Upgrade StorageMiscellaneous questions about items - adding, updating, and indexing
If the moderators think it is better to create a separate discussion for each list item, please let me know.
1. Can I mass update or a mass replace of a field for many items? For example, some of my items have "EPA" as author, while others have "U.S. EPA" for author. I'd like all of them to end up as "EPA".
2. If I access the same webpage at different times, for example in July 2012 and then again in November 2013, I'd like these to be two entries without Zotero showing them as duplicates.
3. It will be highly useful if ‘Report’ type has a field for Department. I sometimes refer to reports from organizations, such as Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where departments, such as Office of Transportation and Air Quality, need to be recognized in the citation.
4. Similarly, it will help if ‘Webpage’ type includes the Institution and Department fields. For citation needs as described in item 3 (above) or at least for searches within Zotero.
5. Can I add multiple authors by separating them with, for example a semi-colon “;”
6. How do I show only Year for the “Date” field in the middle column of the screen? Many of my items have descriptive date, such as October 23, 2013 and this crowds the precious real estate in the center column.
7. Some of my ‘Report’ type items need to appear in the Bibliography with “Prepared for XYZ by ABC”. Presently, the ‘Report’ type items allow only Institution. Is the best option to simply write the full phrase in Institution?
8. If I delete an item that had a PDF attached as link, will the index be updated to avoid false positives when I search for a phrase?
1. Can I mass update or a mass replace of a field for many items? For example, some of my items have "EPA" as author, while others have "U.S. EPA" for author. I'd like all of them to end up as "EPA".
2. If I access the same webpage at different times, for example in July 2012 and then again in November 2013, I'd like these to be two entries without Zotero showing them as duplicates.
3. It will be highly useful if ‘Report’ type has a field for Department. I sometimes refer to reports from organizations, such as Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where departments, such as Office of Transportation and Air Quality, need to be recognized in the citation.
4. Similarly, it will help if ‘Webpage’ type includes the Institution and Department fields. For citation needs as described in item 3 (above) or at least for searches within Zotero.
5. Can I add multiple authors by separating them with, for example a semi-colon “;”
6. How do I show only Year for the “Date” field in the middle column of the screen? Many of my items have descriptive date, such as October 23, 2013 and this crowds the precious real estate in the center column.
7. Some of my ‘Report’ type items need to appear in the Bibliography with “Prepared for XYZ by ABC”. Presently, the ‘Report’ type items allow only Institution. Is the best option to simply write the full phrase in Institution?
8. If I delete an item that had a PDF attached as link, will the index be updated to avoid false positives when I search for a phrase?
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2. You can't mark items as non-duplicates, but you're not the first person to request that. Since most people probably _would_ want this specific instance to be marked as duplicate, we can't solve this without manual interaction
3&4. I think I'd be OK with a department field for Report (and thesis), but seems too specialized for webpage - start a new thread for this one (one thread for both togetherwith some examples.
5. You can paste newline-separated author lists:
Smith, Adam
Marx, Karl
6. You can add a "Year" column for the center pane (click on the little table icon at the top right of the panel)
7. Yes and I don't think we'll add functionality to automate that - it's rather specific
8. I don't know, but should be easy enough to test (by adding a self-created pdf with a "unique" word).
1. Great, I'm up for it. Will return if I have questions.
2. "we can't solve this without manual interaction". Not sure what you mean. Is there a feature/button I can use to tell Zotero to "ignore these duplicates"?
3&4. I see your point about webpages. I, too, am on the fence on there but yes, for reports it is certainly helpful for the kinds of reports I often cite. I'll start a thread with examples.
5. Tried and works perfect. Thanks!
6. I am feeling dumb for not finding this out myself.
7. Okay.
8. Okay, will do. Still, any one out there who knows how the index behavior is coded? Does it track new items and removal of existing items and each time this happens, does it do a autorun in the background?
2. Those were two answers in one:
a) you can't currently mark items as not-duplicates (though that might happen)
b) there is no way to automatically recognize this as a non-duplicate
So right now you'll have to live with those in your list of duplicates
8. If the matching item was deleted, what would the false positive be?
1. Okay, will do. I now have a long lists of will dos, which I will get to after the current phase of writing.
2. Okay. My interim solution is to add the date to the title of the page "... (Nov2013)". This is good enough for my present needs.
5. Thanks.
8. Hmmm... may be none. Does this create a bad internal inconsistency or recipe for future trouble or it is okay since it "can't go anywhere"?
Paper Machines can be downloaded here: https://github.com/chrisjr/papermachines
and you can find a list of all field codes here: https://api.zotero.org/itemFields?pprint=1