Show location of item found in search

takiefer

When I can't find the folder I have stored something in, I often resort to searching My Library. When I find the item, it is frustrating in that I am not told what folder the item was found in. Can we put in the status line at the bottom of the Firefox browser window the Zotero folder path to the item we have selected in the center pane so that we know where the item we have selected resides?

mronkko

Let's take a step back: Why are you interested in the file location? If you want to open the file, just double click it. If you want to move it, you are going to break things.

DWL-SDCA

Do you want to know the directory on your hard drive that contains the file or the collection(s) within your Zotero library that hold the particular item? If the latter, see:

http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/14274/

adamsmith

Or the kb version of DWL's link here:
http://www.zotero.org/support/collections_and_tags#identifying_which_collections_an_item_is_in

takiefer

Adamsmith read my comment correctly and gave me the tip I needed. Thank you. Selecting the item in the center pane and then pressing [CTRL] (windows) brings up yellow highlights of the folders in the left pane that contain the items. However, the highlight function has a hidden trick that made me previously think it did not work; you have to hold [CTRL] pressed for about half a second or longer to get it to turn on. Momentary presses do not toggle it on, but do toggle it off. I kept repeatedly trying it and only getting success seemingly at random until I finally figured out that subtlety. That point should be added to the documentation or the functionality changed to respond to a momentary press. Is there any reason why the highlighting should not just be on all the time or be toggled with a radio button instead of only a keystroke?

adamsmith

I've added a note about keeping the key pressed & possibility of a brief delay to the doc.

There is talk of a collections tab on the right. I don't think constant highlighting is planned, that sounds like it could also cause a lot of confusion.

teubank

While reviewing Duplicate Items in my Zotero library, I encountered another usability issue with the current method of identifying the collections[1] with which an item has been associated.

• If you have a large number of collections[2], the highlighted collections may not be visible.

It would be preferable to have a right-click menu item that would create a small pop-up window containing links for the selected item and for all of its collections, which could be navigated exactly like the current collection tree. The pop-up window could remain open as long as it remained useful.

Currently it is nearly impossible to determine whether items identified as duplicates should be merged when the item's notes[3] may depend upon the context of the collection and there are a large number of collections.

[1] Collections herein refers to both collections and subcollections.
[2] I create a new collection for every course, major assignment, and topic of significant interest, and now have over a hundred collections, of which only about 25 are visible without scrolling.
[3] And the item's fields and portions of fields not included in the grouping key used to identify duplicates; e.g., portions of a URL following a # and possibly a ?.

dstillman

iTunes solves this with two context-menu submenus: Add to Playlist and Show in Playlist. The former is important for accessibility and shows all playlists(/collections), and the latter shows just the playlists(/collections) the item is in and takes you to that playlist(/collection) with the item highlighted.

If we didn't think it was as important to be able to jump to the other collection, there could be a single submenu with checkmarks, but that would still be pretty unwieldy if you just wanted to see a list of the collections the item was in.

ronan.mt.fleming

Can this option be added to the list of options when one right click's on an entry. It is not intuitive that Alt/Ctrl/Cmd is the way to find it.