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
    edited February 27, 2015
    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?
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