OpenOffice integration annoyances

wednesdaysouth

Hi there,

I have done a bit of searching and haven't seen any mention of the following, so I wonder if they are something peculiar to my own system. I would appreciate any suggestions. These developments first showed up when the Integration moved to the interpreted python (?) backend, rather than the VBA one, and I have been hoping they might go away ever since.

I am using a moderately new laptop with Ubuntu 9.1, Firefox 3.5.9, Openoffice 3.1.1, Zotero 2.0.3, Integration 3.0a7 and the Chicago style with no bibliography.

Firstly, when I edit a citation in an OO document, the Integration window that pops up will forget the existing reference if I am viewing a different collection in a Zotero window (i.e. it will show the currently selected collection and no reference, although it remembers the page number). This means I need to remember what the reference was and find it again before I can continue the modification.

Secondly, and more pettily, it takes a fair old while for the edit citation window to pop up, and, in Ubuntu, it brings a random firefox window to the foreground as well.

Since I'm at it, I dream of the day that there is a way to reorder the references in the citation window without deleting them and re-adding them.

Can anyone a) suggest any solutions? b) confirm my concerns c) point me at anything I, a python neophyte but a perl apprentice, might be able to do to address these?

Thanks,
Jem

Simon

1) is definitely a defect that we should take care of. I've opened a ticket.

Opening the add or edit citation windows for the first time is slow, but they should open much faster after that. There's no reason that they should bring a Firefox window to the foreground, though. This is a known (and probably unresolvable) issue on OS X, but on Linux I don't believe there is any code to bring the window to the foreground at all, so what happens likely depends on your window manager settings.

Reordering references is implemented in Zotero 2.1 (thanks to a patch by Frank Bennett).

wednesdaysouth

Thanks for the reply.

1) Great. Glad I have an appropriate sense of proportion. One thing though, the ticket mentions word integration, and its an openoffice thing (for me).

2) Re. slow citation window. Yes, if you open another window immediately it is much faster, but it seems to revert to slowness after some period of time. I'm not sure if this is related to Firefox restarts, or some other factor. I will see if I can work out what triggers it.

3) Woohoo!

dstillman

the ticket mentions word integration, and its an openoffice thing (for me)

That component applies to both.

but it seems to revert to slowness after some period of time. I'm not sure if this is related to Firefox restarts

The first Zotero pane (or Add/Edit Citation window) load after a Firefox restart will be slower.

alexuw

on the problem with the firefox window coming to the front see this discussion

http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/3528/addedit-citation-dialog-not-in-front/

and this workaround

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Zotero#Window management for the OOo extension

I haven't tried this lately but IIRC it didn't work for me - probably conflicted with some other setting. Also be aware this approach requires setting the "Focus Prevention Level" off - so windows are allowed to grab focus more easily. I find that behavior intensely annoying and would rather live with firefox jumping to the foreground, but that's my own idiosyncratic preference.