The notes about the PDF can not be saved in time!!!

wenbocn

when select (not open) a PDF file, I write some note in the right note window. But it will lost if I change to another PDF file. It can not be saved only if I add 2 "enter" after I finished the note and wait some seconds.

dstillman

Can you provide a Report ID to start?

The note should save automatically within a second of when you stop typing.

Does this happen if you type Latin characters ("abcd")?

wenbocn

yes. No matter Latin characters or numbers or Chinese characters, this problem all can happen. Another example, if I want to delete the notes, I must add two "Enter"(wait some time had no use in this situation without add "Enter") after I deleted some characters.Otherwise, when I came to this note next time, the characters were also there.
the zotero version was 5.0.21, the system was Win10,64 bites, Home Chinese Edition.
There was no error report.

version => 5.0.21, platform => Win32, oscpu => Windows NT 10.0; WOW64, locale => zh-CN, appName => Zotero, appVersion => 5.0.21, extensions => Zotero Word for Windows Integration (5.0.2.SA.5.0.21, extension), Zotero LibreOffice Integration (5.0.6.SA.5.0.21, extension, disabled)

dstillman

There shouldn't be anything special about Enter, but it's possible this is a side effect of using a Chinese text input mode, even if you're writing Latin characters.

If you go to Help -> View Output, you should see a burst of activity when a note auto-saves, beginning with "Updating database with new item data". (You can click Clear to clear the output.) That may help you figure out when it's actually saving, to see if there's a pattern here.

wenbocn

I have tried what you said. But I can not figure out what's wrong there. I also changed the software lanage to English. The problem also were there. I think may be there is really something wrong with the software itself. I don't know.

Now, I used another method. I used the "new standard alone note" or "add child note" to save my notes. The notes in this two items can save immediately after I finished my typing and will not lost even I changed the items quickly.

Anyway, the "Zotero" is a very good software, thank you!

wenbocn

there is always something wrong with the note in zotero 5. It is really really very troubled. Can you add a "save" button on the panel?

wenbocn

I have tried win10 and win7, no matter in English or Chinese. There is always something wrong with the note sometimes. I am very worried my notes which may be lost someday. So, please add a "save" button on the panel!!

dstillman

We certainly won't be adding a save button. This should just work, and no one else is reporting this, so it's something different about your system.

The point of what I suggested above was to be able to see exactly when Zotero is saving, with the goal of figuring out exactly which keystrokes and entry methods cause it to save and which don't.

Notes are saved shortly after the editor gets notified that a keystroke was entered. Something with the way text entry is working on your system is causing that not to happen. The only way to fix this will be to figure out why.

When you're switching to English, are all Chinese entry methods completely disabled?

If you go to https://www.w3schools.com/jsref/tryit.asp?filename=tryjsref_onkeypress and try typing in the box on the right, do you get an alert box?

wenbocn

My computer firefox can not connect to https://www.w3schools.com/jsref/tryit.asp?filename=tryjsref_onkeypress .

It maybe restricted by our network manager.

When I tyed in one note, and changed to another. The following information was obtained.

(3)(+0006774): Setting mode to 'edit'

(3)(+0000003): Refreshing attachment box

(4)(+0000006): SELECT indexedPages, totalPages AS total FROM fulltextItems WHERE itemID=? [334]

(4)(+0000009): SELECT synced FROM fulltextItems WHERE itemID=? [334]

(3)(+0000003): Reloading tags box

(3)(+0000002): Refreshing note editor

(3)(+0000011): Setting content to

(4)(+0000020): SELECT indexedPages, totalPages AS total FROM fulltextItems WHERE itemID=? [334]

(4)(+0000013): SELECT synced FROM fulltextItems WHERE itemID=? [334]

(4)(+0000001): SELECT indexedPages, totalPages AS total FROM fulltextItems WHERE itemID=? [334]

dstillman

Switching to another note isn't relevant. The point is that you should see debug activity less than a second after you type a keystroke and stop typing. That's how you can tell when it's saving.

dstillman

You can also try here: http://jsfiddle.net/DxER9/

Each time you type a key in the "Test input" box, it should show three events. For example, when typing 'a', you should see this:

keydown: 65, keypress: 97, keyup: 65

wenbocn

I type a "Enter", then type a "a" in my input method, then type a "Enter". The following is the information. Additional, when I used my input method, I type a "a", but it is in the panel of my input software, I add a "Shift" to let it show in the test box.

keydown: 13, keypress: 13, keyup: 13, keydown: 13, keypress: 13, change: undefined, keyup: 13,

Is this right? thank you

wenbocn

In Zotero5, when I deleted the strings in one note(the note of the PDF file note a standalone note), somethings, there is nothing happen.
When I typed in my input method(a input software, which first show the Chinese characters in the panel of the software itself and then input the characters into the note of Zotero5), there is also no record generated.

wenbocn

when I delete the strings in note, the information can also be the following information.

