Mendeley has 6 marked status including Read/Unread,Favorite/not,Review/not.
And it can clearly show the attached pdfs.
So I use Zotero to import libraries,and use Mendeley to read/manage pdf files. If Zotero implement the similar feature,I would forsake Mendeley.
I think this is gonna be much better -- you're not even limited to a predefined set of status, or stars, or whatever -- you can basically use any system that matches your workflow!
I use the extra field/column and the "+ to +++++" system to be able to see within the entire thematic folder the priority of my "read next" list, by clicking on the extra column so it sorts by importance. and the underscore _++++ to mark as read so i can see within the folder how much i've progressed. -------------------------------------------------------------
Can somebody explain what this guy mean exactly? Is there a way to add +++? How?
s/he means manually typing these - since the "extra" column isn't currently displayed, I don't quite see how that would work, but that's the idea.
Zotero 3.5 isn't going to be any time soon and Zotero doesn't typically release any ETAs because they're too unreliable.
My educated and entirely unofficial guess would be that I wouldn't be surprised if an alpha version was out before the end of the year, but I'd be shocked if a final version came out before 2013.
Ufff, well thanks, but this is indeed bit disappointing. I understand development takes time, but not having easy way to visualize your progress in many references is making work harder.
I am about to write a paper (thesis) with over 50 pages and don't have solution how to sort references based on progress. Tags simply don't do the job.
I absoultely DO NOT like the idea of using tags to mark my progress or anything else. Tags, in my opinion, belong solely to the content of an item. That's why I import them from a bibfile, for example. It is really bad style to mix metadata about the content with metadata about... well, something else.
Also, I don't see this approach supporting groups, e.g., individual colors for everyone working with an item.
I'd rather see a new entry in the database, something like "label" or "color", storing a list of key/value pairs, i.e., {bueschel, blue} or {other_user, red} to store individual labels/colors for items on a per-user basis.
I agree with bueschel and would prefer something like files in Mac OS, which have a color property. Maybe this extension could be part of the planed database revision.
BUT I can't wait to have any visual coloring so I wish this just gets implemented as soon as possible even if it's not optimal.
As from other post I quote: ------------------------------------- Simon Aug 1st 2012
The next major release will be available sometime around November 20. A beta release will be available a month or two before. -------------------------------------
Still no signs of this? As original post was posted 5 years ago, some did their PhD in that time, but you really can't do that feature in some reasonable time frame?
No reason to be snippy about this. There are dozens of Zotero features that have been envisioned from the start - or early on - and haven't made it into the software yet. Many, many others have. That's perfectly normal for a well planned software project.
You can read through the changelogs of the last 5 years to see how much has happened - my guess would be that the code added or changed is about the length of a dissertation if not more.
The November 20th release will go out as planned - it has to for Firefox 17 compatibility. Because it's time sensitive, I don't know if all the intended features & updates made it in - I don't see the tag colors in the current commits at least.
While I appreciate using Zotero, and I understand process of software development, as I am in this field too, I can't understand why [obviously the most requested feature] it hasn't been implemented yet.
The reason why I am asking this is as it was said it will be already implemented until now and I was really looking forward to it. Could you please make rough statement when this [if at all] is to be implemented, as at the moment I can't use it as it is, so I can look up to other solutions. Thanks.
This is likely not the most requested feature, most certainly not "obviously" so.
I don't have any part in coding this and Zotero devs have - because of the unpredictability of timeframes in software development, especially with a small team, rarely been willing to provide timelines for big features like this.
From what I see in the commits, it looks like the Nov. 20 update might be rolled out as part of a regular incremental update and the next major update will include the announced features (batch editing, e.g. - which I think is _way_ more important and more frequently requested/asked about, and field updates) - a good estimate for a timeframe for that is more than a month, less than a year. Going by past experience, it doesn't make a lot of sense to try to be more precise on this.
You can speed up the process if you use your qualifications to help improve Zotero. There are multiple open tickets marked with help wanted on the issue tracker:
https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues?direction=desc&labels=Help+Welcome&page=1&sort=created&state=open
Help is welcome on most other open tickets, too.
I cannot believe the lack of activity by zotero. I had promoted this to colleagues and most of our division uses it at this point. Sadly, not a single feature has been added in over a year. Many start switching to other tools and I can't blame them. The lack of progress for otherwise such a great tool, it's a shame!
