Inconvenient interface for multiple sources, improvements suggested

aasmund.skjaeveland

I find the interface for citing multiple sources in Word rather cumbersome. The right-hand pane for selected sources is fixed width, and only shows the first few words of each title, and not the author or year. This makes it inconvenient to reorder or edit, since it's hard to see which references are which (I have to keep looking at either the main library or the citation manager on the bottom of the window). Also, the process for selecting multiple sources is cumbersome. I suggest the following interface improvements:

1. Make the multiple sources pane resizable, and able to display several data columns (f.ex. year and author, in addition to title).

2. Add auto-sort options for the sources in the right-hand pane (Author, then year; year, then author; etc.) Make manual reordering of references in right-hand pane easier, for example by drag and drop.

3. Make the process for selecting multiple sources simpler: Allow ctrl-clicking on references in order to add multiple sources at once. When the user ctrl-clicks several references, automatically open the multiple sources pane. Allow dragging references to right-hand pane, as well as selecting multiple and adding with one click on the "add" arrow.

I'm writing in the AGU style, if it makes any difference to the argument. Zotero 2.1.8, Firefox 6.0, Word 2007.

mark

Agreed with all points. I believe major improvements are coming up in a soon to be released new version though so some of them may be addressed.

dstillman

The new interface is already available in 3.0b1.

Those improvements could still be made to the classic view, though. We'd welcome patches.

schnumbl

I also would like to have ctrl-clicking and shift-clicking to select multiple sources and add them at once.