change a field's displayed name?

dtoy

I know that having individuals modify the standard set of fields is the last thing you want done in general, but I have a specific need to locally display a field name differently, and so I'm wondering: Is it possible to, say, modify zotero.sqlite so that a field (Language) displays its name as something else, e.g. Ref Number or Endnote Number, just on my computer? When I say "displays as", I'm thinking a) as a column heading in the citation list (middle pane of Zotero) and, less crucially, b) in the field list (right-hand pane).

This is already a workaround: We used Language since there is no existing or "custom" field we could use, as I understand, for this information.

Thanks.

adamsmith

What's your tolerance for the complexity of this?
It will entail changing and re-packing source code.
(specifically the locale file https://github.com/zotero/zotero/tree/master/chrome/locale/en-US/zotero ) and it will be overwritten with each Zotero update.

Is that really going to be less work than explain to people that "language" for your purpose means "xyz"?

(Also, you will run into all types of potential problems with this workaround: Many translators fill the language fields, the language field is automatically checked by citation styles to trigger/untrigger title casing and may, in the future, be displayed as part of citations depending on the style.)

some edits for clarification.

dtoy

"What's your tolerance for the complexity of this? It will entail changing and re-packing source code."

Probably not high enough, but if you are willing to spell out the steps, at least generally, maybe it would be worth a try.


"Also, you will run into all types of potential problems with this workaround:"

Is there a better way? Either a better field to re-purpose, one that occurs in most document types (e.g. article, report, interview, book, book chapter), or a solution that doesn't re-purpose a field? I poked around zotero.sqlite and saw that "custom field" occurs there, but apparently these are not supported.

Thanks.

adamsmith

What exactly do you need this for?
"Extra" is designed as a custom field, but can, unfortunately, not be displayed in the middle column (I have no idea why not - I wish it could).
If you really need the field in the middle column, "Rights" could be a less-bad option (it's used by fewer translators and not ever for citation styles).

(I believe the "custom field" has to do with some custom version that Zotero made for the NSF).

dtoy

The general public will be accessing a terminal and will not be familiar with Zotero, so I want the display they see to be as self-explanatory as possible. We are writing some instructions, though, where we can explain "Language" means "Reference number". That looks like what we'll do for simplicity sake.

adamsmith

I assume you have considered Call Number? That would be the obvious choice here.

dtoy

That would be good, except call number isn't an available field for web pages, which we need to reference as well. Too bad it doesn't; even interview has call number, I see. Any secret way to enable call number for web pages?

adamsmith

There is no way, no.

Enabling more already existing fields for more item types is one of my (and not just my) pet issues. Reworking existing fields and items will be one of the major issues for Zotero 3.5 - if you could describe a little bit more why/how you're assigning Reference Numbers to websites that might happen. Probably not early enough to be useful for you, but...

dtoy

The websites and other sources are all cited as endnotes in a report written by my employer. We want to keep track of which endnote number in our report corresponds to each source.

I look forward to the version that opens up more fields!