Feature Request: Library Statistics

mroberts1839

I'm fairly new to Zotero, and still wondering if it can work as a replacement for Endnote.

I moved all of my references over from Endnote, and I've been experimenting with Zotero. It's very appealing, but I've tripped over a number of missing features, some of which are pretty basic.

For example, Endnote always tells me how many references are in a library, and how many I'm viewing at any given moment. I've looked for similar functionality in Zotero, but I can't find it.

Is there some way to simply find out how many references are in the Library, a Collection, or a set of Search results? If there is, I'm not seeing it. If there isn't, it seems like something that should be added.

It would be great if this were shown in the UI, and also as part of a minimal report for a library or a collection, i.e., I select a library or a collection, pick "Statistics" from the pop-up menu, and then the browser would then show a minimal report that just includes the name of the library/collection, creation date, number of items, attachments, etc.

Right now, I have a collection called "Imported Tue Mar 11 15:01:33 2009". I want to rename this to something sensible, but then I would lose this bit of information.

Zotero has lots of features for massaging metadata, and so I'm a bit surprised that it doesn't allow me to see the metadata for its library and collections.

adamsmith

how many items in your library:
click on your library.
Go to the middle panel and select all (ctrl+a or cmd+a)
The right panel will tell you.
Same works for collections etc.

Every item has a date added and modified field.
I'm not sure for why you'd want the creation date in a collection, but for what it's worth, a standalone note at the top of the collection would be one way of doing that.

No simple way to count the number of attachments - but you can do that by combining a saved search for all attachments with the procedure outlined above.

Should this be in the GUI? I don't know - on the one hand it's only going to be self-explanatory if it's in the GUI, on the other hand I'd not consider it a core function and so I think it's reasonable not to clutter Zotero's as of now still nice and lean interface. If someone really care s/he can ask or just use the forum search for "how many items in my library".

mroberts1839

Thanks, that works.

I would still like a menu pick that gives me statistics on the library.

Actually, to be honest, it seems weird to me that Zotero doesn't have this feature. Personally, I would consider it core functionality. it makes Zotero seem more like a closed box that it doesn't provide a way to tell me more about a library.

Not sure if that's the signal that the Z developers want to send or not, but that's the effect of it for me.

adamsmith

that's silly, of course - apart from bibtex and jabref no other citation management program has the same degree of openness as Zotero and that is clearly intended.
Statistics on the library are - in the software sense - certainly not a sign of an "open box". It may still be a desirable feature, of course.

But for what exactly? Any new feature needs a) programmer time and b) GUI space. So it's not free. Personally, I can't think of any purposes the knowledge that of my 2017 library items 1235 have attachments would serve. (Btw. - you actually can see the number of pdfs in the search tab of the preferences - it does serve a purpose there in order to get a sense of what your indexing is doing).
But maybe there is such a purpose - in which case I'd be happy to be convinced.

Edit: you can also get statistics on your attachments if you look at the properties of your storage folder: The number of folders tells you the number of attachements (though not the number of items with attachments because one item can have mulitple folders/attachments.

mroberts1839

OK, here's a use case for you: I have some catalogs in Zotero imported from another application -- Endnote -- and I need to be able to check them against each other. Which one is more up to date? Do they have the same number of items? Etc.

When I import the data, Zotero gives the catalog a name like "Imported Sun Sep 13 09:32:52 2009". This is useful information, but I want the catalog to have a meaningful name. If I rename it, I lose this timestamp.

I could follow your suggestion and create a note and put the creation information there. OK, so I create a note. Then I try to select the "Imported Sun Sep 13 09:32:52 2009" text in the list of catalogs, then copy and paste it into my note. It would be silly to retype this, after all. Oh, but now I see that Zotero doesn't let me do that. I can select and copy the name of a mailbox in OS X mail, I can select and copy the name of an album in iPhoto, and I can select and copy the name of a playlist in iTunes, but I can't do the same thing in Zotero. OK, whatever, I guess it's least-common-denominator of cross-platform GUI situation, etc. So, I select "Rename", I copy the text from there, and paste it into my note.

Now I have a note that says "Imported Sun Sep 13 09:32:52 2009". I finish it, but then I see that it has jumped down to the middle of the list of items. It's not at the top of the list, because it begins with "I" for "Imported", so it gets sorted down into the middle of the list. I don't want it there. I want it at the top of the list. Maybe there's some way to do this, but I find myself wondering why I should have to do any of this at all.

Indeed, why should I have to go through these contortions just to keep track of when a catalog was created? Zotero already knows this information, so why should I be clicking/cutting/pasting to keep track of it manually? It would be a lot easier if I could just pick a menu called "Statistics" and get that information.

I know Zotero is intended to be an open system, it's open source, etc., and that's all good. As a user, though, I'm interested in the features that actually help me get my work done.

dstillman

I know Zotero is intended to be an open system, it's open source, etc., and that's all good. As a user, though, I'm interested in the features that actually help me get my work done.

And one has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

Then I try to select the "Imported Sun Sep 13 09:32:52 2009" text in the list of catalogs, then copy and paste it into my note. It would be silly to retype this, after all. Oh, but now I see that Zotero doesn't let me do that.

We should be able to make Cmd-C copy the collection name, but right-click, Rename Collection, Cmd-c, Esc takes about two seconds.

It would be a lot easier if I could just pick a menu called "Statistics" and get that information.

No, it wouldn't. It sounds to me like you're making a rather minor feature request to expose a collection's creation date. That's fine—it's tracked internally, and if there's demand for this perhaps it could go in the right-hand pane when no items are selected. But couching a trivial feature request (which as far as I can recall no one has made in three years) in language about "open systems" isn't really necessary or helpful.

mroberts1839

No, it wouldn't.

