Upgrade StorageNavigation problems
The larger and more fine grained you library and collections become, the more difficult it is to navigate zot. Where is there documentation on best practices towards organizing and navigating large libraries of thousands of items and hundreds of collections?
Currently, I'm using special characters so that items are sorted to the top, and those items are copied into collections which then can act as pointers to related collections. This is cumbersome.
This is the best I can do to create a 'favorites' type of navigation.
Basic 'forward' and 'back' would be great to, because you can so easily get lost.
Yea, I know. There have been MANY of such requests. These are basic features.
Is there any hope of seeing these features?
Currently, I'm using special characters so that items are sorted to the top, and those items are copied into collections which then can act as pointers to related collections. This is cumbersome.
This is the best I can do to create a 'favorites' type of navigation.
Basic 'forward' and 'back' would be great to, because you can so easily get lost.
Yea, I know. There have been MANY of such requests. These are basic features.
Is there any hope of seeing these features?
A "Recently Read" collection is apparently forthcoming. Although the full forward/back functionality you allude to is really necessary. A full history list would be ideal, where you can click back to anything in your navigation history. The Navigate plugin did have very simple backward/forward keyboard shortcuts that worked quite well, but that didn't make it beyond Zotero v5.
https://github.com/jdfinch/zotero-navigate
There are several current plugins that offer some useful features ...
The Ethereal Style plugin added collection favourites and sorting in v5.3.5.
https://github.com/MuiseDestiny/zotero-style/releases/tag/5.3.5
https://github.com/Dominic-DallOsto/zotero-pin-items
Zutilo has a right-click option (click on collection name) to create a link string that can be placed in a note and can then jump to that collection.
https://github.com/wshanks/Zutilo/blob/master/docs/COMMANDS.md#collection-menu-functions
(check that the option is not set to Hide in Zutilo settings)
As you say, one can use special characters as prefixes on item titles (or the first line of a standalone note) to get them sorted (alphabetically) to the top of the collection.
With such a (prefixed) standalone note at the top of a collection, one can use "Related" in the right pane to link the note to a similar note added to another collection (or to a PDF in the current or another collection). Not quite a simple hot link between collections, but close to it. Tags are the other attribute that can be added to standalone notes, and can also be used to associate and display all such notes, and hence their collections (eg by project, or "to do").
In this case the best work-around I could come up with is to use zutilo to create a Favorites menu. This can be done for both Collections and single items.
Use zutilo to capture the paths to collections and items. Then paste them into a Word document. In the image below I created a link for a collection and one for an item. This is in a Word table and I'll add to the list over time.
Just manually resize the window to as small as possible, and set it off in the corner of your screen.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u6252861/dmuous7ojo955xr3rp8n.png
Now... if someone can help me get rid of this warning message from MS Word, that would really be great. It's not a big deal. Just click on it and it proceeds to zot to find the desired item.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u6252861/bnzuge9vd93hpw1ydtmv.png
How to categorize and coordinate sets of collections. You can think of this like the "Related" option in the "Item Pane", but for collections and not individual items.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Generally, any one topic can have many related subtopics which define the topic as a whole. Even if you use subcollections to organize topics, invariably one topic needs to be associated with a wholly different collection tree structure. For example. Where do you put articles on 'existentialism'? Do they go into the philosophy collection tree or psychology tree? Then what about social psychology? AND THEN, what subcollection(s) do you want to put it into under these broad categories? Where would a paper belong with the title "The existential threat to psychosocial cohesion."
This of course is a classic categorization problem. Here is one method to resolve it in Zotero using a Master/Meta Categorization technique.
SOLUTION
The Master Categorization technique builds off of the 'sorting prefix hack', and the use of the pinned Libraries and Collections option in the Item Panel.
1) place a dummy/blank PDF into a collection.
2) Right click the item to create a 'Parent Item' for this PDF. You don't need to fill in anything except the title.
3) Prefix its title with your preferred sorting character. In my case I use the '#' character. For example "# Prediction" is the PDF's title. Prediction then, is one of my Master categories under which related topics are grouped.
4) When on "My Library", sort by title and the new item will appear on top.
5) Now add to the PDF's title the collections you want to link together under the 'Prediction' master topic. For example "# Prediction - reinforcement reward control". These are three different collections which exist under wholly different areas of the library. In this example, 'Prediction' is the Master or Meta category, and the additions to its title are its related topical categories/collections.
5) Then copy (by drag and drop) this PDF into any number of collections. In this case it would be copied to the collections named: reinforcement, reward, and control.
6) This PDF always sorts to the top when you sort by title in a collection, serving as a notification of its Master category this collection is a part of, and its related topics listed in the title of the Master.