(4)(+0299717): Note hasn't changed

dstillman

13 means Enter — don’t press that. It seems like regular letters aren’t triggering keypress events for you even on a normal website, which makes this not a Zotero-specific problem. Any website that relied on those events would be similarly affected. You’ll need to experiment and figure out why a regular ‘a’ key isn’t producing the same numbers I show above.

I’m not sure what input software you’re referring to, but that’s almost certainly the problem here. Have you tested just regular direct typing?

wenbocn

when I use English directly typing, there is nothing wrong in the web, but there is also something wrong in Zotero5 and also in Zotero4 standalone version. such as there is no record generated when I deleted the strings in the note...

dstillman

But what happens in the test page I linked to?

wenbocn

it is ok, in the test page when I typing.

type a "a", delete it, type a "b",change it with a "c". the following are the information:

keydown: 65, keypress: 97, keyup: 65, keydown: 46, keypress: 0, keyup: 46, keydown: 66, keypress: 98, keyup: 66, keydown: 67, keypress: 99, keyup: 67, change: undefined,

dstillman

OK, and if you type an ‘a’ directly into a Zotero note, does it save?

wenbocn

if I add an "a" and wait for a minute, it will save. the information:

(4)(+0008116): Updating database with new item data

(4)(+0000004): Beginning DB transaction uGFU2Z9Y

(4)(+0000014): UPDATE items SET synced=?, clientDateModified=?, dateModified=? WHERE itemID=? [0, '2017-10-08 11:06:12', '2017-10-08 11:06:12', 331]

(3)(+0000006): Notifier.trigger('modify', 'item', [331], {"noteEditorID":"zqEe6wWt"}) queued

(4)(+0000003): SELECT COUNT(*) FROM itemNotes WHERE itemID=? [331]

(4)(+0000006): INSERT INTO itemNotes (itemID, parentItemID, note, title) VALUES (?,NULL,?,?) [331, '

a

', 'a']

(3)(+0000007): Loading primaryData for 1 item in 我的文库

(4)(+0000002): SELECT O.itemID, O.itemTypeID, O.dateAdded, O.dateModified, O.libraryID, O.key, O.version, O.synced, COALESCE(CASE (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM itemCreators IC LEFT JOIN itemTypeCreatorTypes ITC..............


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

If I add an "a" and changed to another note quickly, it will not save. the information:

(4)(+0003486): Note hasn't changed

(3)(+0001526): Setting mode to 'edit'

(3)(+0000000): Refreshing attachment box

(4)(+0000003): SELECT indexedPages, totalPages AS total FROM fulltextItems WHERE itemID=? [331]

(4)(+0000008): SELECT synced FROM fulltextItems WHERE itemID=? [331]

(3)(+0000002): Reloading tags box

(3)(+0000002): Refreshing note editor

(3)(+0000003): Setting content to

(4)(+0000029): SELECT indexedPages, totalPages AS total FROM fulltextItems WHERE itemID=? [331]

(4)(+0000006): SELECT synced FROM fulltextItems WHERE itemID=? [331]

(4)(+0000001): SELECT indexedPages, totalPages AS total FROM fulltextItems WHERE itemID=? [331]

(4)(+0000710): Note hasn't changed

(4)(+0000186): SELECT IA.itemID FROM itemAttachments IA NATURAL JOIN items I LEFT JOIN itemData ID ON (IA.itemID=ID.itemID AND fieldID=1) LEFT JOIN itemDataValues IDV ON (ID.valueID=IDV.valueID) WHERE p.........................


