pdf drag and drop doesn't always work

srcorsi

I am attempting to drag and drop pdfs into a Zotero group library. When I do this, the pdf does not show up. If I try dragging and dropping into "My Library", it works fine. I then retrieve metadata from the pdf and that works fine. Now when I try to drag the citation with the pdf to the group library, only the citation shows up and not the pdf.

I have done this successfully in the past, but for some reason it has stopped working for me. Any advice here is welcome!

By the way, my great compliments to the Zotero team. This is a fabulous resource!

adamsmith

most likely either the group doesn't have file sharing enabled or you're not a group administrator and the group is set up so that only administrators can add files. Check with the group's owner.

srcorsi

Thanks for the response for this post. I am the administrator for this group library and the settings are: Group type = private, Library reading = any group member, Library editing = any group member, File editing = any group member. Did I miss something important to include file sharing?
Thanks

dstillman

The client has to have been synced since the file editing option was enabled for the group.

dstillman

Now when I try to drag the citation with the pdf to the group library, only the citation shows up and not the pdf.

And on this, if the parent item has been previously dragged to the group, you'll need to delete it and empty the trash.

srcorsi

Dan, thanks for the feedback on this. I have synched it multiple times and still get the same result. Since it was a new library, I just created another one to replace it with the same settings as mentioned above before I did any synching. It works just as it should. I will delete the old one and we are in business.

It must have been something to do with the fact that I originally did not include file sharing. After I updated to include it and then synced again, it just didn't want to update that setting.

mateolan

The problem is that this fails silently. I knew about the problem, but my wife did not. She spent a couple hours trying to figure the problem, because there is no error message about what is going wrong.

adamsmith

Well, it the library doesn't allow file syncing, it's not an error, I'm not sure there should be an error message, that'd get rather annoying.

For the other issue ("if the parent item has been previously dragged to the group, you'll need to delete it and empty the trash.") a smoother solution (add attachments and auto-update the item in question, unless it's been changed later than the item being dragged) is planned.

dstillman

After I updated to include it and then synced again, it just didn't want to update that setting.

Did you try toggling the setting off and on in the web settings? It's not impossible that the change was somehow missed, but in that case toggling it off and on would cause it to be sent down again. (For others stumbling across this, recreating the group definitely isn't necessary.)

dstillman

Well, it the library doesn't allow file syncing, it's not an error, I'm not sure there should be an error message, that'd get rather annoying.

We get enough complaints about this particular case, though, that maybe it's worth allowing the drag (on a technical level) and showing an error message? (This is specifically for an external file drag. For just dragging an item, it wouldn't show an error.)

adamsmith

This is specifically for an external file drag

It's my impression that most issues - including this one - refer to dragging an item with attachment (and the failure of the attachment to transfer to the group). So just having an error message for external file drag wouldn't help, unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean by that (I understand it as dragging a file from the OS to a Zotero group).

dstillman

Oh, I misread the original post — I see that srcorsi was dragging PDFs into My Library and then dragging the generated parent item from there. But if srcorsi also tried dragging the PDF directly to the group, an error message could have helped. I agree it's a far less common case, though.

FHeimburger

>We get enough complaints about this particular case

This (actually adamsmith's case of an item being dragged and losing its attachments rather than the external drag) is easily the most common item I end up trouble-shooting with otherwise technically competent Zotero users. Probably something to do with the fact that they set up the group, then forget that the settings are accessible through the web interface and then can't figure out where the problem is coming from/how to mend it when in the client. Plus the fact that all group libraries are visually identical, whether the users has write-permission or not.

Could there be a pop-up (like the one for adding editors) on first attempt at drag of an item for a given user on a group? Pointing them towards the settings in the web interface and explaining what is happening?