Upgrade StoragePutting in another word for style syncing
I'd like revive discussion around the feature request to sync styles.
In part based on rumors from this site that using a 3rd party tool to sync the Zotero data directory, I had kept that directory out of where it might be synced by 3rd party services. I also did not prioritize it for manual backup because I was paying for Zotero sync and thought (apparently incorrectly, I realize now) it was keeping the data in there backed up and synced. Only after the computer died and I tried editing a file on a backup machine (which had finished syncing with Zotero server and downloaded the content) did I find that styles are not synced, including custom style files that I had invested much more time into than simply reinstalling the style file from a Styles directory.
This 2010 discussion requested the feature in Zotero 2.0 Sync Preview, prompted by the same issue I saw (“if the styles are not present on all machines, when I try to edit a reference I am first prompted for a style and of course my document is re-formatted.”). Being about such an old version, that discussion is now closed. This 2011 discussion opens by saying “It would seem to make eminent sense to sync styles.” This April 2014 post points out how Zotero’s functionality “is centered around a syncable database that can be accessed from multiple computers running different OS” and adamsmith there refers to developers’ “talk of syncing [styles].” This May 2014 post provides another request. This June 2015 question also observed “When I went to add a citation, Zotero asked which style I wanted even though this document had citations and I had already selected a style and used on a different computer.” It refers to a 2009 thread apparently not linked to above.
Here, I’m not asking whether or not it’s possible with Zotero in its current setup, as other questions did and reached conclusions that way. In this post, I’m explicitly recognizing that Zotero does not sync styles right now, pointing out that this is not a good user experience (esp. when someone’s made custom styles and paying for what they think should be a full Zotero data sync!), and putting in a feature request that styles start to get synced. If others care to provide additional reasons, or additional links to past discussions, or specific identification about what the technical obstacles are to implementing this (as a step toward overcoming those), please do.
In part based on rumors from this site that using a 3rd party tool to sync the Zotero data directory, I had kept that directory out of where it might be synced by 3rd party services. I also did not prioritize it for manual backup because I was paying for Zotero sync and thought (apparently incorrectly, I realize now) it was keeping the data in there backed up and synced. Only after the computer died and I tried editing a file on a backup machine (which had finished syncing with Zotero server and downloaded the content) did I find that styles are not synced, including custom style files that I had invested much more time into than simply reinstalling the style file from a Styles directory.
This 2010 discussion requested the feature in Zotero 2.0 Sync Preview, prompted by the same issue I saw (“if the styles are not present on all machines, when I try to edit a reference I am first prompted for a style and of course my document is re-formatted.”). Being about such an old version, that discussion is now closed. This 2011 discussion opens by saying “It would seem to make eminent sense to sync styles.” This April 2014 post points out how Zotero’s functionality “is centered around a syncable database that can be accessed from multiple computers running different OS” and adamsmith there refers to developers’ “talk of syncing [styles].” This May 2014 post provides another request. This June 2015 question also observed “When I went to add a citation, Zotero asked which style I wanted even though this document had citations and I had already selected a style and used on a different computer.” It refers to a 2009 thread apparently not linked to above.
Here, I’m not asking whether or not it’s possible with Zotero in its current setup, as other questions did and reached conclusions that way. In this post, I’m explicitly recognizing that Zotero does not sync styles right now, pointing out that this is not a good user experience (esp. when someone’s made custom styles and paying for what they think should be a full Zotero data sync!), and putting in a feature request that styles start to get synced. If others care to provide additional reasons, or additional links to past discussions, or specific identification about what the technical obstacles are to implementing this (as a step toward overcoming those), please do.
I don't have anything else on style syncing. I think it'd be very nice to have, but I wouldn't expect this to happen very quickly given all the stuff that's going on that's more fundamental.
But if you just want this for yourself, you can symlink the styles folder to Dropbox (or anything like dropbox) and that'll sync the styles in a basic fashion. See https://zotpad.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/103395-what-is-a-symbolic-link-and-why-should-i-use-one-w for details.