Upgrade Storage[Feature request] "Reading progress"/"Continue where you left off"
With the recent inclusion of a PDF reader, there're a couple of things that I would loooove to see at some point soon.
E.g. The UI could use a little tidying up to make easier on the eye, in the spirit of the PDF reader page. I'm using a dark mode CSS so it looks jankier than the default light mode. But still, it overall could use an upgrade. Quicker access to zooming, options for spacing between elements, a touch mode, dark mode, etc.
---
_This_ specific feature request is about adding a reading progress counter for each paper and a way to quickly continue recently opened papers. This's been an issue for me when updating or restarting and all open tabs are closed.
A different, orthogonal way to solve this would be to have a visible tags column for papers. A way to add color-coded and maybe even icon-based tags that would be always visible in the main library view.
E.g. The UI could use a little tidying up to make easier on the eye, in the spirit of the PDF reader page. I'm using a dark mode CSS so it looks jankier than the default light mode. But still, it overall could use an upgrade. Quicker access to zooming, options for spacing between elements, a touch mode, dark mode, etc.
---
_This_ specific feature request is about adding a reading progress counter for each paper and a way to quickly continue recently opened papers. This's been an issue for me when updating or restarting and all open tabs are closed.
A different, orthogonal way to solve this would be to have a visible tags column for papers. A way to add color-coded and maybe even icon-based tags that would be always visible in the main library view.
We don't think that a reading progress indicator makes sense in the context of Zotero, because there's no reason to think that PDFs stored in Zotero need to be fully read through, or read through in order. (Also, everyone already has a reading progress indicator: a scroll bar.) Not clear how you're saying this is related to your main request, but that's just Colored Tags. Zoom Out, Zoom In, and Zoom to Page Width are toolbar icons and available via the context menu, Zoom Out and Zoom In are bound to Ctrl+minus/plus or Cmd+minus/plus, and Automatically Resize mode is available both in the context menu and via Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0. We're not currently planning to add other options.
Great to know!
> We don't think that a reading progress indicator makes sense in the context of Zotero, because there's no reason to think that PDFs stored in Zotero need to be fully read through, or read through in order. (Also, everyone already has a reading progress indicator: a scroll bar.)
Ah. I meant in the library view. Something to indicate "you started reading this" with a toggle to set it to read/reading.
> Not clear how you're saying this is related to your main request, but that's just Colored Tags.
I would use custom "reading"/"read"/etc. tags, with appropriate colors, and set them to visible in a hypothetical tag-group column.
> Zoom Out, Zoom In, and Zoom to Page Width are toolbar icons and available via the context menu, Zoom Out and Zoom In are bound to Ctrl+minus/plus or Cmd+minus/plus, and Automatically Resize mode is available both in the context menu and via Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0. We're not currently planning to add other options.
I meant this in the context of the UI, not the reader. I don't always need everything to have a large font, but the default is a bit too small. And icons don't scale with it.
There's a lot of design space around that feature to improve the UX. Off the top of my head: put a combined tag definition editor + searcher in a movable pane, stack it with the selected-item tag editor, enable grouping of tags and showing separate groups in separate columns (with text/icons).
Though this all depends on what you see Zotero as. While many rely on it for citation exports, I've been using it as a references explorer. It had _not_ been initially designed for this, but the PDF reader addition suggest a change (or clarification) of direction! So I was encouraged to comment on relevant exploration-related features.
---
Aside: I can't find any editing or formatting tools on the portal I'm accessing the forums from :(
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/90280/feature-request-reading-progress-continue-where-you-left-off