Zotero as Sidebar & Tab (Mock-up)

anatolica

Hello all,

This has been a long discussed interface idea for Zotero, indeed:

http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/222/sidebar/
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/358/zotero-as-a-tab/

Inspired by the recent discussions in the Mendeley thread, the interface of which I found useful, I thought I would want something like this in Zotero, as well.
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/6174/mendeley

I merged the two ideas: being able to see Zotero in a tab, and (more importantly) as a sidebar, while being able to see your items in the browser at the same time. But a picture is worth a thousand words, so I drafted a set of interface mock-ups for Zotero. If you are interested please see my set at flickr, where I also added comments and notes:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43174138@N04/sets/72157622377840351/

So here it is. It is not by any means complete or perfect, but at least such use of zotero panes would allow a more comfortable use of the vertical screen estate, in the mostly wide-screen modern computers. While what I suggest are not that groundbreaking or an overhaul of the total zotero interface, nevertheless, a sidepane next to the attachment content in the browser makes things easier, I believe.

Thanks for all forum members, and the zotero team for their hard work; I really learned a lot:) Best wishes,

Emre Ayca

staplegun

I really like this idea. Once you've got your citation metadata sorted, this lets you just focus on taking notes. If it's a long document this might take a while.

It's nice to have a view that's streamlined to make this task easy - it's easier to select and drag to a longer scrolling notes box on the right than to a cramped one down in the right corner.

grieth

Fantastic idea. I have a large landscape screen capable of showing 2 pages side by side. this would enable a view of the document and the notes panel of Zotero both as letter/A4 side by side.

Even if zotero could be dragged to the left or right side and stack the three windows in its pane one above the other, that would be enough to improve things a lot. I don't know if this would be an easier change for programmers.

dwg

Fantastic suggestion. These suggestions would improve workflow on widescreen monitors as well as massively improve usability on small netbook screens.

toakashdeep

i too wish for the same
example
http://imgur.com/0u3Jl