Request - subcollection expanding

bentle

I organize my library into nested subcollections, which is immensely helpful in managing a large collection of items. When I expand any subcollection, however, all if its children subcollections open rather than just the next level down (so if I have 3-4 levels of subcollections all of them expand). It would make navigating the library easier if expanding a nested subcollection would only expand the next layer down.

Thanks,
Tom

dstillman

The open/close state for each collection is persisted. If the subcollections were open when the parent was closed, they'll be open when you open the parent. If they were closed, they'll be closed. You can press "-" on the keyboard to collapse all collections, and then open them selectively.

bentle

Thanks very much for the fast response.

The persistence only works for me within a single instance of using Zotero.

If I shut down and restart Zotero, that state is no longer persistent. When I reopen Zotero, many (but not all) of the collections with child folders will be open though they were closed when I shut down Zotero.

Other collections for which I have specifically closed the nested children (beyond but not including the first sublevel) will open all of the level when I open the collection. I would send you a screen recording, but don't really know how. I'm currently using the most recent version of the beta.

Thanks,
Tom

bentle

Sorry to bump this. I'm not sure if this is a beta problem, but my collections definitely do not work the way you are describing, with open/close being a persistent state. I am regularly closing collections and then come back later and they are open.

dstillman

What version are you using? This should be fixed in the current beta.

https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/2228

If it's not for you, can you take some screenshots demonstrating the problem, upload them somewhere (e.g., Dropbox or Google Drive), and provide a link here?

fschuman

I want to support this feature request for expanding and collapsing sub-collections. In outliners, expanding or closing of all subitems is a very useful way to navigate a long document. It would, I belief, help much with navigating deeply nested collections as well.

Extra menu items "expand / close all" also wouldn't necessarily conflict with persistent open/close states. They could for instance just be updated accordingly when called. And be left as they are, if not. Both ways of navigation would be possible in parallel.

adamsmith

Expand/close all has been possible all along using the +/- keys on your keyboard.

fschuman

Thanks, awesome, that makes Zotero life much easier.

And - how could I miss this.. Could you perhaps spend an extra entry for this in the right-click context menu for collections in one of the next updates ?