This is a very cool extension. Can we maybe catch up the editing features with Scrapbook? Or at least allow an import from Scrapbook? Just thinking out loud.
Scrapbook is a definitely a great and mature extension. I would guess that the Zotero team concentrating more on the reference management side of Zotero than the scrapbooking side, but I hope that in time they can start to incorporate some of the various features scrapbook has. One is the editing features Bullfrog mentioned, where you can edit the text, highlight and add comments to web pages. Others including the capturing of links (like PDF's), backup features, and also the user interface - I prefer the sidebar approach use of screen real estate than the bottom of the screen design.
Although we are indeed focusing on some of the more academic aspects, such as rigorous citation management, we do plan to have many of the features that Scrapbook has. We will definitely have the much-desired yellow highlighter in the near future, as well as comments. And we already have the ability to store PDFs and backup, although maybe I'm missing your requests there.
We do diverge somewhat from Scrapbook's philosophy, however, in how we plan to implement some of these features. For instance, when you highlight some text in Scrapbook, it actually inserts a span tag into the document--i.e., it changes the original document to add your highlights or comments. Our philosophy is that documents should be kept in their original form (hey, we're academics; altering/defacing primary sources is anathema to us). So we're going to use our relational database system to map highlights and comments onto documents. Not only does this keep the original as is, it permits some neat features in the future (such as multiple-person markup).
As for the sidebar vs top/bottom placement, some user interface tests convinced us that on smaller screens it would be impossible to read a document in the main browser window with the Zotero pane open (on the left or right) because the text would run off the screen. When the Zotero pane is placed on the top or bottom, the text can fill the width of the browser window (although you do see fewer lines of the text; but it's better to scroll up/down through a document than left/right). It's also much harder to do the iTunes-like UI in a vertical setup.
Dan -- I symphathize with your philosophy (though as a scholar I'm perfectly happy with modifying the document encoding and structure; just not the content). However, having just been talking about this with the ODF group, there's the obvious question: if you don't alter the source, how do you propose to identify the document fragment for external reference (and in turn map in and out of RDF)?
E.g. if you have:
<p id="1">Some paragraph.</p>
... and you want to reference the paragraph, no problem. But if there's no id or you want to reference a non-existant span?
Its encouraging to hear your plans for Zotero, thuogh I can't use it right now because firefox has get auto-updated and now zotero is listed as not being compatible!
Dan, see the post on direct storage of PDF's in the feature requests section - I mean the ability to save pdfs within zotero as a zotero item, and then associate them with records (by drag and drop within zotero). I would happily have my pdf collection stored within the zotero area of the file system, rather than having to link to outside zotero, since I access my pdfs currently through desktop search it doesn't matter where they are. I know you support automatic storage of pdfs for some collections, but it doesn't cover collections you don't support nor pdf available from authors websites or found on google. In scrapbook you can do this by the "capture link (as)" feature. It would also be nice if you had option to rename the file before capture. Plus the same feature could also apply to any links from the internet, such as DOCs, RTFs, .PS, and even pictures and media files. So basically zotero becomes a download manager as well, which makes it easy to store any research related materials from the internet and store them as records, or standalone items that can be associated with records (like notes can). So, I would think you could have an option (like scrapbook) to right click on a link on a webpage, and have option "save link as item" or "save link", and then a dialogue box come up for "save link as item" where you can choose the type of item, change the filename, add a tag and so on, and the downloaded link gets automatically attached to the item.
The title of this thread is still Importing from Scrapbook, isn't it? I appreciate all the commentary, but I'd love to switch over completely and not have two file editor/databases in firefox. What is solution?
Has anything happened since this discussion? Importing from Scrapbook would be a great feature. Of course you can just open a scrapbook item and save it as a snapshotz in zotero, but that doesn't import the metadata. Any ideas?
Temporarily I tried two ways to work with zotero+scrapbook.
(1)Save a snapshot with scrapbook firstly. Then open it. Then attach a link to the snapshot in zotero. The bad side is you may have to do full-text search in both zotero and scrapbook.
