Feature Request: An updated 'Books and book sections'

naif.here

Wondering if anyone has found a way to dissect a way to reference to the same book. Some books I have are really large and I use a paid Zotero account (because I annotate here too) so if I have to add multiple chapters, it means that I have to add those books multiple times - clogging up the space three times.

My questions would be:
1. Why can the book sections not be nested under the main books?
2. Most of these pdfs already have demarcations of page numbers - why can't we designate those specific page numbers.

I'm having several double copies now which is a mess. Seems like this development was likely spearheaded architecture-front and not from the user-front. We don't buy 11 books for 11 chapters.

I haven't found a straightforward solution, maybe there are some workarounds?

bwiernik

The best approach is to attach the PDF to the book item and then connect the chapter items to the book using the Related Items feature

naif.here

Yes, but it is not a robust solution. It means we have to keep updating full books for every chapters. If you are using free/paid versions, this is how you clog up storage - and storage is how zotero makes money. They introduced book sections as a feature when in reality it was a shorthand to the metadata management, which in reality was a few clicks. It would have had to be a major oversight to make sense of it all.

adamsmith

The basic answer to your question is that organizing items hierarchical has been talked about since Zotero's early days, so it's not like no one thought about this, but it's exceedingly difficult to overhaul the entire data model, so it has never happened. Technical debt is a very real concern.

I'd just split up a PDF into chapters when working with book sections and annotating them; I'm not sure why that's not an option. That's how Zotero will download chapters from edited books that are available online.

naif.here

One can imagine that this is a primitive problem with these tools, but it also means that just because a problem is old or worked around doesn't signify it as resolved. I take your point on technical limitations, but such a core aspect from the user end that ignoring this is a bit unfortunate for several versions. Perhaps the built-in annotations made this pop up more.

I've been splitting lately to manage space and data, but doesn't always make sense when you work with more than half the book. Beyond the data management complexities, it seems against the economic interest to prioritise this either.

adamsmith

It's pretty clear this isn't driven by a desire to maximize storage use by users (it'd be a very ineffective way of doing that) and making unfounded claims that it is is frankly rather obnoxious.

naif.here

1. It is a key source of upkeep, and it's a logical move to have the platform running - it is neither an 'unfounded claim' nor an accusation but a mere suspicion that this may work against it.
2. You don't need to engage at all - you voluntarily joined in on a high horse to preach how others have figured this out and then proceeded to add nothing to this.

iagogv

I would remark the main comment point

2. Most of these pdfs already have demarcations of page numbers - why can't we designate those specific page numbers.

So, wouldn't be possible to add an item attachment page number to the database (would be an attachment field), so opening that attachment first time would open at that page (and next times it would be open at the last page read, as always...)?
And ideally, there would be also a button to return always to the default page...