Migrating to WebDav

SalishSea

I use Zotero 2.0beta 5 and I now need to migrate my PDFs (more accurately the storage files) to a single location.

My problem (and the fault lies only with me!) is that I have some storage files on
computer A, others on computer B, and still others on computer C. Of course, all three have differences in O/S, etc.

I have already synced the meta-data (lovely feature I must say) but it is migrating the storage files to a single coherent location (webdav) that puzzles me a bit. I thought I'd ask for suggestions before starting out.

Again (and again) thanks for a spectacular tool.

Regards,

Rob

noksagt

What suggestions do you need? You must procure a WebDAV server from somewhere (there are multiple threads on this topic) & enter the relevant information into the Zotero settings.

SalishSea

I am sorry, my question was not precise.

I now have a webdav account, and I am wondering about integrating the various /storage folders.

Can I just throw everything from the 3 (maybe 4) separate /storage files into one /storage folder on the webdav and then reset all the clients to point to the webdav?

Is it that simple, or do I have to worry about corrupted indexes, etc.?

Thanks,

noksagt

Just enter your WebDAV information into the Zotero sync settings. Use the same directory on your WebDAV server for all computers.

During the next several syncs, each machine will upload their files to the WebDAV server & will download files that are on the other computers. Every machine will have every file attachment.

SalishSea

Thanks for the prompt response.

So, to confirm:

1) Set up the webdav, but leave the client storage location set as before
2) Sync, and after a few syncs (each machine has to sync centrally and then back to each other machine) I'll have all the PDFs on each machine.

Great! That was Zotero-simple (Zotero is now an adjective too, meaning to make trivial and obvious by excellent programming, etc!).

Now, a suggestion... Instead of having the meta-data on the webdav and N local copies of all the /storage files, why not an option to have /storage sitting on the webdav and then I only need one copy?

What you have written suggests that I can do this in 3 steps: 1) get all the machines properly inter-synced,then 2) copy the nicely comprehensive /storage files from one of my clients (which now contain all PDFs) to the webdav space and 3) change the preference Storage Location to webdav. Yes? This might be a good candidate for automation.

Thanks for making things Zotero-simple!

Rob

noksagt

Now, a suggestion... Instead of having the meta-data on the webdav and N local copies of all the /storage files, why not an option to have /storage sitting on the webdav and then I only need one copy?
....
What you have written suggests that I can do this

Not at this time. There are other threads here that discuss that as a future possibility. File syncing uses compressed files presently.

change the preference Storage Location to webdav.

You probably don't want to make your WebDAV directory your Zotero data directory anyway (though this would be possible even in 1.0, it is not supported). Performance would degrade & you could have a lot of issues if your zotero.sqlite file was kept there & you used multiple machines.