Unable to add additional styles

Claire Chomer

Hi,

Since the update of Firefox (4.0) and Zotero (2.1) the same day, I can’t to add additional citation styles any more. In Preferences -> Style Manager when I click get additional styles I get to the default/additional styles page. I click install files. It seems to install fine (eg “Installer le style “these” à partir de these4.csl”), but the installed file doesn't get added to the Style Manager. I have also downloaded the .csl file to my computer. I have also downloaded the .csl file to my computer (C:\Users\Ciara\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\zs5lwuov.default\zotero\Styles) and used the + button to upload the style. The process seems to go fine, but I still can't find the added style in the Style Manager. I also tried dragging the .csl file into a tab of firefox, nothing changes.

Have you any idea?
Thanks for your help

Claire

Zotero 2.1.5
Firefox 4.0
Windows Vista
MS Word 2003 AND MS Word 2007


NB : I don't speak English very well (I'm french), so I copied the text of the forums.zotero.org/discussion/14349/ conversation which corresponded to my problem but not the solution that adamsmith found then.

adamsmith

Claire - as long as you don't mind me replying in English, feel free to write in French - I read French and so does Dan Stillman.
I don't see a style "these" in the repository - where are you getting this from? Styles with small mistakes (that didn't keep them from working in Zoteor 2.0.9) won't work in Zotero 2.1

Claire Chomer

Thanks a lot for your help !
I continue in english... maybe will i make progress ;-)

In fact, "these" is my own style (for my thesis), but even if i look for a style like Vancouver (from http://www.zotero.org/styles) or EHESS-HistoireNP (from http://franziska.fr/ehess-histoireNP.csl), nothing happens - as i described it on my first comments...

I precise that, since this double update (Firefox 4.0/Zotero 2.1), all styles installed in my folder “styles” (C:\Users\Ciara\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\zs5lwuov.default\zotero\Styles) are still here. But they no longer appear in the list of choices neither of the preferences of Zotero nor of the Zotero word plug-in.

I can repeat this in french, if you don't understand...

adamsmith

I suggest you try using the "Reset Translators and Styles" button in the advanced tab of the Zotero preferences - sounds like potentially something has corrupted your style folder

Gracile

"Reset Translators and Styles" = "Réinitialiser les convertisseurs et les styles" dans la version française (dans Préférences-> Avancées)

flobede

I have a very similar problem with my own custom style.
1) I developped it on Zotero/Firefox, and my custom style worked on it
2) I installed Zotero standalone and the custom style worked on both
3) I moved my zotero directory to a different location thant the default one. At this point, in Zotero/Firefox, other styles reappeared (I had deleted all except the custom one) and my custom style doesn't work anymore BUT it works on the standalone version.
The weird thing is that they seem to efectively work on the same directory as they share the same references... One clue would be that my Zotero/firefox is in French while my Zotero standalone is in English...

adamsmith

have you tried re-installing the custom style? What happens?

flobede

Yes, I reinitialized all styles and re-installed the custom style and I get the same message 'an error occured when creating your bibliography, please try again' (this is an approx translation, original message is in French). It still works with the standalone but with english instead of french formats (" instead of <<, january instead of janvier, etc.). I have three hypothesis :
- it is due to a conflict between Standalone and Firefox versions, maybe due to the different languages (but I tried to install Firefox in English to get a Zotero in English and try again, but the problem remains)
- it is due to an automatic update of Zotero that doesn't support anymore the format I adapted
But I'm probabl completely wrong on both....

adamsmith

post the style as a public gist to gist.github.com and post a link here - most likely it's not valid csl - the standalone uses an older version of the csl processor and how it deals with csl errors may have changed in some cases.

dstillman

You should also provide a Report ID.

flobede

Thank you very much for this help. Here is the gist link : git://gist.github.com/1014948.git
And the report ID: 1099696186 (I sent it before to write comments, is it possible to edit one already posted ?)

adamsmith

yeah, you need to make sure your style validates -
http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles#validation
this one has 15 or so problems:
http://validator.nu/?doc=https://gist.github.com/raw/1014948/cf7f547873ab33457c645f36215a961144ae7e6c/CustomStyle&amp;schema=https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/v1.0/csl.rnc&amp;laxtype=yes&amp;showsource=yes

The main issue seems to be your use of and=", " - that doesn't work. nd can be set to "text "or "symbol" or left out entirely - it looks like you'd want to leave it out entirely and set delimiter-precedes-last to "always"
That's at least a dozen of the errors.
The other one I saw quickly is your use of the the <terms> node - you need to flip terms and locale:
http://citationstyles.org/downloads/specification.html#locale
also, I'd recommend putting it right after the end of the info section - i.e. right below </info> as per convention.

flobede

Thanks for this review! The truth is that I am not very keen on programing and I barely understood how csl was working. I made this custom style patching pieces of existing styles to get what I was expecting. I guess I'll have to study it more seriously to correct the mistakes you identified (I didn't understand all of them). Thank you anyway for your time.

flobede

It seems my discouragement was groundless. A second look at your comments allowed me to solved the 2 issued you identified. I submited it again to the style validator : http://validator.nu/?doc=https://gist.github.com/1016344.git&amp;schema=https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/v1.0/csl.rnc&amp;laxtype=yes&amp;showsource=yes
One error remains : "IO Error: HTTP resource not retrievable. The HTTP status from the remote server was: 406."
Nevertheless, as it is now, it works with both Zotero standalone and on Firefox, so I'm able to cite with french conventions (<<, janvier, etc.). Thank you very much!!!

Gracile

You were not linking to the right url in the adress field, I think (choose the "raw" link on github). Your style validates now.
http://validator.nu/?doc=https://raw.github.com/gist/1016344/02856048214586556904731602dacaddae8ba766/gistfile1.txt&amp;schema=https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/v1.0/csl.rnc&amp;laxtype=yes&amp;showsource=yes

adamsmith

What is this style for? Should we put it on the repository?

flobede

Its primary purpose is for my PhD, but it is related to the convention we follow in my research group (www.chaos-international.org). What is the procedure to put it on the repository?

adamsmith

you're mostly there:
http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/sharing_styles

flobede

Thank you very much for your help and for this link. I believe I must first have it validated here to ensure with my colleagues that it corresponds to our standards in all possible scenarios. In fact I already see that something is missing: to have an abbreviate the month when reference is cited the notes (ex. Janvier = jan., février = fev., etc.). As I didn't find the answer in the forum, I created a new thread : http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/18340/abbreviated-month-in-citation-style-within-notes-janvier-jan-etc/