Available for beta testing: New citation dialog

In the latest Zotero beta, we've introduced a redesigned citation dialog, replacing the default citation dialog (red bar), the "classic" citation dialog, and the Add Note dialog (yellow bar).

The new dialog has two modes: List Mode and Library Mode. List Mode works like the red bar, letting you quickly search for citations from across your Zotero libraries by title/creator/year. Library Mode includes a library browser, similar to the "classic" dialog, letting you find items in specific libraries or collections. You can switch between the two modes with a single click, preserving any added items or entered search terms. By default, it will open in the last mode you used, but you can choose a different default mode in the settings.

In Zotero 7, we added the ability to quickly add citations for selected items and open documents. In the new dialog, that's available in both List Mode and Library Mode, so you can make these quick selections even if you otherwise prefer to add items via the library browser.

As in the previous dialog, once you've selected an item, you can click on its bubble to customize the citation with a page number, prefix, etc. It's also now possible to add any locator — not just a page number — right from the search bar by typing the full or short name (e.g., "line 10" or "l. 10" after the citation and pressing Enter/Return.

(For those coming from the classic dialog, note that there's no text field to make manual edits to citations. It's been possible to edit citations directly in the document for many years, which is why the red bar didn't include such a text field either. More importantly, though, such manual edits should be avoided in almost all cases. Instead, customize the citation properly via the citation dialog, which will allow Zotero to continue to update the citation as necessary.)

If you run into any problems with the new dialog, please let us know in a new thread.
  • Looks great, thanks! Having a better mode that includes the collections is really nice. Keyboard navigation also works well (ctrl+down doesn't work anymore at all, even with the bubble selected -- that's on purpose, I take it?)
  • Yes, we focused a lot on making keyboard navigation seamless in both modes — e.g., in Library Mode, you can press Down Arrow right from the search bar to move to Selected Items/Open Documents and the items list.
    ctrl+down doesn't work anymore at all, even with the bubble selected -- that's on purpose, I take it?
    Well, Ctrl/Cmd actually hasn't been necessary since Zotero 7 — Down Arrow alone from a bubble has opened the popup. In the new dialog, since Down Arrow is used so heavily for navigation, Down Arrow no longer has special behavior on a bubble, and you can instead press space bar to open the popup. I'm actually not sure that's the right call — it's possible that, if a bubble is focused, Down Arrow should still open the popup, since Left Arrow + Down Arrow might be a bit faster than Left Arrow + space bar. The concern was just that having that depend on what was focused could make navigation a bit more finicky.

    In any case, since Ctrl/Cmd-Down no longer had any special function in Zotero 7, it doesn't do anything here.
Sign In or Register to comment.