Moving items across libraries

bjohas

Hello all,

When I drag and drop between libraries, the items sometimes don't get copied to the new library. Usually if you try twice or three times, it works.

Has anybody else experienced this?

Also, it seems that an item cannot be dragged twice from one library to another. Is that true? If yes, how does that work? Does the new library somehow retain the Zotero id of the old item?

adamsmith

Also, it seems that an item cannot be dragged twice from one library to another. Is that true? If yes, how does that work? Does the new library somehow retain the Zotero id of the old item?

Yes and exactly like that.
There are a couple of threads on this on the forums if you search and everyone agrees that the current behavior is undesirable. The existence of a linkage, opens up lots of possibilities for future improvements. One thought, e.g., would be that if you drag an item a second time Zotero updates or offers to update the original item.

bjohas

Ahhh very interesting!

I've just looked this up via the API, and there's this part (e.g. in item 123:ABC):

"relations": {
"owl:sameAs": [
"http://zotero.org/groups/2339240/items/SH85QKLX",
"http://zotero.org/groups/2129771/items/FY5V62YE"
],
"dc:replaces": "http://zotero.org/groups/2405685/items/Z2N7IQ6J"
},

which shows how these items are connected. What's unfortunate is that this is only set for teh new item. I.e., if I look up http://zotero.org/groups/2339240/items/SH85QKLX it does not point to item 123:ABC. I suppose there are reasons for this, such as not having write access on one library. However, if you had write access, it would be great if these links were set both side.

On this: When I drag and drop between libraries, the items sometimes don't get copied to the new library. Usually if you try twice or three times, it works.

This was for items that are definitely not in the new library - do you know what might be causing this?