Upgrade StorageFR: View any PDF/EPUB file on your computer, even outside Zotero collections
As Zotero's pdf/epub/html viewer gets more features, I find myself preferring it over other document viewers on my system such as my web browser pdf viewer or things like Adobe Acrobat because of rich annotations, dark mode, plugins, etc.
But a pain point I regularly encounter is the need to formally create an item for a pdf/epub/html attachment before I can view it. While I understand Zotero is primarily a citation manager, at least 90% of the papers and other attachments I open are not saved as items due to relevance, quality etc, so I just use the inferior browser viewer. Sometimes the burden of needing to add a possibly-relevant attachment into zotero stops me from doing so even if it takes just a minute or two.
It would be awesome if Zotero could open arbitrary pdf/epub/html files anywhere on the computer, regardless of whether they belong to a registered item. One could choose to set Zotero as the 'default' viewer for whatever compatible filetype they wish.
If a user decides they want to save an open file, I envision a button that could create the parent item automatically/manually and save the attachment and any created notes/annotations from the session under it. If the user attempts to close the temporary viewer tab but has unsaved changes (meaning notes or annotations), Zotero could prompt them asking if they want to save their annotations by making an item, but otherwise the file is forgotten once the session ends.
In my opinion, this would greatly improve the initial research discovery process while learning about a topic or searching for related works/prior art, and thus remains core to Zotero's goals.
But a pain point I regularly encounter is the need to formally create an item for a pdf/epub/html attachment before I can view it. While I understand Zotero is primarily a citation manager, at least 90% of the papers and other attachments I open are not saved as items due to relevance, quality etc, so I just use the inferior browser viewer. Sometimes the burden of needing to add a possibly-relevant attachment into zotero stops me from doing so even if it takes just a minute or two.
It would be awesome if Zotero could open arbitrary pdf/epub/html files anywhere on the computer, regardless of whether they belong to a registered item. One could choose to set Zotero as the 'default' viewer for whatever compatible filetype they wish.
If a user decides they want to save an open file, I envision a button that could create the parent item automatically/manually and save the attachment and any created notes/annotations from the session under it. If the user attempts to close the temporary viewer tab but has unsaved changes (meaning notes or annotations), Zotero could prompt them asking if they want to save their annotations by making an item, but otherwise the file is forgotten once the session ends.
In my opinion, this would greatly improve the initial research discovery process while learning about a topic or searching for related works/prior art, and thus remains core to Zotero's goals.