Zotero 7 "Rename File from Parent Metadata" not working?
Hi, I just upgraded last night and I am not sure if this has been brought up already, but I just added a few items that imported the main citation fine, but the attached PDF was just titled "Full Text PDF". When I right-clicked that and selected "Rename File from Parent Metadata", a little dialogue box says that that action is happening, but then nothing changes and The file still is titled "Full Text PDF". I thought I should quit Zotero and relaunch to see if it would update, but nothing. When I select "Show in Finder", it DOES show that the file has been renamed with the appropriate name ("Author - Year - etc etc"), but it still doesn't show it within Zotero. Is there a setting I need to change? Or is this a bug that needs to be fixed? Thanks, Samantha
edit: attaching screenshot that shows how the attached PDF title looks in Zotero, and how it looks in "Show in Finder"
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u1713377/h4lfw8du564li76dvd9s.jpg
edit: attaching screenshot that shows how the attached PDF title looks in Zotero, and how it looks in "Show in Finder"
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u1713377/h4lfw8du564li76dvd9s.jpg
And to be clear, Zotero has always renamed files automatically. Unless you edited the metadata after saving the item, you never need to run Rename File from Parent Metadata, and an upcoming version will automatically keep the filename in sync with the parent item metadata.
OK, that's great to hear that "an upcoming version will automatically keep the filename in sync with the parent item metadata" ! Do you mean it will then display it visually in the item itself? And do you know when this "upcoming version" may be released?
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u1713377/d4qgi0y0q2wpe1yfwynr.jpg
And no, it's not correct to say that the actual filename was visible in Zotero 6 — Zotero has always had attachment titles like "Full Text PDF" that were separate from the filename. Again, the linked section explains the exact difference in behavior and the reasons the title might have been getting set to the filename before.
I understand that zotero may not intend to display the full names before, but that was actually more convenient (to me, at least).
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u8801794/pqs9br2a2vck2a4veygv.png
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u8801794/l3crr95rg2xhgo6d1d29.png
Well, for the reasoning of the preference:
The current display is alright, and I see the point here - the window looks clean and neat, without showing repetitive information.
However, I personally think the previous display is more convenient, because "PDF" doesn't show any identifying information - one raw is just fine, but when you get a block of items with the same naming for the files, it's easy to click the wrong file. When the full names of the files are displayed, I won't have to shift my eyes to the right panel or other places, to double check if I'm going for the right file.
More importantly, you don't actually need to expand the parent item at all to open the attachment — you can just double-click on the parent item without expanding it. And the simpler naming prevents parent items from being unnecessarily expanded in the first place when you search for the title or author in All Fields & Tags mode. Your screenshots show exactly that: I don't know if the first screenshot was for a search, but in the second screenshot, "PDF" didn't match the search and wouldn't cause the parent item to be expanded, so you just wouldn't need to look at it at all in order to open it.
My preference could also just all because that I became familiar with the previous version, I will try to get used to the current version.
"In any case, as we've said repeatedly, we plan to offer an option to show the filename instead of the attachment title for people who prefer that. "
I am wondering if such an option is planned or not, and when available.
Timelines for development are generally not announced by the Zenodo developers.
I know this isn't existential but fwiw, I agree it's better to show the filename, not generic file format info in the list. I have read the linked page and get it but, if nothing else, the correct filename signals that the (stored) file has been updated.
Also, there are also lots of attachments in my library that persist in showing the original filename gobbledygook, not "PDF" (or anything else), even after selecting rename from parent metadata.
Bring on the option to show filename! :)
And if you are manually running Rename File from Parent Metadata after making manual updates to the metadata, in Zotero 7 we added a popup in the bottom right to show that the filename is being changed. (This will also become unnecessary soon, as we'll be adding continuous file renaming as metadata is changed.) Yes, because Rename File from Parent Metadata no longer overwrites the simpler titles unnecessarily. That was a bug that has been fixed. The linked page contains some code you can run to quickly change existing attachments with titles based on the filename to use "PDF" instead. Clean titles everywhere!
And also
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/440321/#Comment_440321
I understand @dstillman and other Zotero developers decision on management of attachment titles, but I do not understand, why, if so many users want to see the filenames in the middle pane instead, they do not offer that option, even if they believe with good reasons to it that it is a worse option.
https://www.zotero.org/support/file_renaming#attachment_title_vs_filename
The fact that all my pre-7 PDFs show the filename in the item list makes newly added items appear broken.
