Upgrade StoragePersonal Library to Group Library
I have another newbie question. We are having trouble with a document that seems to act as if we have exported and reimported the database, but that's not exactly what we did. We have the old data and have not made very many changes, so I would like to know what is the right way to do this.
Here is the background. I'm an editor, so I work with many different authors. A new client told me she uses Zotero, so I tried it out. While I've used other systems, I'm new to Zotero. My client told me that she can create a "group" to share her library with me so I can make the necessary corrections. She did this by copying from her library to the new group library she had created. However, when I click the Zotero Refresh button in Word, the bibliography does not pick up the changes I have made in the group library. We have confirmed that the citations in the document are still linked to my client's personal library, but that any new citations I enter are linked to the group library on both my computer and on the client's computer.
Given that we have made few changes to the group library, we could easily delete it. What is the proper way to make my client's library available to me for editing while it remains available to the client? Of course, I recognize that both of us editing the same library requires some care, but we can deal with those human protocols if we can get the technical aspects working.
I found a link (https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/transferring_a_library) in the forums that suggests a way to synchronize data and files between two or more computers. I think the data-only synchronization method might work for us because I don't need to see my client's files. However, that method requires my client to share her login information with me. Additionally, it would not be ideal for me because I might have another client using Zotero. Ideally, I would like to be able to see and edit one client's library without contaminating it with data from another client's library. Having to switch the login information each time I move from one client to another would be inconvenient.
Thanks,
John
Here is the background. I'm an editor, so I work with many different authors. A new client told me she uses Zotero, so I tried it out. While I've used other systems, I'm new to Zotero. My client told me that she can create a "group" to share her library with me so I can make the necessary corrections. She did this by copying from her library to the new group library she had created. However, when I click the Zotero Refresh button in Word, the bibliography does not pick up the changes I have made in the group library. We have confirmed that the citations in the document are still linked to my client's personal library, but that any new citations I enter are linked to the group library on both my computer and on the client's computer.
Given that we have made few changes to the group library, we could easily delete it. What is the proper way to make my client's library available to me for editing while it remains available to the client? Of course, I recognize that both of us editing the same library requires some care, but we can deal with those human protocols if we can get the technical aspects working.
I found a link (https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/transferring_a_library) in the forums that suggests a way to synchronize data and files between two or more computers. I think the data-only synchronization method might work for us because I don't need to see my client's files. However, that method requires my client to share her login information with me. Additionally, it would not be ideal for me because I might have another client using Zotero. Ideally, I would like to be able to see and edit one client's library without contaminating it with data from another client's library. Having to switch the login information each time I move from one client to another would be inconvenient.
Thanks,
John
Moving items to a group after you've inserted them from a personal library won't help - that would indeed be equivalent in effect to importing and exporting them (technically there's still a connection between those items that Zotero is aware of so the database structure is in place to change that behavior, but afaik that's not something that's on any near-term agenda).
So, for possible solutions:
1. If you have people who start writing and who you know you'll be working with later, having them work with a group library from the start would be ideal.
2. For people who authored their work from their personal library, I cannot think of a better solution than sharing their login from their personal library. I'd suggest using separate Firefox/Zotero profiles for each such library. That's not terribly elegant, but possibel and prevents mixing up libraries. Doesn't solve the issue that they'd have to share their login info and potentially access to items they don't necessarily want you to see (e.g. my recipe collection is in my personal library...).
That's the best I can think of at this point. Might improve in the future.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles
on Windows, it's typically necessary to specify the whole path just zotero.exe won't do.
I'm using Zotero standalone on a MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard. Following the cited Firefox instructions, I found /Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/MacOS/zotero-bin. Running that with the -p flag produced "Error: unrecognized application.ini path." I also found /Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/MacOS/zotero, but running that with the -p flag only opened Zotero with nothing about the profile manager. https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/23521/shared-comp-user-loginlogout-standalone-or-via-web-browser/ suggested that -p is a shortcut for -profilemanager, so I tried that too (with one and two hyphens) to no avail.
However, a comment in that thread suggested there is a configuration setting that would make Zotero ask which profile to use each time I start up. So, I went fishing in the preferences dialog and found the "Open about:config" button in the Miscellaneous section at the bottom of the General pane of the Advanced tab. That button seems to open up the full list of configuration options, and typing profile in the search field winnows the list down to a manageable few.
Not wanting to make any rash changes, I started searching Google for some of the more likely looking flags. There was very little information directly about them, but I did stumble upon http://ideophone.org/12-zotero-tips-and-techniques/, in which I found a comment from last September detailing how to edit the profiles.ini text file to force the manager to ask which profile to use at each launch. I won't repeat all the details here, but the upshot is to find the profiles.ini file wherever Zotero's profiles are stored, set StartWithLastProfile=0, duplicate the [Profile0] section of the file with the appropriate changes, and create a matching folder in the Profiles directory.
With that setting, I get a dialog asking which profile I want to use each time I open Zotero. This is exactly what I need because I apparently need to be able to log into many different users' Zotero accounts as I switch from client to client.