Double-click on item with DOI connects to dx.doi.org

mc
When I double-click on a item in the middle pane which has a doi entry, Zotero automatically connects to dx.doi.org, retrieves the article, and over-writes the current/focused tab. I don't know when this became a feature, but previously double-clicking on an item opened the item to show attachments, notes etc.

I am not a fan of this feature and was wondering what others thought? If the feature is to remain, could the item open in a new tab and not over-write the current one?

[Zotero 2.0b4.r4589; Firefox 3.0.10; Windows XP].

mc
  • dstillman
    It's a new feature on the trunk and will be in the next beta. Double-clicking an item is now equivalent to the "View"/"View Snapshot" button in the right-hand pane, to make it easier/quicker to access the PDF, snapshot, URL, or DOI associated with an item. It's also, I believe, the behavior that most users expect from double-clicking. (Personally, I've always double-clicked to expand/collapse, but apparently you and I are very much in the minority, as I wasn't able to find anyone else—even on the Zotero team—that did so.)

    Expand/collapse has been moved to triple-click, though triple-clicking will currently trigger the double-click action at the same time. We might be able to fix that, and we could perhaps provide a pref to disable the double-click behavior altogether.

    As for opening in a tab, both double-click and the View button follow the standard Firefox modifier keys to open in new tabs/windows, though this might not be desirable in the tree, where the modifier keys already have special behavior. Opening in a new tab by default might make more sense, though I'm ambivalent.
  • mc
    Dan, well there you go. I always though expand/collapse was the default behaviour for a double-click. And I do find it easier to double-click on a line than single-click on the '+' symbol.

    Otherwise, I have items with different combinations of single/multiple PDFs and snapshots, and with/without URLs and DOIs associated with them. Are you saying that if I double-click on an item I am now going to get different behaviours depending on the combination of those associations or based on some hierarchy of associations (which I won't know until I double-click on the item)? That doesn't seem very user-friendly to me.

    An option to turn-off the double-click thing and have it for expand/collapse only is definitely my preference here.
  • dstillman
    Are you saying that if I double-click on an item I am now going to get different behaviours depending on the combination of those associations or based on some hierarchy of associations (which I won't know until I double-click on the item)?
    Yes, but the behavior is no different from the action of the View button, which this feature extends to the middle pane. There is a hierarchy, but it's designed to generally show people the thing they want—and the logic may be refined further.

    There may be some issues with translators that save, say, a snapshot matching the parent item's URL and a PDF, in which case, currently the snapshot will win, but those snapshots are generally unnecessary, and the translators should just be adjusted to not save them. For existing libraries, it's pretty trivial to clear out all similar items in a single go. (An example would be JSTOR snapshots, which are pretty useless, and the translator has already been adjusted on the trunk to not save them. With the new behavior, after saving a JSTOR item with the download pref on, the full-text PDF will open when you double-click on the item.)
    An option to turn-off the double-click thing and have it for expand/collapse only is definitely my preference here.
    Done on the trunk. extensions.zotero.viewOnDoubleClick in about:config
  • mc
    edited June 1, 2009
    Dan, I have updated to the latest trunk (2.0b4.r4598), made the change in about:config and behaviour has reverted to double-click expand/collapse. Many thanks for you help and support. mc

    Edit: PS - I never use the View button, which is why I was confused about its behaviour. After all I just double-click on the item itself and open whichever PDF, snapshot, etc I want to view.
Sign In or Register to comment.