Ok, that was over the top, but the functionality adds have been very rare. Plus, this release is a year old :)
Much requested features that have been discussed for years are nowhere to be found. Even insiders and developers stated many times that many of the features have been on the agenda for years and might be implemented within months or years, it did not happen.
I'm not blaming anyone, just curious as to what's really going on. I'd expect people to be frank and state what is the case. If development is stalled and bug fixes are the major focus only one should simply say so. One release per year is not common for such a much wanted tool.
My somewhat informed take on this is that a lot of small and useful things are happening gradually and I wouldn't understate their importance (and I'd say that things like the bookmarklet and the mobile site which makes Zotero very competitive on mobile devices are pretty major new features). Also, considering that Zotero is in it's sixth year and at version 3.0 I don't think taking more than a year between major versions is that unusual - and it's certainly not compared to other software including most of Zotero's competitors - Papers is in version 2, Mendeley in 1.7 and Endnote in 14 since the mid 1980s.
About the next major version: A lot of Dan's - the lead developers - time is currently taken up by a complete re-write of the sync infrastructure based on the API https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/zotero-dev/egIdfVmWEeo he obviously still does other things, but that's a major step, which will allow for the much overdue field revision in the next version. It's in no way stalled - as you can see if you look at the commit history - https://github.com/zotero/dataserver/tree/next but it's a big project. Once that's ready to go into beta I'd expect the three other big features planned for the next release - batch editing, color coded tags, and field revisions to come next. Preparation on all three of those are under way. None of this comes with any authority, but it's based on some chats with devs as well as commit and zotero-dev traffic.
Right, it should be pretty clear from the thecommithistories (and there are others) that development hasn't in any way stalled. There has in fact been new functionality in 3.0 point releases—the last of which was a few days ago, not a year ago—but we also try to keep the point releases stable. It is true that, when new functionality gets landed on the main development branch instead of on 3.0, it then doesn't see the light of day for a long time, and we could possibly change how we do branching to put out smaller releases with new features more often. But we're a small development team and don't have, say, a dedicated QA team, so there's overhead and risk involved the more branching and releases we do. But once we get the next master release out, we can consider whether there are workflow changes we want to make.
Thank you for update Dan. Could you please state when new version with simple marking items feature comes out approximately. Is this weeks, months or more, so I can choose whether to wait or move to another app.
Yes, starring and maybe "read/unread" like in thunderbird would be great. I sometimes search for articles and add them without reading all of it (but just skimming through it or its abstract) and they should be marked "unread" by default.
Dan, it's not in the 3.1 branch atm, right? (I can't see it) Just one comment: the little colored squares are next to the item icons which are colored too. It's a bit subtle, e.g. the book item has a blue square next to its blue book icon.
Dan, it's not in the 3.1 branch atm, right? (I can't see it)
No, but it'll be landing in the next day or so.
Just one comment: the little colored squares are next to the item icons which are colored too. It's a bit subtle, e.g. the book item has a blue square next to its blue book icon.
It's a little crowded, but I think it will work OK, and there aren't a whole lot of alternatives—space in the items pane is pretty limited. (And, of course, you can choose the colors you want to use if you find some hard to see. These also aren't the final colors.)
I looked at the colored tag implementation in the 3.1 branch today. It looks great!!
There is one thing I would suggest though: An option to show tag colors for parent and child items similar to the options for saved searches. Currently, child items might have a tag with the color but that is invisible unless the list of child items is expanded. I think it would be good to give the user such an option simply as a checkbox in the small color tag options window. So users could, for example, have a "read" tag that is assigned to specific attachments and not the parent item and still see the tag color in the item list. It would also be useful for zotfile's "_table" tag, which is assigned to specific attachments and not the parent item. An alternative would be to use a lighter or slightly transparent version of the same color if a tag is assigned to a child item.
Any thoughts?
ps: I tried to post this in a thread on zotero-dev before but my message was somehow deleted...
Upgrade Storage
http://www.thirdstreetsoftware.com/site/SenteForMac.html
And it can clearly show the attached pdfs.
So I use Zotero to import libraries,and use Mendeley to read/manage pdf files. If Zotero implement the similar feature,I would forsake Mendeley.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Can somebody explain what this guy mean exactly? Is there a way to add +++? How?
Oh, and visualizing with colors is ok. Here is my suggestion http://shrani.si/f/1V/Vl/4rBBrGk2/suggestion.jpg but just colorizing words will do too.
Offtopic: anybody can tell when 3.5 is supposed to come out. It would really help to have this feat on board.
