File renaming documentation incomplete & inconsistent

langisjor

Since the upgrade to Zotero 7, I've been finding that the file renaming documentation (https://www.zotero.org/support/file_renaming) is incomplete and inconsistent, and I'm wondering if and how this could be improved? My question is not a request to try to accommodate every specific file renaming scenario one might have, but to improve the documentation of the base behaviors of the file renaming behavior.

A few examples of what I mean:

- The documentation for `firstCreator` doesn't describe the complete behavior of this variable. For example, only the first creator's last name is output, if there are two creators they're joined by ' and ', and if there are more than two creators the suffix ' et al.' is added. (This may not be the expected behavior, I'm simply describing what I would hope the documentation would include.) It's also not clear if and how this variable can be modified with various parameters.

- `year` is listed as a variable in the initial table of variables, but then isn't included in the Complete List of Fields at the bottom of the page.

- What is the complete list of `itemType` options as recognized by the file renaming process? Ostensibly it's the complete set of item types that Zotero supports, but then how are the variables named? For example, does "Audio Recording" become "audioRecording" or "audiorecording" or "audio-recording"? This documentation detail would seem to apply to other variables such as `audioFileType`, `letterType`, `mapType`, 'presentationType`, etc.

- Similar to the above, `itemType` is mentioned as a variable in the example about using conditionals, but then it isn't listed in the Complete List of Fields.

- What other conditional expressions can be used? Is there a string conditional such as `if empty`, or would this type of expression need to be done with regEx?

These are just a few of the examples I've encountered with the existing documentation being somewhat incomplete when trying to work through some specific file renaming attempts.

tnajdek

The documentation for `firstCreator` doesn't describe the complete behavior of this variable

The logic for creating the `firstCreator` is the same as for the "Creator" column. We will add a note about this to the documentation.

`year` is listed as a variable in the initial table of variables, but then isn't included in the Complete List of Fields at the bottom of the page.

That's intentional. There is a list of variables that the renaming system recognizes, and the last entry in that table is "Any item field," which you can find at the bottom of this page. The list at the end consists of fields that an item can have and that the renaming system recognizes as variables. Otherwise, the table of variables would be very long, and the second column would be repeated for most of the rows.

What is the complete list of `itemType` options as recognized by the file renaming process?

We will add a list (or a link) to the documentation.

For example, does "Audio Recording" become "audioRecording" or "audiorecording" or "audio-recording"?

It becomes "audioRecording". It can also become "Audio Recording" if the localise attribute is used. The latter is language-specific, so it might become something else if your Zotero is not in English.

What other conditional expressions can be used

The only conditionals supported are equal ('==') and not equal (!=.). Additionally it's possible to use `match` to check a value against a regular expression.

There have been a few more complex templates posted on this forum that we might add to the documentation. We’re also planning to add some new features based on the feedback we’ve received on this feature so far.

langisjor

Thanks for the attention to this. Really appreciate it.