PaperShip now unable to log in?

Cubytus

Hi there,
I'm still using PaperShip on an older iPad since Zotero Portable isn't compatible. Its annotation tools are still pretty good and with a quick-and-dirty hack to re-create an empty lastsync.txt file that PaperShip expects, and I used it until last trimester without too much trouble.

However, I had to restore this iPad recently and need to log back in PaperShip (First to Zotero, then to the WebDAV hosting holding the actual documents). Now, logging in to Zotero appears broken: I can readily enter the username/password pair, but the "Home > settings > security > New key" page doesn't display anything, unlike what is shown in a browser (Compare the two pictures).


https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u8385/4h65789yh1wk3gj20wf8.png

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u8385/9fjqtaimgldhds8ekna3.png

What exactly is the issue here?

adamsmith

Sounds like the OAuth (i.e., authenticate and obtain an API key) process of an old, unmaintained app is broken. Not much Zotero can do about that, I'm afraid.

Note that even if you can't use the iOS app, the Zotero web library in your browser now has annotation capabilities.

Cubytus

Was the OAuth recently modified? As said, I was able to use it properly until last trimester, though didn't try during summer.

My workflow was as follows (4 steps):
(Mac) Download PDF to iCloud Drive > create entry in Zotero > drag PDF as an attachment > (Mac or iPad) read and annotate, either in Zotero or PaperShip. No matter the device, it will have the latest annotations.

Now (6 steps):
(Mac) Download PDF to iCloud Drive > create entry in Zotero > drag PDF as an attachment > (iPad) From iCloud Drive, send downloaded PDF to PDF Expert (one of the few annotation software that take iCloud as a target) > use PDF Expert to annotate > (Mac) from iCloud Drive PDF Expert dedicated folder, drag annotated PDF back to Zotero, delete any previously-saved version. Should I want to keep on using Zotero, synchronization is lost. Ironically enough, PDF Expert's own sync function is pretty good, but its not its job to manage bibliographies. Unless Zotero can link to an attachment outside WebDAV? That would involve setting a WebDAV access to iCloud Drive and disabling the process that creates the .PROP and .ZIP files…

In this context, the Web library appears much simpler, but since I'm using WebDAV as a document storage, PDFs can't be opened or annotated from within the Web GUI. More, on the iPad the Web library only displays as a blank page.

adamsmith

The actual OAuth handshake typically would take place only once during set up, so this wouldn't have had to have changed recently to break when reconnecting it. It works for other apps, so this would be for papership to troubleshoot and I'm afraid I don't have much hope there.

I'm not sure I can think of anything much better with an old iOS system and webDAV. ZotFile would simplify your new workflow a good bit. Its replacements for Zotero 7 (zotmoov and attanger) don't let you retrieve individual files from cloud folders, I think, but still make pushing files there a bit easier, so that might be an option.

Cubytus

In fact I have Zotfile on Zotero 6 (reverted from Zotero 7 since I didn't have the time to find updated extensions), but unsure how it would help in that case. There's a "Tablet Settings" tab, but it seems it only supports local filesystem access.

There's a "General Settings" Soruce Folder setting that allows another way of synchronizing files, but it seems to be "collection-wide", and would surely break my collection. One workaround would be to use a local-only collection and disabling Zotero sync entirely.

adamsmith

You can set the tablet folder on any folder (like GDrive, OneDrive, Dropbox, iCloud) that syncs to you folder, then "Send to tablet" open from that folder with PDF Expert (or any other tool), annotate and save, your sync service syncs, and you can then use get from tablet. I understand zotmoov might consider an identical feature

fcheslack

We did update the settings pages last month which included updating the api keys pages. The OAuth flow generally did not change but this page did.

It did not break most apps though, and I'm not sure how much we could even do to troubleshoot with an abandoned app.

It may also be specific to the old iOS/webview. Out of curiousity, what hardware and iOS versions is this on?

Cubytus

@adamsmith, is this a Zotero-wide setting, or does the user have to actively select which files will be sync'ed to tablet? I don't want to mess up my library storage, nor is the free iCloud large enough to hold all my collection.

@fcheslack: that is on iOS 9.3.5. I even paid for PaperShip's annotation feature back then.

adamsmith

User selected

Cubytus

First test:
I assumed the process was:
Annotating in Zotero > manual sync > right-click on attachment > Send to Tablet > continue on iPad.

FAILS: A PDF appears in the iCloud folder (as set in ZotFile preferences), but it doesn't contain the latest annotations (opened on the same computer so sync lag shouldn't be an issue).
In Zotero local cache, the matching PDF isn't updated for some reason, nor it is on the WebDAV server.

Second test:

If no update is taking place, then quitting and re-opening Zotero should lose annotation. Surprise, it doesn't!

bwiernik

Do you mean annotations made with the Zotero PDF reader? Those are stored in the Zotero database, not embedded in the file, so they won’t appear in external PDF readers unless they are exported https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/annotations_in_database

Have you tried using the Zotero web library to access and annotate your PDFs on your iPad?

Cubytus

> Those are stored in the Zotero database, not embedded in the file

Good to know!

> Have you tried using the Zotero web library to access and annotate your PDFs on your iPad?

Read above.

From what I tested, the "Send to tablet" command only allows for, well, sending a PDF attachment to a given folder, which is then synced to a folder.

The command "Get from tablet" works, but all annotations made on the tablet are now read-only.

Is there a way to make these annotations editable in Zotero?

adamsmith

Yes, you can import those as described in the link bwiernik posted