MLZ standalone

roypeled

Hi,

I really want to begin working with MLZ, as I need to use the style required by the book with the blue cover. However, I don't like FF and really do like Chrome. Any plans on having an MLZ standalone soon?

Also, another questions if I may. Since I've been using Zotero standalone for quite some time, and I have tons of items there, also synced to the server with attachments, how will the migration work? Will these things appear in MLZ too? Do I need to actively move them there somehow?

Thanks,

Roy

adamsmith

I don't know if Frank has plans to migrate MLZ to Standalone - I believe it should be relatively easy to do, but it needs to be built each time and Frank has a gazillion things on his plate already.

Also, another questions if I may. Since I've been using Zotero standalone for quite some time, and I have tons of items there, also synced to the server with attachments, how will the migration work? Will these things appear in MLZ too? Do I need to actively move them there somehow?

Zotero items will just sync to MLZ. The only limit on syncing with MLZ is that the multilingual part of MLZ citations won't sync at all.

roypeled

What happens if I have both installed? I regularly use Chrome to wurf and add to Zotero standalone from it's extension, and that syncs to the server, and the when writing, I use MLZ to insert citations in footnotes?

Thanks again,

Roy

fbennett

That will work, but edits done via official Zotero may lose the multilingual fields in one or more entries.

MLZ can be built as a Standalone client; it's just a matter of finding people to do the builds, since my time is limited and I don't have access to all of the relevant platforms (Mac, Windows). If anyone wants to help with this, it would be great.

roypeled

I really would love to help, but far from having the know-how :( You're all doing a wonderful job (if that helps any...).

roypeled

I must be getting something here wrong, but i went ahead and installed MLZ with file zoter-multi-2.xpi, and all I got was the good old regular zotero.

??

Roy

roypeled

I think I got it.

fbennett

As a note on using official Standalone Zotero to edit a database containing MLZ records, I've done some testing. Although I said above that there may be a risk of losing multilingual fields in this case, I have tried to make that happen, and the field assignments seem to hold up just fine.

(The particular case that worried me was where there are two records: one with "Smith" as the author name and (say) "Sumisu" as a multilingual alternative; and another record with "SmithX" as the author name. If the first record author is changed to "SmithX", I was concerned that the pointer to the "Sumisu" alternative would be lost. Testing this use case, I find that the "Sumisu" alternative persists on the first record, which is what should happen.)

We want to step carefully, but it appears that using official Zotero Standalone on an MLZ database is safe. Note, though, that multilingual fields will be invisible in official Standalone, and that any copy operation (such as "Duplicate this item") in official Standalone will omit multilingual fields.

There are also some small differences in the CSL field mappings for legal item types between the two tools (MLZ and official Standalone), so best practice will be to use an MLZ style from http://citationstylist.org with MLZ itself when generating citations.

aurimas

So what do we need to do to get MLZ merged into Zotero?

I assume we should just go feature by feature and arrive at an implementation consensus and get this over with. Are there certain features of MLZ that Dan or Simon would be opposed to?

Before we get carried away though, I think this discussion should probably continue on zotero-dev google group.

fbennett

Yes, this might be a good time to start a discussion about how this fits together, and I agree that zotero-dev is the place for it. (My note above was aimed at current MLZ users who might be concerned about that particular compatibility issue.)

mbruffey

Any news on MLZ Standalone? Not trying to be pushy—just curious! Thx! M

adamsmith

Frank (fbennett) has made clear that he is not going to do it. I'm not aware of anyone else working on it though it wouldn't be that hard. Merging MLZ back into Zotero is still a _long_ way (i.e. definitely more than a year, not unlikely multiple years) off.

mbruffey

Ah. I missed that memo! This old thread seemed to have the appropriate title, though. Indeed, Frank has already done so much to provide a functionality that's absolutely essential for so many of us. And your response now helps me to plan through next March/April (end of dissertation). Thanks! M

fbennett

@mbruffey: In case it helps, you can run Chrome etc against MLZ for Firefox in the same way you would with Standalone by visiting about:config and setting extensions.zotero.httpServer.enabled to "true".