moving items between collections shows them in both collections

kirk86

Why when we move items between collections it shows them in both collections. This is problematic because if I want to visualize the timeline of a collection with only particular entries then I'm not able to do so.

The top hierarchy in the left pane seems to be `My Library` -> `Collection`, etc.
Is it possible to create another library and put items there so that we can separate and show a timeline on specific collections?

BTW why when we create a new group it takes us to the website, that is a bit of attention shift, and I was hopping of something more seamless where you can create as many groups from inside zotero?

adamsmith

See https://www.zotero.org/support/collections_and_tags#the_zotero_collections_model to make sure you understand how collections work in Zotero. The page also has the shortcuts for moving items between collections (i.e. removing it from the original collection when dragging).

For groups -- while you can absolutely use groups with a single member, they're designed for collaboration, which is why they're created on the website where you need to log in (you can use Zotero itself without login) can set all the collaboration settings (and Zotero can ensure the group name isn't taken yet), etc.. It'd probably be technically feasible to move all of that inside the software, but that'd be a lot of things to duplicate there for relatively little benefit.

kirk86

@adamsmith thanks for the reply.

Let me give an example:
```
My Library
-------
|
collection1 -> item1
--------
|
collection1.1
--------
|
collection1.2
--------
|
collection1.3
------
|
collection2
```

If you drag item1 to collection2, then it exists in both collections, if you delete from one collection then it gets deleted from both collections.
Why would anyone want to move items between collections and keep them separate?

Because things get messy very fast if you 1000s of pdfs, additionally this would be beneficial for when adding additional functionality to some items.

This would allow to enhance the timeline (which I find very useful), you could select just one collection and get a timeline only from items in that collection. Also it would be nice if timeline would allow to export in png or some image formats?

Another nice addition that the above functionality enables (of keeping items separate in collections) is if we say want to allow collections to represent folder structure, that would have made easy moving for instance not only the item between collections (while showing only one and not both) but also the pdfs in the desired user folder structure, which could have been inferred from the collections structure..

dstillman

If you drag item1 to collection2, then it exists in both collections, if you delete from one collection then it gets deleted from both collections.

That's still a misunderstanding. There's only one item in your library, and it can be added to multiple collections. If you just remove an item from one collection, it will remain in the others. If you actually move an item to the trash — wherever you do that — then it will disappear from all collections.

Think of collections more like music playlists, not folders.

kirk86

@dstillman

Correct it was a misunderstanding on my side regarding removing item from collection. Basically I didn't saw the option `Remove item from collectio`