7) When you choose a Master PDF in a collection, you can then use the "Libraries and Collections" menu item (in the Item panel) to see all the related collections to the topic of 'Prediction'. When using Libraries and Collections you can click on any displayed collection to navigate directly to any of Prediction's subtopics which exist across various collections, *because* you copied the Master to each topic/collection belonging to it.
8) Once you've navigated to a topic/collection of the Master, then getting back to where you were is easy. Just choose the Master within the collection and you can then navigate to any of the related topics via the Libraries and Collections option. If you "pin" this option in the Item panel it remains visible as the main option, which preserves you navigation to all the related topics. OR, you can go to "My Library" and chose another Master item. Then back in the Item Panel then, you can then investigate/navigate to other topics under another Master.
Using the pinned Libraries and Collections option and a set of Master items provides and complete customizable navigation method through a complex library.
9) Expanding the list of related collections/topics (to the Master) is as easy as adding a topic name (which is often a collection name) to the Master PDF's title, and then copying the Master to the additional related collection. For example if 'schedule' is added: '# Prediction - reinforcement reward control schedule'. Then place the Master PDF into the 'schedule' collection.
10) Additionally, any subtopic like 'reward' which is assigned to the 'Prediction' Master, can also be added to other Master PDFs. For example the Master for the topic psychoneurological is arbitrarily called dopamine. This master is defined as: "# Dopamine - biosocial reward extinguish". In this example 'reward' is now in two different Masters. The Dopamine master will be copied into each of its three collections, and it can also be copied into the reward collection which belong to the Prediction Master, resulting in tying together groups of topics/collections .
This results in an expanded topical range by putting more that one master into a collection. When writing about reward, the readily available topics/collections are found within both the 'Dopamine' and 'Prediction' Masters. All the collections where these topics exist can be easily navigated via the Libraries and Collections menu item for each Master.
What this accomplishes is to have all collections related to dopamine and reward one click away, and a means to get back to where you started. In a mature research library there may be as many as 5-10 subtopics/collections for each Master.
The following is an example of the Master level. I use abbreviations extensively. The Master named "# # Determ" has three subtopics each has its own collection in the library. These collections may be in significantly different parts of the library. When dealing with hundreds of collections in the library, this Master points to only those three, which are accessed directly in the Libraries and Collections area of the Item panel. Consequently, I can readily find all related items/articles belonging to the Master topic, in this case (spelled out) Determinism and its three topics of Free Will, Bayesian modeling, and No-self.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u6252861/z9d3ri6h94b5j2vnzz4y.png
As time goes on more collections/topics will be added to the Determ Master, or, other Masters created and copied into one or more of Determ's collections, effectively tying in necessary related but distinct subtopics of Determinism.
COMMENT
UNIX folks will appreciate this. In essence this is a pointer (aka Link) system. Categorize documents in a library as best you can into collections, then change how to find them, ie what points to them, as necessary using and modifying a Master. The library structure can change, but changing it is a never ending task, and should be avoided as much as possible due the the basic problem of the multiplicity of categorization, which is not (cannot be?) solved. Instead, the meta/master categories are altered which point to the library structure detail - even as you change it.
SIDE NOTE
I found Zotero's tagging system useless, primarily because there is a very limited way to manage tags. I found tagging impractical for large complex libraries which evolve over time. Of course, tags can be used along with the Master categorization method as some sort of specialty tagging not related to library structural organization. That said, tags can be used to tag all Masters so that they can be found not only by sorting but by tagging.
If you made it through this post I hope it was clear. If there is an easier method for all of this, then I'm all ears.
Right now you seem to want to use collections for item categorization, which I would indeed imagine would be hard, as it's not very easy to add items to collections that are spread across the library, but tagging them is. Tagging is exactly intended to solve the whole problem of "how do you accurately categorize an item that covers multiple topics". Furthermore, you can make tagging extremely fast by assigning them colors, tagging items by using number shortcuts, (and then optionally unassigning them, and reassigning different colors for a different tagging session).
Finally, you can use tags as filters on your collections. Just select a collection (or your whole library) and click on the tag in the tag list to filter just for tagged items (e.g. favorites, topic-wise, etc). You can then sort or further search the filtered list. You can also do tag pseudo-nesting, by naming them like "Psychology/Psychoanalysis".
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u6252861/zhfrlztf1pv7tz70ta48.png
Tagging is item level, and in a large library, without a native zot tagging manager, then tagging simply does not suffice. Granted, keeping up with hundreds of collections was difficult, until now, with the system I described. Having distinct views of your library based on your topic(s) of interest at any point, is a game changer for complex libraries. And changing those topical views is simple.