Zotero 7 and attachment titles

wayneholmes

Zotero 7 is great. Many thanks for all your amazing work. Much appreciated.

I have a small problem. In Zotero 7.0.1, when I attach a PDF to a journal item and choose 'Rename File from Parent Metadata', in the main Zotero pane/window the title of that PDF remains as 'PDF'. The actual file stored in Finder is correctly named from the parent metadata.

Items that have previously been renamed from parent metadata show that correct name in the main Zotero pane/window. Only new PDFs appear to appear as 'PDF'.

I'd appreciate any support/suggestions about how I might change this back to how I think it used to function (to show the full PDF name in the main pane/window, rather than just 'PDF').

Many thanks and best wishes,

Wayne

dstillman

https://www.zotero.org/support/file_renaming#attachment_title_vs_filename

wayneholmes

Wow. Dan your responsiveness is amazing. Thank you so much.

I now understand the change. Thank you. Although..., sorry, I prefer the previous approach.

I'd use it when I have several PDFs attached to one item (e.g. 'First draft', 'Review', 'Resubmission' etc. - that's just one example).

For me, it is a little strange having the first attachment show as 'PDF' and subsequent ones by their filename.

If I was pushy... I'd request that we have the choice whether to show 'title' or 'filename'. But I'm not. ;-)

Thank you again to you and your colleagues for your amazing work.

Best,

Wayne

dstillman

I'd use it when I have several PDFs attached to one item (e.g. 'First draft', 'Review', 'Resubmission' etc. - that's just one example).

Well, you can still do that, of course — the title is always editable from the right-hand pane. But the vast majority of the time, people are just saving items with PDFs from the web or by dragging in a single file and having it be recognized, and in that case the simple titles keep the items pane clean and don't interfere with searches.

Also, unless you disabled automatic renaming, the first PDF you dragged to an item already had its filename automatically changed based on the parent metadata, so a filename like "First draft" that you set outside of Zotero would've been overwritten and wouldn't have appeared in the title anyway. In Zotero 7, you can actually create a custom filename format that conditionally incorporates the attachment title in the filename (e.g., if it doesn't include "PDF"), and then if you set the attachment title to something like "First draft", that would automatically be incorporated into the filename. (We'll be adding continuous renaming of files as metadata is changed in an upcoming version, which will make that even smoother.)

wayneholmes

Thanks Dan,

I think I will find 'don't interfere with searches' particularly useful.

FYI To change the title of the PDF, I was changing the item title name in Zotero (e.g., adding 'first draft'), then renaming the attachment title from parent metadata, then renaming the item back (removing 'first draft'). Made sense to me! ;-)

Best wishes, and thanks again.

Wayne
PS I would love a switch in settings to 'use attachment filename as attachment title'. But I'm sure you have much more important things to focus on.

tallish_paul

I'd also really like a switch to keep the attachment filename the same as the attachment title.

mpascale

I agree with these comments that the old display was better.
A switch in settings would be great, that or it could easily display both, there's plenty of space after the word "PDF" in the line all by itself.....

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u6843527/zpgsqdf2ufdk3jh7vzrt.png
e.g. the list under a parent item..

>2015     Consumption of caffeine mitigates cancer risk      Thompson et al.     Journal Article     Journal of Miscellanea
    - ScienceDirect PDF   Thompson 2015 Consumption of caffeine .pdf
    - Submitted Version   thompson_manuscript.pdf

rdiaz02

If you really want to force a rename of the Title from the Filename, without having to type or copy/paste into the "Title" field, it is possible to do this with Actions and Tags for Zotero (https://github.com/windingwind/zotero-actions-tag) and either of these scripts: https://github.com/windingwind/zotero-actions-tags/discussions/381 or https://github.com/windingwind/zotero-actions-tags/discussions/380 ; the first leaves ".pdf" in the Title and just sets Title to Filename; the second changes the Filename(s) using the renaming rules, and then makes Title = Filename but removes the file extension, such as "pdf", from the Title).