Remember Setting for "Expand/Collapse All Items" During Search Activity

tombola

After the Search field is cleared, Zotero collapses the items list so that child items are no longer visible, regardless of the list's viewing status at the beginning of the search. This means that if one is operating in a mode where the entire list needs to be expanded, one has to re-expand the items list after concluding each search (press Shift & "+"). This seems unnecessary and inconvenient. I think it would be more user-friendly to have Zotero remember either the general status for viewing child items or remember the exact expansion status for each and all items individually. I realise this only affects users who are operating across many records at once, but I guess I'm not the only one :-) I hope a fix can be easily coded. Thanks Zotero team for the ongoing development of this great software.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open a collection
2. Press Shift & "+" to see all child items
3. Enter a search term in the Search field
4. Clear the Search field.
5. Notice that child items are no longer visible (except for any records selected during the search process).

dstillman

Issue created.

I would say that the reverse shouldn't happen, though: if a parent item is closed and a search matches a child item, causing the parent to open, it should remain open when the search is cleared.

mrAlek

I would like the reverse of this...

When I search for a term, the search results (filtered list) automatically Expand most (but not all??) items. This is cluttered and makes it hard to read the list of items that have the related search term (especially as some expanded items only show "Snapshot" child item -- not useful).

I would prefer search to show ONLY the collapsed items list (not the child items). Or at least, if I have manually collapsed at some point, it will remember that selection and keep the list collapsed when I perform a search.

Thanks!

dstillman

mrAlek: The above is about what happens after a search is cleared — it sounds like your request is about what happens while a search is still open.

Zotero expands items during a search in order to show you what matches the search — e.g., there might be different attachments, with only one matching. If you want to search only top-level items, you can use "Title, Creator, Year" search mode. And you're aware that you can press "-" to collapse all items?

mrAlek

Ah, my mistake. Thanks for clarifying. I was asking in the wrong thread. But you did solve my problem. I was not aware of the different Search Modes. I found the drop down menu in the search bar, and have now switched to Title Creator Year. This is what I wanted. Thanks again!

tombola

I notice that Zotero now seems to incorporate the feature asked for here - thank you!!