Attachment lost when dragging item from My Library to Group Library

schymans

I created a private group and set up zotero to "Sync attachment files in group libraries using Zotero storage" but not "Sync attahcment files in My Library". However, when I drag and drop an item from My Library to the Group Library, and then look at it in the Group Library (still on my local machine), I don't see the attachment any more. Is there another way to copy items inclusive attachments from My Library to the Group Library? Thanks a lot already!

PS: This is on Zotero 4.0.8.

dstillman

1) There's a setting for that in the General pane of the Zotero preferences.

2) If it's an open public group, it can't have files. For other types of groups, the owner may have disabled file adding.

schymans

1) "Automatically attach associated PDFs and other files when saving items" is activated, and all boxes in the Groups section are checked, too.

2) It is a private group and I am the owner. Is there a particular setting I need to check to enable file adding?

Thanks!

adamsmith

1. Isn't the relevant feature. Check further down under "when copying items to groups..."

dstillman

(schymans says all the options under Groups are checked, though.)

It is a private group and I am the owner. Is there a particular setting I need to check to enable file adding?

Yes, the option to allow file editing in the group, which is an option in the group settings on the website. But it looks like that's enabled already for your group library.

Have you tried this with a new item/attachment? If you previously dragged the item to the group library before it had an attachment, or when one of those two settings were disabled, Zotero would just keep the version already in the group library—without the attachment—rather than adding the attachment to the previously copied one. So you should either try with a new item or delete the existing item and empty the trash and then try again.

schymans

Thanks, Dan, and sorry for the late reply. I just installed Zotero 4.0.9 and the problem is still there. I drag&dropped a new reference containing a snapshot and a pdf, but only the snapshot appears in the group library. Could it be related to using Zotfile and having my pdfs stored in a separate folder?

dstillman

Yes, linked files aren't currently allowed in groups.

dstillman

(The idea here has been that linked files using a filesystem path generally wouldn't be accessible to other group members. Now that Zotero supports relative paths for linked files, this will likely change, but relative paths will first have to be implemented for group libraries.)

schymans

I see, thank you! Now I went to the reference in the group library, clicked on "Add attachment" and attached the same file again. This made me realise that adding a reference incl. attachments to the group library creates a new directory in my local zotero/storage folder, making it impossible to distinguish between items belonging to my own library and the group library on the file system. Is there a way to change the standard storage location for group library items?

dstillman

No. The 'storage' directory layout should really separate files by library, but it doesn't, and that's unlikely to change until we do a more major overhaul of how Zotero stores files to store files in a more human-friendly structure. Unclear if/when that will happen.

kmpenner

Implementing relative paths for group libraries sounds great! Is this currently in the works (along with linked files for groups)? Or a human-friendly storage structure, for that matter (I'm currently using Zotfile to achieve this)?