Drag link

skreisel

Using the most recent standalone version and Chrome as the browser.
Is there an explanation to why one can create an entry (item type=webpage - adds url and webpage title only; "as in" like a bookmark manager) by dragging the url entry onto Zotero, whereas importing via the clipboard (url) or copy/paste attempts fail? Unfortunately there is no "save url only" option from within the browser, in contrast to the much valuable "Save a snapshot".
Cheers
Stefan

adamsmith

sorry, don't follow.

whereas importing via the clipboard (url) or copy/paste attempts fail?

specifically, I don't know what you mean here.

skreisel

If I e.g. ctrl+shift+v previously copied metadata - e.g. a Medline citation - Zotero checks if it knows the format, calls a translator and imports (hope that's a correct summary). If I ctrl+shift+v an URL copied from the browser's address bar, Zotero signals: "The selected file is not a supported format [...]"; so evidently Zotero doesn't know what to do with the "http://TEST". When dragging the same link onto Zotero it does, however, get processed correctly, adding a webpage citation with the URL and the webpage's title (interestingly enough - I'm not sure what the Windows internal clipboard is passing on, or if Zotero "sees" the URL and then looks up the website's title) -> so there must be a "translation" process available nonetheless. Right?
At times it would be easier just copy/pasting the URL to Zotero rather than dragging the address-bar link across multiple opened windows - rather cosmetic, but nice-to-have!
Regards

skreisel

And I think this is just a non-Firefox thing...

adamsmith

Zotero makes that distinction between import (of bibliographic metadata, which is what ctrl+shift+v does) and just adding a snapshot or a file from the web or the file system across the board and I think that'll stay that way. The latter doesn't involve any translation.

But dragging a URL from the browser and right-click --> save snapshot does exactly the same thing, so why not use that?

skreisel

There is a distinction:
- Right-click snapshot does exactly that - saves the entire page locally.
- Dragging URL saves only the URL (i.e. becomes a bookmark) - very handy when doing heavy-duty researching on old computers.
Have I stumbled on something then - as it seems that snapshot<>drag?
Perhaps it's just particular to my setup.

adamsmith

this is on Windows?
It could be that toggling the respective preference in Zotero will work when dragging from Chrome but not when using the right-click--> Snapshot option. You have "Attach Snapshot..." turned off in the general tab of the Zotero preferences?

skreisel

Yep - yep: Windows and the preference is off ;)
So basically by dragging, Zotero is creating a snapshot-sans-snapshot.
Perfect. Would be cool if one could do without the dragging though - perhaps right-click "Save Zotero URL from current page".
One day I'll look under the hood...
Best

adamsmith

I think the solution is really quite straightforward: The Standalone preference needs to apply to items saved via Chrome Connector, too.

I'm not sure how difficult that would be to implement--aurimas, thoughts on that?