File Names not showing up

nayr497

I'm having some problems with Zotero today.

In the main center section of Zotero, where my file names normally have appeared, I'm just getting little bullet point dots. If I click on them, the file name will appear on the right side, with any notes and tags. But...no file name.

A few things of importance:
- I'm using Chrome
- I set up a second computer with Zotero yesterday and synced my files.
- I'm at 100.2% capacity.

Any ideas on what is going on?

Also, I'm on a Mac. And what is unusual as well - when I closed Zotero to hopefully restart it and get it worked again...the icon disappears from my file tray on my desktop. Normally the icon would remain upon closing.

Ideas? Thank you!

adamsmith

could you take a screenshot, upload it to a free image hosting site like imgur.com and post a link here?

nayr497

Hi Adam,

Thanks for the reply. Sure. I think I've done that here.

See the center column...file names used to appear there. Now there are just dots/bullets.

This has changed since yesterday and I'm not sure why.

http://imgur.com/T4puaLH

aurimas

Probably related to https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/35569/nonfatal-errors-in-4018/

adamsmith

I think this should be easy to solve, though, simply by dragging the column width at the top of the panel - right now the reason you're just seeing the dot is that that column is taking up all the space - drag the other columns to the right, if possible.

aurimas

Is that a collection of only PDFs/files and not Zotero items? (Otherwise I would have expected to see ellipses for the second column)

nayr497

Adam - well darn, that was easy. Sorry for being so utterly stupid! There they are.

aurimas - I'm not sure what the difference is between files and Zotero items.

These are digital images, PDFs, Word docs, etc. that I have stored on my computer that I've put into Zotero for easy of searching, coding, reading, taking notes.

That solved the main problem. One question - any idea why the Zotero icon disappears when I close Zotero? As I said, it used to remain in my tray.

Thanks for the help! Both of ya.

adamsmith

Zotero Standalone that is? No idea, that has to be a Mac setting.

nayr497

Okay. Yeah...Zotero Standalone for Chrome on a Mac.

It's not a big deal...you already solved the main one.

Thank you. Hopefully this one just goes away!

aurimas

I'm not sure what the difference is between files and Zotero items.

If you drag a file into Zotero, then that's just a file. Files don't have any real metadata associated with them (besides filename, mime type, some notes, etc.) and cannot be cited in text. You can attach files to metadata by right-click -> Retrieve Metadata (for PDFs), right-click -> Create Parent Item (and filling in metadata manuall), or dragging them onto an existing Zotero item. After this, you can cite these items in text.

Generally, Zotero is most useful when files are associated with metadata. If you just want to use Zotero for organizing files inside collections, tagging them, adding some notes, and searching, then you don't have to do the above.