Upgrade StorageFile Location: Best Practices?
I'm imagining two possible scenarios:
Scenario A:
Store all files relevant to a Zotero bibliographic entry in a folder in the directory C:\Users\<user id>\Documents. Then, from the bibliographic entry I'd "link to file[s]" in that folder.
Scenario B:
Don't do any linking to files in a separate folders and instead do as many snapshots as possible so that the files relevant to a bibliographic entry end up in the .../Zotero/storage folder. For .pdf's that I've, say, received via email (so that I don't have the opportunity to take a snapshot of them) I would probably save the .pdf in the /Zotero/storage folder anyway and link to those files.
I'm new to Zotero and cannot possibly forsee all the possible problems I might have with either approach. Here are some possible arguments I see:
1) "Scenario B" might be the better approach since Zotero is adding server-side functionality and therefore it would be better to have all these files in this one Zotero location.
2) "Scenario B" is better since it's so much easier to take snapshots of online pdf's rather than going through the saving and linking procedure
3) "Scenario A" is better since it's easier to search the relevant files via Windows Explorer when you link to their location in a different folder. It's much harder to browse the files in Windows Explorer given this random "6578" (e.g.) folder naming system.
One residual question of mine: is there any way to take a snapshot of a .pdf on your hard drive so that it gets stored in the ...Zotero/storage folder by the same method that's used when you take a snapshot of a .pdf on the web?
Anyways, I'm sure I'm missing a lot of points here. Any thoughts or advice would be a lot of help. I'd like to get this right from the beginning :)
Scenario A:
Store all files relevant to a Zotero bibliographic entry in a folder in the directory C:\Users\<user id>\Documents. Then, from the bibliographic entry I'd "link to file[s]" in that folder.
Scenario B:
Don't do any linking to files in a separate folders and instead do as many snapshots as possible so that the files relevant to a bibliographic entry end up in the .../Zotero/storage folder. For .pdf's that I've, say, received via email (so that I don't have the opportunity to take a snapshot of them) I would probably save the .pdf in the /Zotero/storage folder anyway and link to those files.
I'm new to Zotero and cannot possibly forsee all the possible problems I might have with either approach. Here are some possible arguments I see:
1) "Scenario B" might be the better approach since Zotero is adding server-side functionality and therefore it would be better to have all these files in this one Zotero location.
2) "Scenario B" is better since it's so much easier to take snapshots of online pdf's rather than going through the saving and linking procedure
3) "Scenario A" is better since it's easier to search the relevant files via Windows Explorer when you link to their location in a different folder. It's much harder to browse the files in Windows Explorer given this random "6578" (e.g.) folder naming system.
One residual question of mine: is there any way to take a snapshot of a .pdf on your hard drive so that it gets stored in the ...Zotero/storage folder by the same method that's used when you take a snapshot of a .pdf on the web?
Anyways, I'm sure I'm missing a lot of points here. Any thoughts or advice would be a lot of help. I'd like to get this right from the beginning :)
Normally you can also drag attachments straight out of Zotero, which may mitigate your concerns about the 'storage' folder, but unfortunately this feature is currently broken in Firefox 3 on Windows (and on Linux).
Any plans on making linking easier (like offering a choice between 'add as attachment' / 'add as link' when dragging pdf's over existing items)? Would be a great speedup for those of us who'd rather link to files in a common folder then have them spread over many 'item-folders'.