(2)Take a snapshot with zotero firstly. Then open it and remember the filename (shown in the address bar of your firefox) that zotero used to link to. Then use "show file" with this snapshot and open the directory (dir1). Then delete all files in the directory.
Now use scrapbook take a snapshot again. Use "show files" with it. You will see it in a directory (dir2). Copy all files from the directory(dir2) into the zotero direcory(dir1). Then rename the "index.html" file into the name zotero used.
The bad side for this way is you have to spend sereval seconds more to take a snapshot with the way you want.
(2)Take a snapshot with zotero firstly. Then open it and remember the filename (shown in the address bar of your firefox) that zotero used to link to. Then use "show file" with this snapshot and open the directory (dir1). Then delete all files in the directory. Now use scrapbook take a snapshot again. Use "show files" with it. You will see it in a directory (dir2). Copy all files from the directory(dir2) into the zotero direcory(dir1). Then rename the "index.html" file into the name zotero used.
I hate to dredge up an old discussion but...
Would it be possible to use this scrapbook program directly in the Zotero web-page storage folder?
I'm also trying to use zotero instead of scrapbook. The sync, tag and citation capabilities are really attractive for my purpose.
I didn't really make use of the meta data functions of scrapbook, so it's not really important for me to import that in zotero. But my scrapbook database is quite huge (about 10 000+ pages) so I can't import every page by hand...
Is there any way to import just the web page data (and maybe the folder names as tags) from SB to zotero automatically?
How to : Export Scrapbook into Zotero by a non programmer user in 3 easy steps
Before beginning. have the extension Scrapbook CopyInfo installed in FireFox. ---------------- Step 1 : modify COPY PAGE INFO configuration In Scrapbook Sidebar : Tools / Additional Features / Copy Page Info : Configuration.
Copy the text below :
TY - ELEC N1 - Scrapbook folder : %ID% T1 - %TITLE% UR - %SOURCE% M1 - %LOCAL% AB - Comment : %COMMENT% PY - %DATE% KW - %FOLDER% N1 - Tab : %TAB% ER - End of Reference
IMPORTANT : two spaces between the tag and the dash (« - ») and only one space after the dash. For example TY+space+space+dash+space+ELEC
Adaptation : You can replace English text with text in other language. ---------------- Step 2 : generate and copy in ClipBoard a RIS formatted data In Scrapbook Sidebar : Tools / Additional Features / Copy Page Info : Tree ---------------- Step 3 : import RIS data into ZOTERO In Zotero pane : Actions / Import from clipboard
Wait few minutes depending the data volume. That's it! ---------------- Recommandation : For steps 1 to 3 work with a small Scrapbook (under 500 records) by using the export function ( Tools / Export )
Local links (file://) are not imported properly. I used the « Extra : » tag from Zotero to access the Scapbook storage data. Those data are generally saved under a dated folder. To access the capture : copy the local link in the Extra tag and paste it in the navigation bar.
Suggestions are welcome.
For more information visit my blog (se my profile. It's in French, but try automated translation)
thank you for posting this howto - it works! I'm now trying to figure out, wether there's a possibility to import the snapshots as well. Many of my archived links (~5000) are not available anymore, so I have to find a solution for that. If I have success, I will post it here.
I know this is an old thread but dmercier's post still helped me, so I thought I'd say thanks and add my tweaks.
I wanted to have the page content available in zotero as well as just the urls so I could index and search it (as well as have access to sites no longer there). Attaching scrapbook's index.html gave searchable content, but missed out pictures so I converted the pages to pdf then imported them. I used wkhtmltopdf to do the conversion as I'm on linux, but I'm sure there are similar things out there for windows/mac.
Steps:
1 - install wkhtmltopdf
2 - run through each index.html and convert:
-----START SCRIPT-----
scrapbook_folder=~/Dropbox/scrapbook/data/
for scrap_file in $(find $scrapbook_folder -name index.html)
do
echo $scrap_file
wkhtmltopdf "$scrap_file" "${scrap_file}.pdf"
done
-----END SCRIPT-----
copy between the START/END lines (not including them) into a file. save the file to something like 'makepdfs' then run with:
sh makepdfs
This may take a while if you have a large collection.