Uh, it wouldn't be easier for me to simply pick one menu item and get simple information, than go through the whole series of steps that I just described? How do you figure that?

It sounds to me like you're making a rather minor feature request to expose a collection's creation date.

Yes, it's a minor feature request.

dstillman

Uh, it wouldn't be easier for me to simply pick one menu item and get simple information, than go through the whole series of steps that I just described? How do you figure that?

I mean that a statistics window is a pretty convoluted solution to the problem you've stated. One could certainly make a case for all sorts of library statistics, but it's overkill for the request you've made.

adamsmith

also, let me once again point to the "date added" field that each item has and that gets automatically time(and date)stamped with the date of import.
For your stated purpose that seems to make a lot more sense, since collections may change, you may add items to a collection etc. etc. - so individual timestamps seems a lot more useful for your purpose - because you can also use that in searching and/or sorting.

As for what is "easy" - most users and reviewers agree that Zotero is a highly intuitive program. Yet for some functionality you may nevertheless need to change a way you used to do things - especially if that was the way you did it in Endnote, which I consider a hopelessly clunky and user unfriendly software.
So in your case - if you want to know when an imported collection was created - you can just pick an item in the collection and look at its date added field. That's exactly the same number of mouse-clicks as your proposed solution.

Finally, to the communication issue at hand: You should obviously feel free to (continue to) post feature requests and voice your opinion, but after having used a (free) software for a couple of days and before having fully explored its full range of functions coming out swinging with big phrases like "it makes Zotero seem more like a closed box...Not sure if that's the signal that the Z developers want to send or not" is bound to raise some eyebrows.

komrade

Adding an underscore to the beginning of your note will keep it at the top.

mroberts1839

OK, I must concede that my earlier comment was very ill-informed. Chalk it up to noob-dom, I guess. I installed Z a few months ago but didn't really begin to experiment with it more till recently. It's now sinking in that if I know precisely what corner of the interface to look at ("date added", thanks adamsmith), I'll get a reasonable answer to my question.

I guess another thing that threw me was that when I tried "Generate Report from Collection...", I expected a different sort of "report". The summary list is very nice, but it would also be nice if it were preceded by a heading with some basic info about the collection (e.g., its name, creation date, number of items, etc.).

Anyway, thanks for your collective patience.

mark

when I tried "Generate Report from Collection...", I expected a different sort of "report". The summary list is very nice, but it would also be nice if it were preceded by a heading with some basic info about the collection (e.g., its name, creation date, number of items, etc.).

Actually, that's quite a nice suggestion. I would second that.

pteehan

"if there's demand for this perhaps it could go in the right-hand pane when no items are selected."

Can I just say that I found this thread on Google looking for just this sort of feature -- specifically I want to be able to easily see how many items are in a collection and all of its subcollections, and there appears to be no way to do this short of adding up all the subcollection totals manually. I would love to see a very simple set of properties appear in the right pane when you click on a collection.

dstillman

specifically I want to be able to easily see how many items are in a collection and all of its subcollections, and there appears to be no way to do this short of adding up all the subcollection totals manually

(Well, unless you're using the recursiveCollections hidden pref.)

adamsmith

dan - any chance that can be moved out of the hidden preferences? It' by far the most asked about feature hidden in those. Or is the problem that a restart is needed and you want to keep those in the hidden prefs?

pteehan

Interesting.... but I prefer being able to click on a collection and see only the items at the root of that collection. I would still rather have properties displayed on the right.

dwmoore

I would like to add my 2 cents in support of live library, collection, and group counts in the GUI. I realize the devs have a priority list and limited resources. But surely live counts are trivial compared to other things on the list. Of course, that could be an argument for not doing it.

Nuijel

I have been using Zotero intensively for a few months, and it works great for me. As I use it for more and more things, my needs for features keeps growing as well, and like mroberts, I ended up needing library statistics. Why? Because if you are doing a literature review, sometimes you have to present a quantitative view of the existing literature.

So the articles count is a primary one. Thanks adamsmith for the ctrl+A tip. It is not very intuitive but it works fine once you know it.
On top of that, it would be great to be able to produce other kinds of "reports". To give an example among many others, articles count by year, to show the evolution of research on a theme. Or counts by several criteria, like exclusion/inclusion of tags. Sure, I can do that manually by selecting and then counting, but it can grow complex once you get a good set of criteria, and you have to redo it all over again everytime you update the library.

This may not make much sense for these statistics to be native in Zotero, but I am wondering if Zotero databse is or could be queried directly by other methods (I am thinking SQL based stuff here).

It is not the killer app of Zotero, but I am sure many researchers would appreciate and use some basic statistics about their library, and it would save us all plenty of time.

adamsmith

This could definitely be written as a third party tool, which could either directly access the sqlite (if the access is read only, as it would be, there is no risk to mess something up) or use Zotero javascript API.
My sense is that Zotero devs have a lot of core features on their plate, so I doubt this will happen anytime soon otherwise.

mark

UI-wise, the right panel is what should be used, and for basic counts, the code is already there. Right now the Z does a count if you select all -- why could it not do the same when you select none?

That is what I suggested in this thread. This Github pull seem to suggest that code has been produced to implement this, and that this code has been merged into zotero:master, but I don't know what that means and when we'd get to see it.

mronkko2

If the code is merged in the master, it is available in the next release of Zotero.

If you want to get it earlier, and feel adventurous, you can run Zotero from git

http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/source_code

(I am running standalone from git and the right pane shows the item count nicely)

dstillman

To be clear, master is the next major release of Zotero (unless something is backported to the 3.0 branch, but we're generally not doing that).