IMHO, the lack of simple batch editing methods is by far the most severe limitation of Zotero.

damnation

You can just use this:
https://github.com/thalient-ai/zotero-scripts/tree/main/zotero-bulk-edit