3 - set up COPY PAGE INFO as in dmercier's script above but using the following text:
TY - ELEC
T1 - %TITLE%
UR - %SOURCE%
L1 - %LOCAL%
L1 - %LOCAL%.pdf
N1 - SCRAPBOOK: %LOCAL%
PY - %DATE%
KW - %FOLDER%
ER - End of Reference
Make sure you leave a line after the ER line otherwise the import won't work!
(You can leave out the line "L1 - %LOCAL%" if you wish. I like this as it is a html version of the page. It misses the pictures and styles but allows for a quick and easy view of the page without having to open the PDF)
Continue from step 2 in dmercier's guide.
Once you have done the import, I had to go into the zotero preferences > search and run the reindex for them to be searchable.
Above suggestions very useful. Problem for me is once a multiple record import hangs the import progress bar, no multiple imports will work any more on that zotero database. Something is getting corrupted on a hanged multiple import but what is it so it can be fixed? I have a detailed note of all my investigations here - http://informtide.info/pub/docs/ZoteroImports.txt
Upgrade Storage
We do diverge somewhat from Scrapbook's philosophy, however, in how we plan to implement some of these features. For instance, when you highlight some text in Scrapbook, it actually inserts a span tag into the document--i.e., it changes the original document to add your highlights or comments. Our philosophy is that documents should be kept in their original form (hey, we're academics; altering/defacing primary sources is anathema to us). So we're going to use our relational database system to map highlights and comments onto documents. Not only does this keep the original as is, it permits some neat features in the future (such as multiple-person markup).
As for the sidebar vs top/bottom placement, some user interface tests convinced us that on smaller screens it would be impossible to read a document in the main browser window with the Zotero pane open (on the left or right) because the text would run off the screen. When the Zotero pane is placed on the top or bottom, the text can fill the width of the browser window (although you do see fewer lines of the text; but it's better to scroll up/down through a document than left/right). It's also much harder to do the iTunes-like UI in a vertical setup.
E.g. if you have:
<p id="1">Some paragraph.</p>
... and you want to reference the paragraph, no problem. But if there's no id or you want to reference a non-existant span?
Dan, see the post on direct storage of PDF's in the feature requests section - I mean the ability to save pdfs within zotero as a zotero item, and then associate them with records (by drag and drop within zotero). I would happily have my pdf collection stored within the zotero area of the file system, rather than having to link to outside zotero, since I access my pdfs currently through desktop search it doesn't matter where they are. I know you support automatic storage of pdfs for some collections, but it doesn't cover collections you don't support nor pdf available from authors websites or found on google. In scrapbook you can do this by the "capture link (as)" feature. It would also be nice if you had option to rename the file before capture. Plus the same feature could also apply to any links from the internet, such as DOCs, RTFs, .PS, and even pictures and media files. So basically zotero becomes a download manager as well, which makes it easy to store any research related materials from the internet and store them as records, or standalone items that can be associated with records (like notes can). So, I would think you could have an option (like scrapbook) to right click on a link on a webpage, and have option "save link as item" or "save link", and then a dialogue box come up for "save link as item" where you can choose the type of item, change the filename, add a tag and so on, and the downloaded link gets automatically attached to the item.
Thanks!
(1)Save a snapshot with scrapbook firstly. Then open it. Then attach a link to the snapshot in zotero. The bad side is you may have to do full-text search in both zotero and scrapbook.
(2)Take a snapshot with zotero firstly. Then open it and remember the filename (shown in the address bar of your firefox) that zotero used to link to. Then use "show file" with this snapshot and open the directory (dir1). Then delete all files in the directory.
Now use scrapbook take a snapshot again. Use "show files" with it. You will see it in a directory (dir2). Copy all files from the directory(dir2) into the zotero direcory(dir1). Then rename the "index.html" file into the name zotero used.
