Upgrade StorageNotes and Attachments buttons missing with version 2.0b6.r4800
When opening Firefox this morning, add-on updates appeared in a window, and I clicked "Install" as I usually do. When I opened up zotero to begin adding notes to specific sources and link pdfs of those documents, I saw that the "Notes" and "Attachments" buttons at the top of the far right column for each source are no longer there. I checked other sources for which I had already made notes and linked files, and they were intact. Are the buttons coming back in the next update? I've grown completely reliant on these features.
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Child Items and items such as PDF files without a partent item (i.e. without metadata) never had these tabs.
(this looks, btw. as if you have a dev built rather than a regular Zotero version (the most recent one is 2.0b6.3- is that on purpose?)
Then you're definitely not looking in the wrong place.
I don' think there is any way the dev. team would take them out - something went wrong here.
Still - I'm a bit confused by your version number - where are you getting that from?
If you look into the About Zotero field (Gears menu), what version number does it tell you?
My understanding of the numbering is that the r4xxx are so called dev builds, which haven't been released yet, may contain bugs and is not recommended for usage with important data. This is different from the beta version, which is pretty public by now, should not contain major bugs, and, provided reasonable backup practice, is safe to use with your data.
Edit: for the time being - you know that you can add a note by right-clicking on an item, right? You can also do everything you used to do in the attachment tab in another way - but to be clear, I'm just saying that so you can work while this is being figured out, not to claim that this is a non-issue.
Let's see what Dan says in terms of advice for moving back to the beta (which seems recommendable).
Also, if this is in the current nightly build, there is a chance that this a planned change - which I wouldn't be very happy about. Can someone from dev comment?
We took the Notes and Attachments tabs out on the trunk. This is an experiment, but we'd like to find a way to get rid of them, since they're redundant (as adamsmith notes), their UI is awkward and mostly inaccessible via the keyboard, and there will likely be other features that will require tabs in the future. (The only thing you couldn't do another way before was directly add a child file attachment, but we moved the four attachment options into an Add Attachment submenu of the context menu, below Add Note.)
By comparison, the middle pane offers access to notes and attachments via a standard interface with full mouse and keyboard accessibility.
The main problem with removing the two tabs, as I see it, is that adding child notes is one of the key features of Zotero, and burying it solely in a context menu doesn't seem like a good idea. (I suspect manually adding child attachments is much less common, and there are various other ways to do so, but it still may merit being visually accessible.)
So, options include:
1) Adding a middle section of two toolbar buttons that are context-sensitive, enabled only when a regular item is selected.
2) Making the existing note button context-sensitive such that it creates a child note when a regular item or existing child item is selected. It would create a standalone note when no items, multiple items, or standalone attachments were selected. A dynamic icon could clarify this, but it still might be confusing.
3) Adding two context-sensitive buttons to the left side of the right-pane toolbar. This strikes me as a little awkward, but, since we don't use context-sensitive buttons in the toolbar at all at the moment, it might be clearer than putting them in the middle toolbar.
4) Adding buttons somewhere else in the right pane.
5) Restoring the tabs. We'd rather not do this, for the reasons listed above, but I'd be interested to hear the ways people are using those tabs and any reasons why the middle pane, context menu, and other toolbar buttons wouldn't be sufficient.
I think I like 1) - so basically when I have an item selected there would be one button that says "attach note to item" (or so) and one button that says "attach file to item" (or so).
But I think the two groups who should be considered would be a) new users and b) people who currently use the tabs a lot. Maybe alawrence could comment on what he uses them for and what part of that would not work with the other proposed solutions.
In response to adamsmith, I tend to use separate notes to a) record quotations from specific chapters/sections, b) summarize, c) pick holes in arguments and evidence, d) write down how I might incorporate the source into specific projects, e) include an image of the source if it is a primary document. This varies with the types of sources I'm looking at, of course. And, I would certainly be interested in learning how others use the notes function.
I see how I can attach files in the context menu now, Dan. If I want to create a new note for an item, it looks like I will have to create a new stand alone note and drag it to a source in the middle pane. I don't seem to have an option to create a child note in any of the pull-down menus or with any of the buttons. Is an easier way to create a note, so I don't have to drag it around?
I'll be looking for the new beta release...when is it coming out?
Thanks for your help.
For a new note:
- right click on an item and select "add note" - that will produce a child note to that item. You can do that repeatedly to add several notes.
I think all of the functions you list are very "mainstream" (i.e. very much in line with what others seem to be doing), but I don't see (as you seem to agree) any reason why the tabs would be necessary for them.
Note that you can also attach files by dragging and dropping them to the respective item.
When I click on the gear icon > About Zero, it says I'm using version 2.0b7.1. Is that the trunk development build? Should I just wait for the next update prompt?