any way to view rss feeds on android device?

livey_liwei

I have subscribed to several rss feeds in my zotero, and I think it would be great if I could read them on my android device during my spare time, like while waiting for my friend. I notice that there are some mobile apps for android, such as zoo for zotero, zotez2 and zotdroid, however, the first two does not offer such functionality, while the last one always crashes on initilization, so I'm not sure whether it has that fuction is available there.

In my opinion, a mobile version of zotero is quite sutable for reading rss; my primary intention of looking for a mobile version of zotero is to use it to read rss during the spare time, rather than serious reading and annotation of pdf files; such a small screen is actually more suitable for the first task, in my opinion.

However, it seems that none of the existing apps offer such functionality. I wonder if there is anyway to read the rss feeds in zotero on android device, and even better, ways to move the items in rss into other collections? If not, I wonder if it is because that zotero does not offer an interface for rss to the developer, e.g., via a api key? If this is the reason, would the developers of zotero consider offering such interface in the future? Thanks.

dstillman

If not, I wonder if it is because that zotero does not offer an interface for rss to the developer, e.g., via a api key?

No, nothing to do with the API. Feeds are a local client feature. When you save from a feed on your desktop, Zotero is just translating the associated webpage and saving it as a local item the same as if you had saved from the website in your browser.

The main reason you wouldn't see this in a third-party Zotero app is that third-party apps don't have Zotero's translation features for saving items from webpages. But there's nothing stopping you from using any feed reader for your device and either using the Zotero bookmarklet or the save page to save a page to your online library.

livey_liwei

@dstillman, thanks for our clarification, so is there anyway convenient way to save items to zotero from other feed reader? and could you recommend some feed readers, preferrably offering this feature? Thanks.

livey_liwei

by the way, given that the webpages are already translated into items in rss, e.g., via the desktop version of zotero, can these items be synced to the zotero sotrage, which will then be accessible to the developers, so that they can display them on other devices?

dstillman

I'm saying feed readers are irrelevant. Presumably any feed reader lets you open the page in a browser on your device. You can then save to your online library using one of the ways that I mention above.

given that the webpages are already translated into items in rss, e.g., via the desktop version of zotero, can these items be synced to the zotero sotrage, which will then be accessible to the developers, so that they can display them on other devices?

Again, this doesn't have anything to do with feeds. You're just saving items to your Zotero library, the same as if you save using the Zotero Connector from your browser. Those items sync to your online library and other devices like any other items.

livey_liwei

thanks for your explanation. From your first explantion, I understand that it is preferably to use a feeder that in a browser, rather than a feeder app.

As for the second part, since the items in the feeds are accessible through api, etc., I suppose that it is feasible that the developers of the mobile apps display them in the mobile apps, too, and it shouldn't be too difficult to realize this function. It's good to know that, so that I can expect that such feature might be available in the mobile version in the future. Thanks.

dstillman

From your first explantion, I understand that it is preferably to use a feeder that in a browser, rather than a feeder app.

No, I'm not saying that — I'm just saying that, to save with the bookmarklet, you might need to open the page in a browser. I don't know how Android works, but I assume any app that displays a webview provides a way to launch that page in the browser app. If you save via the save page, you'd be opening that manually in the browser and pasting in the page URL or identifier.

As for the second part, since the items in the feeds are accessible through api, etc.

Zotero syncs the feed URLs via the API, but not the items. Again, since third-party apps don't have Zotero translation (Zotero's saving capabilities), this isn't really something you should expect in third-party app.

livey_liwei

I get your point now. I agree that syncing URLs is more efficient than syncing items, which I guess is the reason for this behavior. However, it is sad that this means that we can't get take advantage of the translation done by other devices for rss items. Since the items are already there, I wonder if there is a chance that the zotero team would consider adding an option to zotero to let the user choose whether to sync urls or items for rss items, in the future? In such a situation, rss users won't have to rely on any other rss readers, or the browers, on a mobile device, making the rss function of zotero much more convenient. In my personal opinion, reading rss on mobile phone is an excellent way to take advantage of the scattered time；an easy way to add the rss items into zotero library, preferably without referring to other feed software or the browser would make the procedure flawless.

dstillman

this means that we can't get take advantage of the translation done by other devices for rss items.

I think you're still misunderstanding this. What you see in the feeds view is just the feed content. Items are only translated when you save them to your library, at which point they're just items like any other.

There's nothing stopping a third-party app from displaying the same feed using the synced URLs. It just doesn't really make sense without Zotero's translation functionality, which third-party apps don't have (unless they get the Zotero bookmarklet running in their webviews, which the third-party Papership app used to do on iOS).

livey_liwei

it's surprising to hear this because when I click on an item in the feeds, in the info pane on the right, I can see info like type, title,author, date, doi, etc, just like what we see for normal items, so I thought it has already been translated, though I just notice that I can't click on the info pane or edit it.

I just tried dragging one item or click the "add to My Library" button, to see if the translation you said woud happen, and found that something wierd could happen. I tried dragging several items from different rss resources into My library, most of them work properly, but for those from the following resource, even though the info looked quite right in the info pane in the rss, after I drag it into My libarary, all these info are missing; the title becomes "SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals", the abstract becomes "Subscription and open access journals from SAGE Publishing, the world's leading independent academic publisher.". This is true for all 4 items I tried from this resource.
For example, the following item "Decentralized Multi-agent information-theoretic control for target estimation and localization: finding gas leaks" from https://journals.sagepub.com/action/showFeed?ui=0&mi=ehikzz&ai=2b4&jc=ijra&type=etoc&feed=rss, would behave like this.

So this means that the translation you said occurs when I add the item to My library. However, it is a bit confusing to me why I can see the info for the items in the rss on the info pane if it were to be translated only when I add it to my library; doesn't this mean that it has already been translated?

and I'd like to report the bug I just mentioned.

dstillman

when I click on an item in the feeds, in the info pane on the right, I can see info like type, title,author, date, doi, etc,

We pull some of those things from feeds that provide them via standard metadata fields. They're not using translation.

Saving from that Sage feed is working for me, with correct abstracts. It's possible you're hitting some sort of rate limit. If you start a new thread and provide a Debug ID for a save, we can take a look.