The bad side for this way is you have to spend sereval seconds more to take a snapshot with the way you want.
Would it be possible to use this scrapbook program directly in the Zotero web-page storage folder?
But I also want to use the zotero's sync ability. Is there any one that has found a solution?
I didn't really make use of the meta data functions of scrapbook, so it's not really important for me to import that in zotero. But my scrapbook database is quite huge (about 10 000+ pages) so I can't import every page by hand...
Is there any way to import just the web page data (and maybe the folder names as tags) from SB to zotero automatically?
programmer user in 3 easy steps
Before beginning. have the extension Scrapbook CopyInfo installed in FireFox.
----------------
Step 1 : modify COPY PAGE INFO configuration
In Scrapbook Sidebar : Tools / Additional Features / Copy Page Info : Configuration.
Copy the text below :
TY - ELEC
N1 - Scrapbook folder : %ID%
T1 - %TITLE%
UR - %SOURCE%
M1 - %LOCAL%
AB - Comment : %COMMENT%
PY - %DATE%
KW - %FOLDER%
N1 - Tab : %TAB%
ER - End of Reference
IMPORTANT : two spaces between the tag and the dash (« - ») and only one space after the dash. For example TY+space+space+dash+space+ELEC
Adaptation : You can replace English text with text in other language.
----------------
Step 2 : generate and copy in ClipBoard a RIS formatted data
In Scrapbook Sidebar : Tools / Additional Features / Copy Page Info : Tree
----------------
Step 3 : import RIS data into ZOTERO
In Zotero pane : Actions / Import from clipboard
Wait few minutes depending the data volume. That's it!
----------------
Recommandation : For steps 1 to 3 work with a small Scrapbook (under 500 records) by using the export function ( Tools / Export )
Local links (file://) are not imported properly. I used the « Extra : » tag from Zotero to access the Scapbook storage data. Those data are generally saved under a dated folder. To access the capture : copy the local link in the Extra tag and paste it in the
navigation bar.
Suggestions are welcome.
For more information visit my blog (se my profile. It's in French, but try automated translation)
thank you for posting this howto - it works! I'm now trying to figure out, wether there's a possibility to import the snapshots as well. Many of my archived links (~5000) are not available anymore, so I have to find a solution for that. If I have success, I will post it here.
Thanks again!
I wanted to have the page content available in zotero as well as just the urls so I could index and search it (as well as have access to sites no longer there). Attaching scrapbook's index.html gave searchable content, but missed out pictures so I converted the pages to pdf then imported them. I used wkhtmltopdf to do the conversion as I'm on linux, but I'm sure there are similar things out there for windows/mac.
Steps:
1 - install wkhtmltopdf
2 - run through each index.html and convert:
-----START SCRIPT-----
scrapbook_folder=~/Dropbox/scrapbook/data/
for scrap_file in $(find $scrapbook_folder -name index.html)
do
echo $scrap_file
wkhtmltopdf "$scrap_file" "${scrap_file}.pdf"
done
-----END SCRIPT-----
copy between the START/END lines (not including them) into a file. save the file to something like 'makepdfs' then run with:
sh makepdfs
This may take a while if you have a large collection.
3 - set up COPY PAGE INFO as in dmercier's script above but using the following text:
TY - ELEC
T1 - %TITLE%
UR - %SOURCE%
L1 - %LOCAL%
L1 - %LOCAL%.pdf
N1 - SCRAPBOOK: %LOCAL%
PY - %DATE%
KW - %FOLDER%
ER - End of Reference
Make sure you leave a line after the ER line otherwise the import won't work!
(You can leave out the line "L1 - %LOCAL%" if you wish. I like this as it is a html version of the page. It misses the pictures and styles but allows for a quick and easy view of the page without having to open the PDF)
Continue from step 2 in dmercier's guide.
Once you have done the import, I had to go into the zotero preferences > search and run the reindex for them to be searchable.
Enjoy!