Stop taking snapshots of webpage unless the user is saving the page as "webpage"

wonblee

I'm sure there must have been discussions on this, although I don't find them from search.

With the "Automatically take snapshots when creating items from web pages" switched on, I'd like Zotero to stop taking snapshots unless the user is saving the web page as a "web page" item. Zotero takes snapshots even when I'm grabbing the citation information of an article or report. It's really annoying, because what I need is the PDF of the article (which Zotero also grabs automatically if the website is configured so), not the snapshot of the webpage.

If it's what it takes, maybe there has to be two options: "Automatically take snapshots when creating web page from web page" and "Automatically take snapshots when creating non-web page item from web page".

wonblee

Any response from the developers?

adamsmith

please wait at least a week before bumping posts, especially feature requests.
I don't have a strong view on this, but this isn't straightforward. For a fair number of translators the snapshot is the only full text we get (that includes pretty much any newspaper and magazine, e.g. So a preference would likely have to be something along the lines of "don't attach Snapshot when PDF is included".
We could also generally remove Snapshots from some translators where there's generally a PDF included—I think we've done that for a couple and I don't remember any complaints. Any sites in particular where you're bothered by snapshots? Even if a more general solution were to be implemented, individual translators would happen much faster.

wonblee

(Sorry for the nagging. I believe in "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" too strongly. :-)

I see. I'm bothered by snapshot of any site where I'm going after a PDF.

The translator knows when the item being grabbed is an article or a report, as opposed to a newspaper or website -- it shows the corresponding icon in the address bar. So I thought suppressing snapshot would be straightforward, as the translator already recognizes what type of item is being grabbed. I think it rarely makes sense for Zotero take a snapshot when the item being grabbed is a journal article or report.

adamsmith

I think it rarely makes sense for Zotero take a snapshot when the item being grabbed is a journal article or report.

no, unfortunately not as simple as that. Random example that comes to mind:
http://digitalmedievalist.org/journal/9/halsted/
but by far not the only one.

wonblee

You're right. I concede, although I had personally never come across a journal article like that before. :-)