Upgrade StoragePreferences > Export > Quick Copy. Improve UI.
The Quick Copy User Interface (UI) at, Preferences > Export > Quick Copy, is highly confusing.
It could do with these improvements:
* Change the keyboard shortcuts.
* Tidy up the language for improved conceptual clarity (easy).
* Show examples on "Default Output Format" value change.
* Change "Default Output Format" to "Quick Copy Output Format".
It would be far more mnemonic if the keyboard shortcuts were:
* Ctrl+Shift+B, for quick copying as a *B*ibliographic style; and
* Ctrl+Shift+C, for quick copying as a *C*itation style;
At the moment the text is atrocious. The text conceptually conflates "Quick copy" in general with the Quick Copy of citation styles.
I suggest the text at the start of "Quick Copy" Group control, up until the "Default Output Format" combobox, be changed to something like
It could do with these improvements:
* Change the keyboard shortcuts.
* Tidy up the language for improved conceptual clarity (easy).
* Show examples on "Default Output Format" value change.
* Change "Default Output Format" to "Quick Copy Output Format".
Change the keyboard shortcuts
It would be far more mnemonic if the keyboard shortcuts were:
* Ctrl+Shift+B, for quick copying as a *B*ibliographic style; and
* Ctrl+Shift+C, for quick copying as a *C*itation style;
Tidy up the language for improved conceptual clarity
At the moment the text is atrocious. The text conceptually conflates "Quick copy" in general with the Quick Copy of citation styles.
I suggest the text at the start of "Quick Copy" Group control, up until the "Default Output Format" combobox, be changed to something like
Quick copy allows you to copy the selected items to the clipboard. You can do this via keyboard shortcuts or using the mouse.
Quick Copy as a citation style. Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+C. Mouse use: drag items.
Quick Copy as a bibliographic style. Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+B. Mouse use: hold shift while dragging items.
Your suggested text, along with being ungrammatical and awkward, doesn't make sense, because it doesn't account for export formats. (It also inaccurately suggests that dragging items with the mouse has something to with the clipboard, though the current text does that too by using the word "dragging" instead of "drag".) Not sure what you mean by that. Again, Quick Copy allows you to copy items in various formats, and those can be either bibliographic styles or export formats, the former with an alternative mode for citations. The dialog is overcrowded as it is, so there's not really space for this at the moment. If Zotero 5.0 is Standalone only, "Site-Specific Settings" will be removed, which might create room for this, but I don't think it's particularly important — I think people generally know what format they want, and it is — as the name suggests — rather quick to experiment. "Quick Copy" is the caption for the entire section, of which "Default Output Format" is one label. Every label in the section doesn't need to be prefixed with "Quick Copy" — e.g., we wouldn't say "Quick Copy Site-Specific Settings".
In any case, when "Site-Specific Settings" is removed, it will probably be just "Format".
And I'm hoping you value feedback of impressions from a new user, given that as a long term developer on a particular piece of software one can become blind to how functionality might be presented in a confusing manner. Blind to it precisely because one will take that functionality for granted through familiarity.
On whether the criticism is warranted ....
General Confusion
I do accept, given several of your points, that my proposal for the Quick Copy text doesn't ideally describe the functionality. You are right, for example, that my wording should have not have suggested a clipboard only result. I don't accept it's ungrammatical and awkward. But that's unimportant. I'm not going to be wedded to a particular wording. My primary point is to illustrate how the current wording is confusing, and offer alternatives for you to push against.If any of the following is inaccurate, you may like to let me know:
* Quick Copy allows a copy either to the clipboard or "a text box in another program".
* Quick Copy allows the copy of only one format for an "Export Format". Export Formats include Biblatex, CSV, etc.
* Quick Copy allows the copy of two formats for a "Bibliographic Style". Bibliographic Styles include Chicago, Harvard, etc.
* Of the two Quick Copy formats for a "Bibliographic Style" there's a (generally) longer form and (generally) shorter form.
For example, if I was using the "Chicago Manual of Style 16th edition (author-date)" Bibliographic Style the two formats could be something like:
Short form: Long form: If that's accurate so far then I'm still of the opinion that the current wording is confusing.
Part of that confusion might be down to a lack of agreed terminology, among the community of those who concern themselves with style guides and related formats, about what to call the aforementioned long and short form.
It appears you, for example, you have no names for these. Instead you have in mind that there's a main form and an alternate form.
I'd been using "Bibliographic Style" for the long form, and "Citation Style" for short form as this is the precise terminology used in biblatex. In The Biblatex Package Documentation (PDF) there are sections "4.2 Bibliography Styles"; and "4.3 Citation Styles".
I was labouring under the prejudice that Zotero has historical ties to bibtex (later superceded by biblatex), even though it currently supports many "Export Formats" and styles, and was therefore speaking in bibtex/biblatex terms.
It's now clear to me that "Bibliographic Style" references different things in Zotero and Biblatex.
However, Zotero seems also to use "citations" in the biblatex sense when it speaks of "For bibliography styles, you can copy citations or footnotes by pressing Ctrl+Shift+A ...". That is, here Zotero means by "citations" to reference what would be called a "citation style" in biblatex.
