Related items only point in one way on the web

beogl

Some time ago I posted a question here:

https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/34704/related-items-only-point-one-way-in-the-web-apis/

This was closed because it was considered to be something to be discussed in https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/zotero-dev

However I find it difficult to proceed with the problem there since the reply I got was that it is not a bug. Maybe not, but it is still unusable.

How can we proceed with this? It is a very important problem in my case. Please see this thread:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/zotero-dev/borgman/zotero-dev/Pj2oVavaYvo/VfnF7MmJ3PIJ

adamsmith

there isn't, I believe, much to be done. You'll probably just have to accept that the related feature isn't going to be usable online/via API for the specific purpose you want to use it. As for where to find the code: I'd start at
chrome/content/zotero/bindings/relatedbox.xml
and work outward from there (since if I understand Faolan correctly, this isn't actually an API issue, but a question of where the related item property gets stored).
edit: and the web API code is spread over various places in the dataserver code:
https://github.com/zotero/dataserver

beogl

Thanks adamsmith, yes, it is probably a question about how the related item is stored. And that the web API lacks any way to get the "backward" relation.

Nice to get a link to the dataserver. I was actually thinking this code was not GPL before.

Any suggestion about how to enhance that code to achive what I want is welcome.

fcheslack

It's not out of the question that it could change in the API. I just don't consider the difference between the client UI and the API to be a bug. It fairly accurately represents what is stored in the client, but the client can rely on having information about the entire library available. There is room for improvement with the implementation of relations in both the client and the API, but that's a larger discussion, and again not really for the forums.

beogl

Thanks fcheslack, yes the technical discussions is not for the forums, but I think the discussions about the need of an improvement fits here.

As I have tried to explain I think from a users point of view the bidirectional relationship is needed. From what you say I guess the best would be to have a new API for this then.

I do not know what the technical difficulties are and maybe that is best discussed in the forums?

beogl

Eh, I mean the zotero dev, not the forums... ;-)

beogl

Hm, I have tried to comment on the thread on zotero dev, but someone seems to just delete my comments there. Who is that and why?

dstillman

No one deleted your post. Your comments hadn't yet been approved. Closing this thread, since API questions don't belong here.