----------------------------------------------------------------------

If I select the "a", and use "Delete" button to delete it. It will not work. the information:

(4)(+0004967): SELECT IA.itemID FROM itemAttachments IA NATURAL JOIN items I LEFT JOIN itemData ID ON (IA.itemID=ID.itemID AND fieldID=1) LEFT JOIN itemDataValues IDV ON (ID.valueID=IDV.valueID) WHERE parentItemID=? AND linkMode NOT IN (?) AND IA.itemID NOT IN (SELECT itemID FROM deletedItems) ORDER BY contentType='application/pdf' DESC, value=? DESC, dateAdded ASC [330, 3, 'http://kns.cnki.net/KCMS/detail/detail.aspx?dbcode=CJFQ&dbname=CJFD2011&filename=GZHA201108024&uid=WEEvREcwSlJHSldRa1Fhb09jMjVzYjdNMW5jRkdLSlMrTksyZFhUZFdlZz0=$9A4hF_YAuvQ5obgVAqNKPCYcEjKensW4ggI8Fm4gTkoUKaID8j8gFw!!&v=MTExNTJGQ2prVXJ2TklqZkRiN0c0SDlETXA0OUhZSVI4ZVgxTHV4WVM3RGgxVDNxVHJXTTFGckNVUkwyZVorWm8=']

wenbocn

if I add an "a" and wait for a minute, sometimes it will save, but sometimes it not

wenbocn

I recommend you to add a "save" button in the panel. When the content is saved automatically, the "save" button becomes gray which can not be clicked and then it becomes normal. But when the content is not saved automatically, the "save" button is always clickable. We can save the content mannually. What do you think? Thank you!

dstillman

We won't be adding Save button. This should just work, and it does for the vast majority of people.

if I add an "a" and wait for a minute

What do you mean by a "minute"? It should auto-save after less than a second.

If I select the "a", and use "Delete" button to delete it.

That I can reproduce. I've fixed that in the latest 5.0 Beta, and the fix will be included in 5.0.23. This was specific to forward-delete when text was selected — Backspace still works fine for me in 5.0.22, as does Delete when nothing is selected.

I've added some additional debugging to the 5.0 Beta to debug the rest of this. Install the beta, go to the Advanced pane of the preferences, click Config Editor at the bottom, right-click in the list, choose New -> Boolean, enter extensions.zotero.debugNoteEvents, and set it to true. You should then see key events logged when you type in a note.

wenbocn

I think you find the problem.

I have tried as what you said and saw the key events. If I do not change to another note quickly, the typing and deleting all can work well. It is excellent. But there is still a little problem that, if I use my input method input Chinese characters in the text, there is also no key event logged. And I changed to another note, what I typed in the former text will be lost unless I add a "space" key or English word after my typing.

I explain my input method more here. It is a software, I type English letters on the software. It can give me some Chinese characters to let me choose which one I want to input in the text.

Thank you for your excellent work!!

dstillman

But this is special software, not something built into Windows?

(Re: changing to another note quickly, that should actually work too, and does for me — but it needs to have received a key event to consider the note as having changed.)

wenbocn

When I change to another note quickly, the note can not be saved or deleted on my computer. But I can receive the key event.

The software I used are not so special I think. Some countries like Japan, Korea and other countries which can not directly input their languare throug the letters just in the keyboard all use the similar software as our Chinese people use. When I use the software to input in the Zotero, the textbox is always in active, but there is no key event received. And very few times, the textbox regarded my input, and regulated the cursor to the begining.

But now the new software is much better than before. Thank you for your work.

dstillman

What software are you using, exactly?

If we can reproduce this, we can try to fix it.

wenbocn

The following are two softwares which you can try. The first one is a google's software, the second one is a traditional Chinese software. If you can fix the problem, that will be very good!


Google input software for Chinese
http://www.google.cn/intl/zh-CN/ime/pinyin/index.html

The input software I used in my pc now
http://ys-k.ys168.com/116124332/q6K265522KWN3MiTjfSO/HuarWB_Setup_4.1.17.0220.exe

liuhaijin

@dstillman I think you never meet the problem. One of the software we use is called Google pinyin, developed by google. I think it can't be fixed only add a save button. Because the words is just gone while I am typing. There is no time to press the save button.
So I think I will write my note in another software in case the note in zotero is gone someday.
Without doubt it is a good software, and thank you for your excellent work.

wenbocn

Dear @dstillman,
Can you fix this problem continuely? Thank you!
I have tried the Linux version. It works ok. But the win10 version can still lost some note in the right textbox when selected one PDF file.
But the standardalone textbox can work ok even in win10 version.
I really hope you can fix this. It is very useful. Thanks again!

ruohanli

@wenbocn Did you find a solution? I have the same problem now. I use windows 10 and Microsoft Pinyin for Chinese input. My notes for pdf files sometimes do not be saved and I have to check multiple times until it saved correctly.