I am inclined to return to version 6 until this is a user-configurable option in 7.
I was running a beta test version of ZOterro thats ahead of the current version and was so annoyed that I reverted to the base version to see if it was a bug in the dev version to submit a bug report.
I dont mind if the developers prefer it that way, I would like to have the option to change it, just like it was before all these years. Thanks!
Context: I like having a filename that includes date, title, author, keyword just in case I need to use it outside of Zotero. For example, copying to someone, or just in case I ever have a Zotero meltdown - I can extract the files from the storage and be able to identify them. Never say never.
I really liked the option of keeping the file title the same as the filename in Zotero 6, because my filenames contain useful info for me at a glance. Can this be reinstated as an option? Currently with Zotero 7 I have to copy the filename and paste to the file title.
Even with the advanced syntax of Zotero file naming, I can't quite get the filename that I want, so I adjust it, no issue. If the planned future Zotero renames the files when metadata changes, that'll mess up my filename - can we have an option to not update the file title and filename?
Now for the topic on renaming files vs. seeing the actual filename instead of the generic "PDF" attachment title in one record I very much understand that this is just a different approach to label this item as "PDF" instead of formerly showing the redunant information of the acutal file name at this place.
It wouldn't be a problem for me if evey record in my database had only one single file attached to it. I am used to attach multiple pdfs to one single record, e.g. when scanning chapters from a book and storing them separate as "chapter 1", "chapter 2", "front matter" etc. under one single record (i.e. the book the chapters were scanned from). Also, when working with historical sources that are physically stored in one single dossier, the 'multiple files stored in one record'-approach has sometimes advantages, e.g. for when I want to cite only the dossier and not any single document in it (i.e. the citation then points to the dossier). For now, when I create a new parent record and attach my scans to them, the first one I drag onto that record gets the "PDF" label and is being renamed according to the metadata of this record; only from the second one on, the actual filename is shown as a label (instead of "PDF"), and only those files are not automatically being renamed on import (I understand that the first "PDF" item has indeed been renamed, whether "PDF" is shown as a label or not). A third use case is when I create a record of, say, a book and do not want to attach a pdf/scan with content from this very book but information, e.g. some review, about that book. These are ways I have worked with Zotero for a long time. It surely might not be the most generic use case, but hey, it's down to preferences and individual use of the software.
What sometimws works as a workaround is when I drag a file into the collection without first creating a parent record – unless the auto-information-collect-feature does not find an enough similar record to create a new record with – in that case – false metadata. Another workaround would be to first drop a generic file onto a record, after creating a new (empty) parent record, and then add all the subsequent files, ultimately deleting the generic file.
If "PDF" or whatever other label an actual file is assigned to should not affect the results of a search, it might, from my understanding, be better if you decide to generally not include file lables into the search. Then, it would be easy to provide an option to "revert" to the "messier" look of having redundant file name and record information close to each other in addition to a more cleaner looking collection view.
For me, it has always been a habit to have all record entries closed, since double-clicking on one record has opened the attached pdf file already in Zotero 6. Opening a record only happens if I wanted to look for a specific/other file than that who is being opened on double-click or when I already know that a record has several individual files stored in it. This said, opening a record in Zotero 7 would now tell me 'yes, there is a "PDF" file attached to this' but then, even this cleaner approach would show me redundant information, because I could tell that a record has a pdf file attached to it alone from the PDF-icon showing in the list of records in the utmost right column. From this stance it's more a UI-decision and not a functional one. I would gladly appreciate an option to have filetype vs. file name shown when opening a record.
Hope these insights somewhat help in the process. And thank you again for all your work!
This seems counterintuitive where, at least for for the life sciences, the main article is published as a PDF and the supplemental materials are available in .docx and .csv formats. The current function ends up making the .docx file look more official and one can only know that it is not the main publication prior to opening if they view the preview pane.
Link to first paper and supp I've encountered this with (paywalled unfortunately): https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.4c02251?goto=supporting-info
Screenshot of behavior
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u6429340/638nyocl2ugr95f4pv70.jpg
Thank you!