Safari connector and Zotero standalone

Eric Weir

I gather from other comments here that the Safari connector should work -- taking into consideration that it's still in beta -- with Zotero Standalone. That doesn't seem to be the case for me. Hovering over the Zotero button on Safari with Standalone open produces a message saying "Zotero is offline." If I have Firefox running, however, I get "Zotero is online."

So, why isn't the Safari connector working with Standalone for me.

I have OS X 10.6.8, Safari 5.1, and Zotero Standalone 3.ob2.1

Thanks,

Eric Weir

Simon

Did you set the extensions.zotero.httpServer.enabled hidden preference to true in Firefox? If so, that is probabling interfering with saving to Zotero Standalone.

conservNewman

I have installed Zotero Standalone.
And I have the same difficulty as Eric (same OS, safari and Zotero versions)... while I don't have firefox installed on my MacBook.
Any other idea of solution?
thanks

John_muccigrosso

I don't think the server settings are the problem (and I don't see that one in Firefox's about:config either). When toggled off then back on, the extension reports:

"Zotero Connector for Safari 2.999.1 is incompatible with the running version of Zotero Standalone. Zotero Connector will continue to operate, but functionality that relies upon Zotero Standalone may be unavaliable.

Please ensure that you have installed the latest version of these components. See http://www.zotero.org/support/standalone for more details"

My set-up:
Zotero standalone v. 3.0b2.1
Zotero Safari extension v. 3.0b1
Safari 5.1.1
OS X 10.6.8

Most of the time, the Zotero icon in Safari is a greyed-out Z in a circle, and on hover gives the "Zotero is online" message reported above. However it does work for some sites. For example, if I go to the Amazon link in this thread: http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/20035/getting-started-with-a-mac/
the Zotero icon turns into a book and I can successfully add that item to my library and the standalone will show it upon sync.

Not really sure what the issue is, but it means I have to flip over to Firefox to add things like blog entries.

(Still running the 2.1 Firefox extension which seems to be working fine with the standalone beta.)

dstillman

If you're running 2.1, you might have extensions.zotero.connector.enabled set to true. In general, though, if you're using Standalone you should be using the 3.0b2 Firefox extension too.

John_muccigrosso

OK, upgraded Firefox to the 3.0 beta and set the connector.enabled pref to false. Then went to Safari and toggled the extension off and on. No error message now. Also the icon on blog pages is a greyed out Z with a line through it and the hover text says "Zotero is Offline." Start up the standalone and the Z loses its line and hover text says that Zotero is online.

Now as long as I keep the Safari extension on, these sites will keep the icon greyed but without the line. Amazon will show me the book icon, even if I quit the standalone and toggle the extension off/on. (It may require a page reload after the extension is toggled though.)

In short it looks to me like the Safari extension doesn't work for "ordinary" sites, like blogs, and when on those sites either it needs to be toggled off/on in order to recognize that the standalone is running, as determined by the state of the icon. Sometimes it seems that loading pages it does recognize (Amazon) will alter the state of the icon on other pages, but sometimes not. For those recognized pages, the extension now works no matter whether the standalone is running or not.

The same situation seems to obtain when the firefox pref is set to true, so that doesn't seem to matter. And the Firefox extension works fine whichever way the pref is set too (though Amazon pages now seem to be prefixed with "Amazon.com:" when installed from firefox, but not from Safari).

adamsmith

which blogs are you referring to? Do they have a URL bar icon in Zotero for Firefox? I'm not sure what an "ordinary site" is.

John_muccigrosso

I'll put it this way: with the exception of Amazon, my Zotero icon remains perpetually greyed out. So when I wrote "ordinary" I meant "not Amazon." This means that I can't add any of those non-Amazon sites to my collection.

(There are indeed other sites that the extension recognizes, like Library of Congress catalog entries, but I wasn't trying hard to find other Amazon-like sites.)

In contrast the Firefox plugin lets me add any site to my Zotero collection.

I have an array of extensions, so maybe some of them are getting in the way, though I have an array of plugins in Firefox too. Firefox also always has a Zotero button now. (On a Mac, btw.)

adamsmith

please give an example URL of such an "ordinary" site (for lack of a better term). Most Blogs aren't recognized by Zotero in Firefox either. Are you referring to adding them with the "Create new Item from Current Page" button? If so, that function is currently replicated in the connector using right-click--> Take Zotero Snapshot of Current page.

I'm trying to understand what's going on and if this is a misunderstanding about how the connector works or if it's a genuine technical issue.

John_muccigrosso

Ah, that's what it is!

That's a major difference in functionality that had me confused. The Firefox button is always available and working (even if it does a different thing from Safari's), and I expected the Safari button to be as well.

On that: isn't it possible to have the Safari button always active and default to "take snapshot"?

adamsmith

Note that there are two different functionalities:
When you have the item in the URL - both in FF and in Chrome/Safari - there is a Zotero translator present and you can generally expect good or very good data.
If the icon isn't present, Zotero will grab minimal information (usually just the page title, URL, access title, and a snapshot).
Obviously you'd want these two functions distinguished for the user. In Zotero for Firefox they are - in one situation you have to use the button in Zotero, in the other you have the URL bar icon.
We're currently thinking of a way to make this more intuitive in the connectors that would still maintain that crucial distinction.

John_muccigrosso

I see what you mean, but I would put it this way:

Both browser types give you a clear indication when Zotero has a special way to handle a site: Firefox has the URL-field icon; Safari has the changed button appearance.

That means to me that if Safari showed an unchanged Z icon, the user would know that it was just going to take a snapshot and not do anything special.

Since the two scenarios already work differently, I wouldn't worry about this further difference in behavior.

(To be honest, Firefox is not my usual browser and I didn't even realize there was something odd in the URL field. I never look there.)

adamsmith

so you suggest that clicking the greyed out Safari button would take a snapshot? That could work.
Unfortunately the lay out in Chrome is different - there is no permanent Zotero button - although I guess there could be.

John_muccigrosso

Right, though it wouldn't be greyed out as it is now, though I suppose it could be grey-scale instead of colorful.

(And now that I think of it, the special book icon is pretty dull too, though I guess Apple is moving towards grey all over the place, huh?)

Not sure how Chrome does it. I only use that when I need Flash. :-)

roobdj

I had the identical Safari problem--Zotero button grayed and disabled, with hover message "Zotero is Offline."

I solved the problem by right clicking anywhere on the page and selecting so Zotero preferences.In the preferences window there is an option forAuthorization. I authorized, and that enabled these Zotero button. The button design still appears grayed, but the hover-over message now reads “Zotero is enabled”.

Charles_Egert

OK. Here is my experience with the Safari connector. It worked on the first try with Amazon.fr On my ordinary library site I eventually managed to get it to work once, but haven't yet managed to repeat this. I was adjusting the "Authorization" parameters on the Zotero interface (on Mac, right click, select Zotero Preferences) when the Zotero icon changed to a book, and by clicking on it I registered the item correctly in Zotero standalone. A little bouncing window also appeared. I have been trying to repeat this but so far the icon refuses to change for other titles. No bouncing window. No new entry in the standalone. I will post again if I figure this out.

kermit666

I agree with John_muccigrosso. The expected behavior when switching from FF to Safari would be to always have an "add to Zottero" button. I had to search quite a bit to find that this functionality is in the right-click context menu for regular webpages.

dstillman

kermit666: That's planned.