Testing Alpha Standalone with Stable 3.6/2.0.9?

Peter100 · January 23, 2011

I am curious about the new Alfapha Standalone http://www.zotero.org/support/standalone but want to keep my regular Zotero intact until the Standalone is stable. Is it safe to insatll and test the Standalone without it interfering with my regular Zotero database in Firefox?

Simon · January 23, 2011

When you first install Standalone, it will ask you whether you want to share a data directory with Zotero for Firefox. If you select "No" here, your Zotero for Firefox database will not be modified.

Peter100 · January 23, 2011

Thanks, so can I assume that if I 'share' between the two this will not affect the stability of the original Firefox-Zotero database?

ajlyon · January 23, 2011

If you "share", then you will have to upgrade to at least the 2.1 betas in Firefox, and any unforeseen issues with the Standalone will affect your original database.

The safest ways to try Standalone without moving to the alpha/beta world are to run standalone with a separate data directory, syncing or exporting to share with the main profile, or to run not share data at all and simply play with the Standalone for the sake of exploration.

All that said, the risk of data loss or corruption is essentially the same in Standalone or the 2.1 betas, and in both cases it is very low; I don't believe there have been any data loss bugs in beta releases of Zotero in the two years I've been using it. Just be diligent about backups.