Open abstract in a separate window

ben58

Currently, the abstract field is too narrow to legibly display an average abstract (1000-1500 characters) - even on a wide display. Currently, if I have to read an abstract and don't have the PDF of the paper, I resort to copying the abstract into a text editor and view it there. Works, but not exactly the elegant Zotero way

Solutions to the problem has been proposed here and here.

I would suggest opening the abstract in a separate window for editing and viewing, exactly as can be done with notes.

And BTW having rich text in abstracts would be nice - sub-/superscripts e.g. are quite important in Physics and Chemistry.

ajlyon

Super and subscripts are on their way-- they're understood by the citation engine starting with the 2.1 betas, and they'll somehow make their way into the metadata fields eventually as well, but I wouldn't expect them in 2.1 final.

For reading, you can generate a report from the item for now. It shouldn't generally be necessary to compose abstracts of any length, so I'm not sure that an easy way to edit long abstracts is terribly important.

In the future, feel free to revive one of the old threads when bringing up a problem or proposal that has been raised and forgotten before-- that way the whole course of the discussion is in one place.

ben58

Avram, thanks a lot for you suggestion. It' a nice solution for the problem, I'll use it and tell my colleagues.

I don't see any need in composing abstracts too - if they are not added automatically, I add them by copy-paste, but don't edit. I thought of a separate window just as a solution which is already implemented in some other place in Zotero and would probably be not difficult to implement for abstracts, too.

There is only a little problem with the solution you proposed: the solution with generating reports is not really obvious. Thus, it can be used by you, me, the few people who read this thread, and the few who come to this idea by themselves.