Sync with free online servers

maicart

Hello,

I have tried to sync Zotero with some free servers (www.idrive.com and www.adrive.com), but I get the message: (...) is not a valid Webdav URL"

Thanks. Regards.

krueschan

Hi maicart,

zotero requires a WebDAV server for the storage sync - a feature that idrive.com does not seem to offer and adrive.com only includes in its paid package.

For a way to use zotero with (free) php enabled webhosting packages, see this post. Be advised though, that (many/some?) webhosters explicity prohibit using their storage for other purposes but website hosting. In my experience though, they warn you before deleting any files they consider in breach of their TORs, so even with this restriction it should be useful for storage syncing (although I probably would not rely on it for my only backup).

Hope this helps.

CB

You could give myDisk a try. Their free WebDAV account offers 2GB, and it seems to work smoothly with zotero.

maicart

Thanks a lot for your suggestions.

llmunro

At the risk of sounding like an idiot, I have to ask about using a WebDav account, as I've never done it before. If I have an account on mydisk or jungle disk, how do I know what the URL is?

CB

Whatever WebDAV service you use will give you the url. It should be prominent somewhere in their instructions for how to connect with a WebDAV client (eg. the one built into Windows XP's explorer). With mydisk, for example, it's https://mydisk.se/username.

I think jungledisk is in effect a local WebDAV server interfacing to Amazon's S3, in which case my guess is it'll be something like http://localhost:port number. Its documentation should tell all.

llmunro

Hi CB,

Thanks much. I decided to try using mydisk (free version). If I put https://mydisk.se/ in the box for the server along with my username and password and click "verify server," I get messages that tell me that https://mydisk.se/ is not a valid webDav URL. I'm probably overlooking some small, obvious step, but can't figure out what. Any ideas?

Sebastian

you have to set up a shared folder, see here:

http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/4426/webdav-sync-using-mydiskse/

llmunro

Sebastian,
Thanks...I think I've got it now, but how do I know if my attachments have been synced? I see a status bar when I click on the round green sync arrow, but nothing ever really seems to happen with it. Do all the files then show up in the shared folder on mydisk?

Sebastian

If you hover over the bar it shows you details, like number of files left and so on.
The files get zip-packed and named in a not obvious (at least to me) way, so you will see files in the folder, but finding the one you are looking for is hard without the matching zotero database.

llmunro

Sebastian,
Thanks for all of your help. I think I've got it working!

CB

llmunro, I know you have it working now, but just in case anyone else looks here for instruction ..

You don't actually need to set up a shared folder in mydisk unless you want to for an independent reason.

Your problem with the "not a valid webDav URL" error was missing the username part of the URL. The correct form for mydisk is: https://mydisk.se/username

llmunro

CB,

Thanks for the clarification! Thanks to everyone's expert help and advice, I think I've got the hang of it and its working beautifully.

Best,
llm

philgons

I've used http://www.sharemation.com/ in the past for free WebDav. Worked great for using Adobe Acrobat's review feature. Might be worth checking out.