Web access to zotero data

CB

I know this is planned, but in the meantime I was considering creating a quick and extremely dirty web app strictly for myself to view a copy of my zotero sqlite file online. Just wondering if anyone here has pre-empted me on this and is wiling to share their work privately?

noksagt

I use the excellent zotero quick-copy feature to export data & paste it into the import box of refbase. I keep few notes & collect mostly journal articles, so this works relatively well. Refbase has unAPI support, so zotero can import from it.

Naturally, using the native zotero database would preserve more information, but I think there is a non-trivial amount of work to get a usable web frontend (if it was simple, the zoteo devs would already have one out ;-)).

To prevent reinvention of the wheel, I'd probably encourage either waiting for the official web tool, using a web tool which already exists (Wikpedia lists several if you don't like refbase), or to use some other way to keep remote access possible (portable firefox, or keeping a copy of the sqlite file on a server which you could copy into other profiles).

CB

I've tried similar approaches, hand-syncing with CiteULike (using bibtex as an intermediate), and using quick-copy with my own MediaWiki instance. But it's a pain to always remember, and I want access to my notes, not just the bibliographic information.

Re difficulty and reinventing wheels: I really did mean quick and *extremely* dirty. The Zotero guys have to consider security, presentation, robustness, and a million other things I don't for my own purposes. It might be near-trivial using Django (which I half-know), or Rails (which I don't). But I don't have much time available, and haven't even glanced over zotero's db schema yet. It would however be entirely trivial if someone else had already done it ;)

Another approach would be to use Zotero's report code to semi-automate producing a static copy of everything. Linking it up to some kind of index page would be the trickiest bit.

noksagt

I did play a bit with the reporting code (just to push a few fields to refbase automatically--nothing big). There are others who talked about playing with it in the zotero-dev group who have passed the whole objectReference. Eventually, I'd like to figure out how to use the export action immediately after a record addition & will use this to keep additions synced to refbase.

CB

I wonder if Freebase might have a role in this?