Add Attachmen: Add an action

beogl

Dear Zotero,
I have a great idea (as always ;-) )!

I am trying to connect entries in the library to discussions in different forums outside of Zotero. One way to do that would be to add an action (if it was possible) as an attachment. Such an action could when clicked:

1. Take the title from the entry.
2. Form an URL to search (whereever is decided).
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Hm, perhaps that would much better fit in the popup menu for an item. Below "View Online" there could be other entries, like "Search our fantastic group discussions in the group NNN for this entry title" (or perhaps something shorter).

Actually I like the second idea better. That could be configured per Zotero group library or/and Zotero user.

I think that could be a huge win for a relatively small cost. (From a developers point of view.)

adamsmith

That really sounds like a project for an add-on: Pretty specialized and not tightly integrated into Zotero's internal workings. It'd just have to grab the title which is readily available and plug it into a search string - the method to get the search strings could likely be taken from FF's add to search bar.

aurimas

You can already do this via Lookup Engines. Take a look at http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/creating_locate_engines_using_opensearch and the engines.json file in your <Zotero Data Directory>/locate directory

beogl

Thanks adamssmith and aurimas. I will have a look at the possibilities.

The Lookup Engines have a bit surprising place in the menus. I would have expected it to be in the context menu for an item.

And now I am trying to find out what this means (from Zotero Preferencs, Article Lookup Engine Manager):

"To add a Lookup Engine that is not on the list visit the desired search engine in your browser and select "Add" from Zotero's Locate menu."

Is "your browser" here "Firefox", or? ;-)

aurimas

Yes, adding a lookup engine to Zotero from a website would only work in Firefox with Zotero for Firefox. I doubt that the search engines you are thinking of would support adding the lookup engines automatically anyway. You will probably want to edit the json file manually.

beogl

I see. It is a bit of work and will not work for a group library. Maybe I should stay with the way I have to do this and try to promote this some way?

I have a bookmarklet here (called "W?") that can do the job - if it is customized:

Bookmarklets | From Some Psychologists

If I could place this on the web page for the Zotero group library then it would perhaps be more useful. However there is no way to do that currently. Could perhaps some way to add custom html somewhere on the library page be provided?

This will of course only work from the web browser, but since I expect many users to be occasional users that seems not too bad, actually.

(Hm, Preview of the HTML does not work here in Chrome.)

beogl

I am trying to test the functionality to add search engines, but there is no "Add" in the "Locate menu" (in Firefox). Is there something I am missing? (I am testing with http://yahoo.com/ and http://pubget.com/.)

aurimas

I am trying to test the functionality to add search engines, but there is no "Add" in the "Locate menu" (in Firefox). Is there something I am missing? (I am testing with http://yahoo.com/ and http://pubget.com/.)

Looks like Zotero has fallen behind in this area. It's still looking for 'application/x-openurl-opensearchdescription+xml' mime type, while the mime type is now supposed to be 'application/opensearchdescription+xml'. This will likely be fixed in the next release. I don't know of a page that still uses the old mime type for you to test though.

I'm not really sure what kind of functionality you are aiming for here (in terms of groups, etc.) If you can clearly state what you want to accomplish, we might be able to help you out.

beogl

Thanks aurimas.

I save a lot of references to Zotero from discussions we have. I think the saved references are much more valuable if readers can find the discussions.

As it is now I have tried adding some links links by hand to the discussion thread were a reference was mentioned. That is a lot of work and it is perhaps of less value since the same references might be mentioned in other discussion threads too.

Using a search in the discussion forum for titles (if they are mentioned) could perhaps be better.

As I said a bookmarklet (similar to the one I mentioned) could be used for this purpose. (If the search engine for the forum has a reasonable interface for this. I have not looked at the OpenURL to see if that fits here, i.e. if I could specify to display the result as web page. In the bookmarklet I just construct a simple URL to search with Scholar, Gmail etc.)

aurimas

I understand that, but you were talking about sharing this with a group.

If I understand correctly, you want people in your group to be able to easily add a Lookup Engine to Zotero, correct?

If so, you would have to create an OpenSearch Description file as described in the Zotero wiki or on the OpenSearch website. You can then host an HTML page that includes one (or more) <link .../> elements. E.g.
<link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" href="http://www.flickr.com/opensearch.xml" title="Flickr" />

When a Zotero user navigates to that HTML page in Firefox, they will be able to add the lookup engine to Zotero. I'll see if we can add a way to add lookup engines in Standalone. It will probably involve some copy pasting.

Edit: that link element would not work with current version of Zotero. If you want it to work right now, you would have to use <link rel="search" type="application/x-openurl-opensearchdescription+xml" href="http://www.flickr.com/opensearch.xml" title="Flickr" />

beogl

Ah, sorry for seeing your question late, @aurimas.

Letting any one add their own search engine without being to much of an expert on that would be good, of course.

However I was more thinking of setting this up for a group in a way that let naive visitors to the group use this functionality.

Thanks for the explanations about the search engines.

aurimas

let naive visitors to the group use this functionality.

Are you talking about visitors to the group library web page on zotero.org (as opposed to group members using the Zotero client)?

If so, then what you describe above would probably be the most reasonable solution:

If I could place this on the web page for the Zotero group library then it would perhaps be more useful. However there is no way to do that currently. Could perhaps some way to add custom html somewhere on the library page be provided?

You can add a description for the group (allows you to include links), which will appear on the group page (not the library page).

I can't think of any neat hack to make this possible on the library page. You may be able to add a link in a note, but visitors would have to find the note and open it first.

beogl

I was thinking of the web page then, yes.

And placing it in the description does not help since it will not be available when you need it... ;-)