Choose which browser to open crossref lookup in

Stuarty
I'm using Zotero standalone on MacOS. I want to be able to use the Crossref lookup feature in Zotero to look up references. At present it opens in my system standard browser which is Safari and so everything is working as expected. However I want to open the Crossref lookups in Chrome. Is it possible to set the default browser?
  • adamsmith
    No, sorry. All browser operations from Zotero go to your default browser and you can't customize that for Zotero only. (There's been talk for quite some time to allow specifying the PDF reader, which I think makes a lot of sense but also isn't possible. I'm less convinced that there's enough demand to implement a custom browser choice. You're the first person to ask).
  • Stuarty
    No worries. Maybe I just have to change my workflow… I use Safari as the system default but do Zotero work in Chrome or Firefox. I started this way because the proxy support was better (that is, it seemed to me, in my use, more reliable) but I guess I'll try the Safari Zotero connector.

    I've just moved to standalone and the experience is great. Thanks for all your work.
  • bwiernik
    If you find the safari connector Proxy redirection is unreliable, you can try the EZ Proxy extension for Safari, which is really reliable. It won’t automatically redirect like Zotero, but it is as simple as clicking one button.
  • adomasven
    We're bringing proxy redirection support into Safari soon too. Will take an extra step to setup, but we're hoping it will work just as well as it does in Chrome and Firefox.
  • salpert
    Chock up another user who would love to see the ability to implement a custom browser choice...
  • Stuarty
    Just to return to this question two years later. There's a new Mac app called 'Finicky' on GitHub which allows fine grained control over opening links. It can be used alone or in conjunction with Browserosaurus to open links in the browser you choose. These are apps on macOS.
  • iagogv
    @adamsmith Now that the option to allow specifying the PDF reader is implemented, there would be a way to choose also the browser to use by Zotero?

    Thank you!
  • dstillman
    edited March 30, 2021
    Sorry, we're not going to make that customizable — that's just not really something desktop apps do.
  • iagogv
    Thanks for the answer @dstillman Can I ask you which tool uses zotero to open the default browser on linux? I mean, is it something like `xdg-open`?
  • dstillman
    File/link handling on Linux is complicated, and it depends on your individual system. You can see the documentation for PDFs and experiment similarly on your system to see what it's using for links. You can also view debug output via Help → Debug Output Logging. If various other things fail, it does fall back to fallbackLauncher.unix, which defaults to xdg-open.
  • iagogv
    Thanks for the information!
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