Automatic tags

UMNPEDSGI

I want to keep all automatically added tags, but keep them hidden most of the time.
When I uncheck "show automatic" some of the tags disappear, but majority stay put.
Is there a way to only show manually placed tags, without deleting all the tags first?

bwiernik

Uncheckig “show automatic tags” hides all of them. The ones that remain are manually placed tags (you can verify this in the right pane for the item—those tags will be blue, not red). Note that if there are tags that were imported from a RIS File or similar, these would be treated as manual, not automatic.

UMNPEDSGI

You're correct. I guess moving from Sente 6 imported a large number of completely useless tags. I can remove all automatic tags and prevent zotero from using them again, however the question is how to delete all of the current tags, so I can only use a few ones that are useful? One thread recommended to go via SQL database editor, that seem to me little complicated and I risk damaging database integrity. Is there another solution?

bwiernik

How many tags do you currently have (rough estimate)?

UMNPEDSGI

I would say close to 10,000

bwiernik

Your best bet then would be to use Pyzotero with python to delete the tags using the Zotero API. That is safe to do.

UMNPEDSGI

I am very new to python. I installed python and pyzotero.

When I switch to test pyzotero directory and run "Python test_zotero.py"
I get an error:

File "test_zotero.py", line 34, in
import httpretty
ImportError: No module named httpretty

(I previously installed httpretty:
"Successfully installed HTTPretty-0.8.14")

UMNPEDSGI

I also got this error when installing httpretty, nose and Python-Dateutil:

The directory '/Users/bspro/Library/Caches/pip/http' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and the cache has been disabled. Please check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
The directory '/Users/bspro/Library/Caches/pip' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and caching wheels has been disabled. check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.

bwiernik

I’m afraid I really can’t help you troubleshoot pyzotero. Perhaps someone else can?

adamsmith

that sounds like a faulty python installation to me, apparently a somewhat common occurence on Mac if you ran sudo pip:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27870003/pip-install-please-check-the-permissions-and-owner-of-that-directory

UMNPEDSGI

Thanks @adamsmith, I think I am unable to figure out python. I did not have much experience with it beyond the basics, and just can not make it work.

I tried the SQL Browser route described elsewhere on the forum, and while my local Zotero database on computer became tag free space ( I was able to remove all of them at once), despite syncing with the database on Zotero.org, all of the tags remained on-line.

So next I replaced Zotero database (the entire folder) altered by SQL browser with one from the backup. I wrote a little script for keyboard maestro, that just followed the steps to delete one tag at a time in a loop, like one would do manually. After 3.5 hours 3/4 of the tags are deleted from local copy of Zotero on Mac, but database on the cloud at Zotero.org still shows thousands of tags. What did I do wrong?

UMNPEDSGI

Is it possible that the problem is with the fact that a corrupted version of the database was uploaded to Zotero.org server after I used SQL Browser technique? And now, even though I am synching a new version of the database with almost no tags, the corrupt version uploaded does not allow appropriate tags processing.

My understanding is that there is no Restore to Server option on Zotero 5.0, only merge option. So should I first PURGE STORAGE online, then use RESET FILE SYNC HISTORY on my Mac Zotero preferences and resync the database this way?

fcheslack

If you've already synced your local changes to zotero.org, it may just be that the web library is still caching your tags. There is a 'refresh' link at the bottom of the tags on the web library to reload them without using the cache.

UMNPEDSGI

You are correct, @fcheslack, the web library takes time to sync, even 12 hrs later there still tags it did not delete, but most are gone - thanks!