"Identifying which Collections an Item is in" function not working properly

VanjaAvdic

Hello,

I am conducting a citation analysis and have multiple collections in my Zotero library. I am capturing citations from a variety of databases and so the same citation can be in multiple collections if it was found on different databases.

I use the alt/option key to identify if I have already imported a citation but I have noticed recently that after hitting alt/option will show an item belonging to one collection when in fact it is in multiple collections. Note, this does not happen for all items that are in multiple collections, just some.

This is where the problem gets a little strange. If I have already imported the item, I will just drag it into the new collection from my Zotero library (it is quicker than importing again) and if it was already in that collection it will not be duplicated (Which is helpful because I would like to avoid duplicates anyways). After I drag the item to the new collection (which it was already in), using the alt/option key will show that it belongs in multiple collections.

This isn't a huge problem but I am working with a database that contains over 5000 items and is growing and anything to save time is a big help (i.e. if I already found the citation on Google Scholar, I would like to see it show up in my Google Scholar collection with the alt/option key, and with the numbers of citations that I am dealing with it is difficult to remember what has already been imported).

Hope that is clear, please ask any questions if it was not.

Thanks,

Vanja

aurimas

I'm not sure how you are able to use this feature to avoid duplicates.

If you have "an item" in two collections and using this feature only highlights one of the collections, that's probably because the item in the other collection is a duplicate and not the same item.

VanjaAvdic

Hi Aurimas,

I just updated my post with more details.

When I click on an item in my library, and there is only one of said item in my library list, using the alt/option key will only show it in one collection when it may belong to two or three. I don't think the items are different since the item shows up once in "my library" or when I search the title or some other identifying feature.

Vanja

adamsmith

are you using Zotero for Firefox or Standalone?

VanjaAvdic

Standalone.

aurimas

I am conducting a citation analysis and have multiple collections in my Zotero library. I am capturing citations from a variety of databases and so the same citation can be in multiple collections if it was found on different databases.

If you imported an item twice (be it from the same database or a different one) Zotero creates two unique items that (as far as Zotero is concerned) are in no way related. So pressing alt/option key would not be able to identify the other item.

When I click on an item in my library, and there is only one of said item in my library list, using the alt/option key will only show it in one collection when it may belong to two or three.

If the item shows up only once in My Library, then yes, you only have one copy of that item. Are you certain that the item is present in multiple collections? Is one collection inside the other collection?

adamsmith

(I was asking about version because there's an experimental pre-flight duplicate detection plugin, but it only works for Firefox, so doesn't apply here).

VanjaAvdic

The items are in different collections, not sub-collections of the same collection.

I've noticed the items that are not recognized as being in multiple collections by alt/option are the ones that I imported as Ris files from a previous database that I had started on Web EndNote. These ones will only be shown in the original collection they were placed in. In order to show that they are in multiple collections I have to drag the item into its new collection a second time (and the item is not duplicated in the new collection when I do this).

Vanja

dstillman

Are you using the recursiveCollections hidden pref? I'm pretty sure that's the only way that what you describe would be possible, because recursiveCollections shows items as being in collections they're not actually in. (But then one collection would have to be a subcollection of the other.)

If that's not the case, please take some screenshots (or a screencast) to demonstrate this, upload them somewhere (e.g., Dropbox or a free file-sharing site), and provide a link here.

aurimas

So after you imported the RIS file into Zotero, all the items were placed in some collection. Did you then, at some point (I mean before you dragged them again just now), drag and drop those items to a different collection and now pressing alt/option does not show them as being in that collection?