Edit Citation Gets Citations Mixed Up

Chris_hk

Hi All,

First of all, I really appreciate this freeware. I would like to stick to zotero because I like the concept of firefox plus add-ons quite a bit. However, recently problems with zt are mounting unfortunately. I use Windows XP, Zotero 1.0.9, word 2002 and Firefox 3.0.6.
For one of the most annoying issues, I only found a thread from a year ago with no answer. So I figured I might post it again.
When I edit in-text Chicago Style citations in the document I am working on right now (has been revised quite some time) zotero often (it seems increasingly often) opens the wrong citation.
So I have to delete the original citation and replace it with a new one. This is certainly troublesome particularly with multiple citations.
Does anybody know a possible source of this mishap? Any fixes know?
Thanks a lot.

Chris

dstillman

Have you been working with the same database the whole time, or have you exported and imported your data?

Chris_hk

Hi Dan,

sorry didn't check this for a few days.
No I have been working with the same database all the time. My Zotero Library has multiple collections though and I cite from different collections in one word file.
Cheers

Chris_hk

Nobody else experiences this??

danielenosenzo

Hi all,
same problem here.
I use Windows XP, Zotero 1.5 beta, Word 2007 and Firefox 3.0.7.

My impression is that in-text citation editing works fine until you add citations in the footnotes.
If I add a citation in the footnotes and then want to edit an in-text citation hitting the edit button brings up the "wrong" citation even if the cursor is on the in-text citation that I want to change. I noticed that it systematically brings up citations included in the footnotes.
This also happens on a newly open blank page and not only with the document I am working on (and revising) right now .

Any help much appreciated! Thanks a lot.
Daniele

Chris_hk

So finally I am not alone! ;)

A random test in my document supports Daniele's experience. The citations that come up in the editing mode are from the footnote in-text citations.

wrknowles

This looks like the right place to post this, as it provides more detailed info on this bug.
Environment: Ubuntu 8.10, Open Office 2.41, Firefox 3.0.10, Zotero 1.5b2

Given the following footnote (anything with more that three citations in a footnote will generate the problem):

At present, there is no modern critical edition of all six books of De musica. Citations from the Latin text, books I through V, will come from Augustine, De Musica, ed. Giovanni Marzi (Florence: Sansoni, 1969).⁠ which is essentially a reprint of the Benedictine text as found in Migne’s Patrologia, v. 32. Martin Jacobsson prepared a full critical edition of Book VI (Martin Jacobsson, Aurelius Augustinus: De musica liber VI (Stockholm, 2002).⁠); it will be used as the source for that book. Jacobsson and Nancy van Deusen, “Musica, De,” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 574-576.⁠, have each proposed critical editions of the first five books, but van Deusen’s project is currently on hold.

English translations are my own unless otherwise cited, made with reference to Augustine, On Music, trans. Robert Taliaferro, Fathers of the Church 4 (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1947).⁠ for Books I through V, and Jacobsson’s translation of Book VI.


bold text indicates zotero citations

Edit citation appears to pick up the last entered citation (regardless of its location in the text stream). If I break the note up into separate paragraphs, about half the time, I can get Edit citation to pick up the selected citation if I select most of the text of the citation, though this does not always work (I'm editing existing text from about two months ago, so I'm not remembering anything special about failure cases). However, if I paste into an existing footnote with no citation or create a new empty footnote, I have no problem editing the content of the citation. It appears that the key and hash do not change in the field data.

Also, this is not effected by pagination breaks in the note.

The documents that I'm editing were created using zotero 1.0. I haven't tried with a clean zotero 1.5 document.

Chris_hk

I know Zotero is a free program and appreciate this a lot but, but ... since this seems to be a common problem, would anybody care? Hello?

fbennett

@Chris_hk,

People care. I don't know the code of either the plugins or the interface to them in Zotero, but this sounds like it might (might) be related to an issue I've noted on this ticket in the tracker. Please give it some more time, I think (from one user to another).

Chris_hk

Much appreciated!
The comment was more directed at people who are doing this professionally (if there are). ;)

fbennett

Chris, I consider the people doing this professionally to be my friends. Be nice.

(In a sense, we are all doing this professionally, since we have a professional interest in seeing that the project is a success.)

Chris_hk

Well, I am not going to say anything more that might be misinterpreted. Just hope that people take not of this and that it can be solved. This issue seems to be a major flaw which makes using Zotero quite troublesome with large word files. I can get refworks for free through my university, but I stuck to Zotero so far because I like the whole open source/firefox thing. Yet if issues like these don't get solved I'll have to change simply because it would obstruct my work. So yes, I also have a professional interest here. ;)
Thanks for your efforts.

Chris_hk

I found out a way to circumvent this bug. When I changed my footnotes to endnotes, I was able to edit my citations again.
After finishing the manuscript, endnotes can just be changed back to footnotes.

tommy

I am have the same problem. wrknowles describes my issue perfectly.

Chris's suggestion doesn't work for me.

Any thoughts on this bug?

tommy

Forgot to mention: I'm using openoffice, not word. Same problem though.

wrknowles

By the way, I just checked this in a document created under Zotero 2.0 (currently 2.0b6.5) , OpenOffice 3.0, Plugin 2.0a2, all on Ubuntu 9.04. and it is still an issue. If someone on the Zotero team wants to confirm that it is being worked or not, I think I'd be willing to get my coding fingers dirty now that my dissertation is done!

adamsmith

why not ask that one on the dev list:
groups.google.com/group/zotero-dev

tommy

@wrknowles

My python knowledge is limited, but I think I have found the problem.

When the plugin isolates the openoffice field that you are trying to edit, it tries to find the beginning and end of that field. It does so by calling the following functions:

oRange1.gotoStartOfParagraph(True)
oRange2.gotoEndOfParagraph(True)

If there is more than one field in the footnote in question, that would select several.

tommy

Disregard my last comment. I speak without knowledge.

tommy

OK, actually I think I'm on to something. here is my description of the problem, and the results of my testing.

All my zotero citations are in footnotes. Some footnotes have multiple citations (as wrknowles has described) of the form: "Blah blah blah. [Zotero field]. Blah blah blah blah. [Zotero field]." These footnotes give me problems because when I edit a citation Zotero correctly highlights the citation I want edited, but always pulls up the data for the last citation in the footnote.

If, however, I create a new paragraph in the footnote after the citation I want to edit, then place the cursor in that citation and click the "edit citation" button, it correctly edits that citation.

So I think the loop that gathers the data for editing the citation is looping to far. I poked around in the code and found where I think the problem might be (see my previous comment), but I don't know enough python/openoffice API to fix it.

Simon

This should be fixed in the next OpenOffice plug-in, which we will release shortly.

tommy

beautiful! thanks.