Group libraries in client: four simple UI suggestions for improvement

mark

1. All group libraries are expanded by default in the client. No idea why; all collapsed seems to be a better default option.
Proposal: all group libraries collapsed (but visible under the main node) by default, unless a different state has been saved (see #3) in which case use that state.

2. What makes #1 worse is that there is no easy way to collapse all group libraries at once. Using the left arrow key multiple times in the end collapses all groups under the main node "Group libraries", but if you then use the right arrow to expand one level (expecting it to work like the collections in My Library), everything's expanded again!
Proposal: make this work as the Collections work (and as most file managers in general work)

3. It would be much nicer if the client would remember the collapsed/expanded state of group libraries. One reason is that if I'm a member of ten groups and I work with one, I don't want to scroll don the whole list in search of that one. Another reason is the issues with expanding/collapsing part of the tree mentioned above.
Proposal: remember the state of the tree across sessions in the client.

4. Ordering. There is no visible principle according to which groups are sorted currently. It appears to be the order in which they were added, which makes very little sense to the user. Of course alphabetic ordering would also make little sense.
Proposal: make reordering (by dragging) possible.

fbennett

Second these.

Diab Harb

I agree with your comment Mark. Each time you open the Zotero window, whether it be Firefox Zotero or Zotero Standalone, all the groups in your library are expanded. It is very inconvenient to have to go through each one and collapse them. Especially when I have many groups.

mark

I see now that it's actually worse than I thought: even when you add a collection or subcollection to a specific group library, the whole list of group libraries is simply reinitialized to the most unhelpful "expand everything!" mode. Why? And is it really difficult to at least make the behavior consistent with collections in My Library?

So I would amend my proposal #3 as follows: remember the state of the tree during sessions and across sessions in the client.

dstillman

I've implemented persistence of the source list open/close state on the trunk.

https://www.zotero.org/trac/changeset/9950

mark

Re #4, ordering, I wrote "Of course alphabetic ordering would also make little sense.", but actually it makes a lot more sense than the ordering by date which is practically the same as random. Alphabetic ordering would help in finding groups quickly, and would replicate the behaviour of collections.

Still, manual reordering would be preferable I think. But alphabetic ordering a good start.

dstillman

I've enabled alphabetic sorting on the trunk.

amandafrench

I'm running Zotero for FF 2.1.10, and my group libraries are still always expanded by default. Is there an about:config setting I should toggle or something?

dstillman

The trunk is 3.0.

amandafrench

Got it -- genius! Very nice to have them stay collapsed. Thanks.