I see Zotero save button, but not icon to open Zotero library in a tab, in my browser.

ZacharyNowak

Firefox just updated and wiped all of my Zotero connections--something that is incredibly scary and stressful for those of us with no sqlite and html and directory skills, whatever those things are--and I seem to have restored it. I can now double-click on my Zotero icon on my desktop and open the interface I used to see when I opened it in a tab in Firefox. In the toolbar for Firefox I have the little button--currently a webpage icon--so I can save whatever page I'm on, but how do I get the Zotero icon to come back so I can open it in a tab. None of the discussions I've seen seem to address this problem. Can you make it so Firefox updating doesn't wipe everything? It's really, really scary...

bwiernik

What you are seeing is that fully-featured Zotero plugin inside Firefox is no longer possible due to changes made by Mozilla.
https://www.zotero.org/blog/a-unified-zotero-experience/

To continue using Zotero, you just need to download and install the Standalone Zotero 5 program:
http://zotero.org/download

adamsmith

Zotero doesn't update itself from version 4 without an explicit prompt (and even that prompt should currently not happen automatically), so not sure what happened in your case. It should then tell you that you need to install Standalone which will automatically recognize your library as soon as you do; nothing is getting wiped.

You can't open Zotero in your browser anymore -- neither in a tab nor at the bottom of the browser window: https://www.zotero.org/blog/a-unified-zotero-experience/

Treat the open Standalone app just like you would did Zotero in your browser before. It contains almost all the same functionality with very, very few exceptions.

ZacharyNowak

Thanks to both of your for this explanation! I'm looking forward to not having Firefox update and screw everything up. It seems like a blessing in disguise. I'm not exactly sure how I could be an academic without Zotero. We now have a workshop on it for our new first-year grad students. Many thanks to all the people who volunteer so much time to write code an answer inane questions from people like me who simply haven't searched long enough.

bwiernik

To be honest, I'd much rather have people just ask questions rather than spend a lot of time searching around. So please ask away!

LiborA

@bwiernik: you are a teacher, aren't you? :-)