Simple to fix: Author dropdown not wide enough on Windows

mark

Here's something that always bugs me: the author dropdown that appears when you've started typing in the author field is not wide enough, so that author names are broken off (e.g. Abrahams, Rog...).

The whole point of that dropdown is to be able to quickly select the author if that author is already in the database. Unfortunately in a large database one builds up several variants of author names (another old gripe of me) and then it is especially essential to quickly be able to select the right one — e.g. 'Abrahams, Roger C.' instead of 'Abrahams, Roger C').

Suggestion: make that dropdown at least twice as wide.

anders_royce

The dropdown is the same size as the text box. That seems to be how all similar dropdowns in Firefox work (search box, awesomebar, etc.). It's a good idea, but you can already increase the size of the list by increasing the size of the entry box (make the right panel larger, or use one field instead of two).

mark

Yeah, but it feels wrong to have to make that whole pane broader just to get a few input fields to behave satisfactorily. Besides, at least in my workflow, the middle pane is much more important and information-rich, so I always like to have the right pane at its minimal width.

anders_royce

I agree. was just thinking that it is probably an element controlled by Firefox, but perhaps Zotero could improve on it or replace it even if that is the case.

mark

Can I bump this for comments? Is this an issue on Mac? Am I really to make the whole right pane wider because many author's names are longer than the input fields? Or is this something that could be improved in the Z interface?

mark

Bump. Please see initial post for clear description of the problem.

poirmw

If you were to change the size of the font, would that not help?

Rintze

Seems like an easy fix in XUL: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL/Attribute/sizetopopup

dstillman

This is not necessarily easy to fix, since the popup is generated automatically by Firefox for an autocomplete textbox.

(If you disagree, feel free to provide a patch.)

Rintze

Hmm, maybe it's indeed not that easy: http://fixunix.com/mozilla/407955-textbox-autocomplete-popup-list-width.html and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=416250

mark

Well, thanks for explaining that.

ajlyon

I contacted the author of the patch in that bug, and while he's no longer at the Komodo project which the patch originated in, he's looking into whether anyone at Komodo has an up-to-date version of the patch so we can push through a fix. It doesn't affect Firefox really, so the bug is low priority for most people.