Upgrade StorageOpening Zotero database very slow
I noticed that it every time again takes quit some time for the database to open / show all references. I have only about 4000 references in my database. Without wanting to sound too negative (it's really a great product), this can be quit irritating when writing.
I have the impression that the search-while-you-type feature slows the searching down considerably. That is most noticeable when after you have typed in a word or phrase you delete all but the first letter(s). This will very often results in a long delay before results show up. I am not sure what is causing this and I am actually surprises as I would expect that with the database being a SQLite db, search should be very fast. In fact, I have been using Bibus, which also is based on SQLite and searching is extremely fast.
Working as much as possible in folders with subsets of articles does help to some extent (especially when adding references in a document), but often I have to search the full database. This brings me to one question and one request:
* Most of my files are pdf and I didn't enable the pdf indexing because I fear it will further slow down Zotero. Would that indeed be the case or wouldn't it make much difference in speed?
* Would it be feasible to add the option to disable the search-while-you-type feature, having Zotero only starting to search for a reference when you hit the 'go' button? If so, could that also be incorporated in the Zotero Word / OOo plugin?
Paulo
I have the impression that the search-while-you-type feature slows the searching down considerably. That is most noticeable when after you have typed in a word or phrase you delete all but the first letter(s). This will very often results in a long delay before results show up. I am not sure what is causing this and I am actually surprises as I would expect that with the database being a SQLite db, search should be very fast. In fact, I have been using Bibus, which also is based on SQLite and searching is extremely fast.
Working as much as possible in folders with subsets of articles does help to some extent (especially when adding references in a document), but often I have to search the full database. This brings me to one question and one request:
* Most of my files are pdf and I didn't enable the pdf indexing because I fear it will further slow down Zotero. Would that indeed be the case or wouldn't it make much difference in speed?
* Would it be feasible to add the option to disable the search-while-you-type feature, having Zotero only starting to search for a reference when you hit the 'go' button? If so, could that also be incorporated in the Zotero Word / OOo plugin?
Paulo
You also might try hiding the tag selector, since it can slow things down quite a bit.
Hope that helps. We're always working to improve Zotero's performance, and we'll be attempting to make a lot of speed improvements once we've switched over to Firefox 3, so stay tuned.
Speaking as a user of "legacy hardware" (an ibook g4 on os x) a "disable incremental search - check this if you are using a slow computer " checkbox would be useful. As would a "disable incremental search if currently selected collection is less than item.
Also is there a standard FAQ for feature requests - bug tracking system?
It's often the little things that help out a lot; adding a double quotation mark before search text works great!
One question, you mentioned in your reply to Kieren that "Sorting has a much greater effect on general use". What do you mean by this?
Thanks for the support and of course Zotero
I have a last generation iMac with a lot of unused CPU power and memory space, and indexing is still slow enough to keep me from working. What about the others who don't?
I run Zotero Standalone on Mac and Windows, both relatively up-to-date machines with decent memory. on the Mac I have unbearable lags for everything: searching, adding child items, adding new references...
On the PC the lag is less for searching, for example, but it's still there.
I've just tried changing the pdf indexing (still slow), and searching with double quotations (even slower!)
I would appreciate if there could be a wiki workflow page on troubleshooting slow behavior. Maybe I haven't found it yet, but it's very confusing to try to figure this out with the whole slew of different versions of slowness.