So however much the confusion is down to the path of my particular arrival at Zotero, I hope that illustrates why the confusion is unlikely to be solely my own.
Another part of the confusion is that the Quick Copy control group is on the "Export" tab. Copying text to the clipboard or dragging to a textbox (I see no semantic difference between "dragging items into" and "drag items ... into") is indeed, conceptually, a kind of exporting. However Zotero also has a "Slow Copy" export, for want of a temporary and contrasting name for it, as when you right click on item(s) and choose "Export Item(s) ...". And when you execute that command you are greeted with an "Export ..." dialog box.
On first use, and as you are trying to learn the interface, the UI seems to imply Quick Copy options somehow also effect the Slow Copy export (when in fact they don't), because Quick Copy is on the "Export" tab and when you "Export Items" you get an "Export ..." dialogue box. That dialogue box presents a range of "Formats" and one wonders how those options related to one's previously chosen "Default Output Format" (in fact they are independent).
"Quick Copy" also allows exporting of "Bibliographic Styles" as well as "Export Formats". Slow Copy only allows the exporting of "Export Formats". This breaks the usual expectation that "Quick" equivalents of commands reproduces a subset of the "Slow" equivalent. In Zotero Quick Copy exports things that Slow Copy can't. And Slow Copy exports things that Quick Copy can't.
There's also, in the preferences, a separate "Cite" tab which is a misnomer. In one sense the whole program has to do with "Cites". But when thinking about settings for "Citations" in the biblatex sense, as sense which Zotero sometimes uses, one might find these on the "Cites" tab. Consequently, when switching between Quick Copy Formats I find myself being confused (for some sub second interval) about whether it is the "Export" or "Cite" tab that will hold the relevant settings.
"Default Output Format"
Yes, "Format" might be the better label, as you suggest, if Zotero goes to standalone (but I have other suggestions below).I had been looking only at the standalone version, and see now, in the web version, the "Site-Specific Settings" you mentioned. In the web version context I now see what the "Default" references.
I trust that the possible plan to make Zotero only standalone won't extend so far as to remove the browser plugins offering "Save to Zotero ..." functionality (one of the features that makes Zotero great).
Example Bibliographic Styles and Export Formats
I think these would go along way to clearing up the confusion: whatever the names and text you are going to use to reference various "Quick Copy" formats. And I see no particular reason why preferences dialogue boxes need to be small. So even if you kept the Site-Specific Settings list box, that need not exclude Example Bibliographic Styles and Export Formats.Cleaning up the confusion
In summary I think the confusion entails a lack of conceptual clarity between different pieces of functionality, in virtue of the way this is presented in the UI, and the names (or lack of names) for things.My suggestions entail refactoring this to clean it up. I'll give you concrete suggestions in order for you to have something to push against. But I acknowledge my suggestions will be insensitive to internals that may make some of them unsuitable.
So my suggestions are to more clearly distinguish between kinds of Export functionality by:
Shortcut Export allows you to quickly export items in a given format.
You can Shortcut Export selected items: to the clipboard by pressing
keyboard shortcuts; or drag items directly into a text box in another program.
Style Guide Format [ComboBox]: Chicago Manual of Style 16th edition (author-date)
End of document subformat. Ctrl + Shift + E. Or drag them items.
[Text box showing example End of document subformat]
Within document subformat. Ctrl + Shift + W. Or hold down Shift before dragging items.
[Text box showing example Within document subformat]
Markdown Format [ComboBox]: Biblatex
Ctrl + Shift + M. Or hold down Ctrl before dragging items.
[Tex box showing example Markdown Format]
End
As a developer myself I appreciate that changes to the names of things at the UI level is no mere mater of editing UI labels and UI text boxes. Name changes at the UI level almost invariably require massive changes to the internals. So even if you were entirely convinced that all my suggestions were good it might simply be too late to make them: the existing names for things being too deeply baked into the internal code base and documentation.And if, at the other end of possibilities, you were to find none of my suggestions good, then that's not a significant problem at my end. For the suggestions mostly go to a refactoring of existing functionality. That this functionality is already available in the software, makes for a fine piece of software.
So thanks again for all the fine work, with others, you've so far put into it.
Edit: Removed "a"; some other grammar.
Where I do think there is some confusion is the fact that citation styles for quick copy are set under "Export". People regularly don't find that. More light-handed suggestions on how to improve that I think would be very helpful. (I do think that the massive changes you're proposing are too costly to implement given the mature state of the Zotero user and support community, yes).
* not perfectly representative, mind you. People posting on the forums are certainly a biased sample themselves. I also interact with people on twitter and talk to librarians that provide in-person end-user training.
At this point I'd suggest taking each of my specific, bulleted, suggestions in my last post and evaluating whether:
* They have any merit; and if so
* Are light enough to warrant implementing.
If none of the suggested name changes either have merit or are too costly to implement, you may want to pay particular attention to the points that suggest some functional change:
* Have three kinds of subformats, rather than the current two, for "Shortcut Export" (Formerly "Quick Copy") [further details above] ...
* So on Preferences > Export > Shortcut Export (formerly "Quick Copy") have the UI as follows: [further details above ... essentially adding a preview of formats].