Zotero 3.5 isn't going to be any time soon and Zotero doesn't typically release any ETAs because they're too unreliable.
My educated and entirely unofficial guess would be that I wouldn't be surprised if an alpha version was out before the end of the year, but I'd be shocked if a final version came out before 2013.
I am about to write a paper (thesis) with over 50 pages and don't have solution how to sort references based on progress. Tags simply don't do the job.
Any suggestions?
Also, I don't see this approach supporting groups, e.g., individual colors for everyone working with an item.
I'd rather see a new entry in the database, something like "label" or "color", storing a list of key/value pairs, i.e., {bueschel, blue} or {other_user, red} to store individual labels/colors for items on a per-user basis.
BUT I can't wait to have any visual coloring so I wish this just gets implemented as soon as possible even if it's not optimal.
As from other post I quote:
-------------------------------------
Simon
Aug 1st 2012
The next major release will be available sometime around November 20. A beta release will be available a month or two before.
-------------------------------------
Still no signs of this? As original post was posted 5 years ago, some did their PhD in that time, but you really can't do that feature in some reasonable time frame?
You can read through the changelogs of the last 5 years to see how much has happened - my guess would be that the code added or changed is about the length of a dissertation if not more.
The November 20th release will go out as planned - it has to for Firefox 17 compatibility. Because it's time sensitive, I don't know if all the intended features & updates made it in - I don't see the tag colors in the current commits at least.
The reason why I am asking this is as it was said it will be already implemented until now and I was really looking forward to it. Could you please make rough statement when this [if at all] is to be implemented, as at the moment I can't use it as it is, so I can look up to other solutions. Thanks.
I don't have any part in coding this and Zotero devs have - because of the unpredictability of timeframes in software development, especially with a small team, rarely been willing to provide timelines for big features like this.
From what I see in the commits, it looks like the Nov. 20 update might be rolled out as part of a regular incremental update and the next major update will include the announced features (batch editing, e.g. - which I think is _way_ more important and more frequently requested/asked about, and field updates) - a good estimate for a timeframe for that is more than a month, less than a year. Going by past experience, it doesn't make a lot of sense to try to be more precise on this.
You can speed up the process if you use your qualifications to help improve Zotero. There are multiple open tickets marked with help wanted on the issue tracker:
https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues?direction=desc&labels=Help+Welcome&page=1&sort=created&state=open
Help is welcome on most other open tickets, too.
Much requested features that have been discussed for years are nowhere to be found. Even insiders and developers stated many times that many of the features have been on the agenda for years and might be implemented within months or years, it did not happen.
I'm not blaming anyone, just curious as to what's really going on. I'd expect people to be frank and state what is the case. If development is stalled and bug fixes are the major focus only one should simply say so. One release per year is not common for such a much wanted tool.
About the next major version: A lot of Dan's - the lead developers - time is currently taken up by a complete re-write of the sync infrastructure based on the API
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/zotero-dev/egIdfVmWEeo
he obviously still does other things, but that's a major step, which will allow for the much overdue field revision in the next version. It's in no way stalled - as you can see if you look at the commit history -
https://github.com/zotero/dataserver/tree/next
but it's a big project. Once that's ready to go into beta I'd expect the three other big features planned for the next release - batch editing, color coded tags, and field revisions to come next. Preparation on all three of those are under way.
None of this comes with any authority, but it's based on some chats with devs as well as commit and zotero-dev traffic.
Thanks for the great software!
I'd like to stress the above mentioned requests especially
* a (5?-)star ranking on the sources' usefulness
* a read / unread / read next-button
My scientific work is much easier using your software! Thanks again!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/na1hb975d7wx2pm/tag_colors.png
Just one comment: the little colored squares are next to the item icons which are colored too. It's a bit subtle, e.g. the book item has a blue square next to its blue book icon.
There is one thing I would suggest though: An option to show tag colors for parent and child items similar to the options for saved searches. Currently, child items might have a tag with the color but that is invisible unless the list of child items is expanded. I think it would be good to give the user such an option simply as a checkbox in the small color tag options window. So users could, for example, have a "read" tag that is assigned to specific attachments and not the parent item and still see the tag color in the item list. It would also be useful for zotfile's "_table" tag, which is assigned to specific attachments and not the parent item. An alternative would be to use a lighter or slightly transparent version of the same color if a tag is assigned to a child item.
Any thoughts?
ps: I tried to post this in a thread on zotero-dev before but my message was somehow deleted...